Kitap 15
1.43
According to Nearchus, traps are laid in the hunting grounds, at certain places where roads meet; the wild elephants are forced into the ‘ oils by the tame elephants, which are stronger, and guided by a driver. They become so tame and docile, that they learn even to throw a stone at a mark, to use military weapons, and to be excellent swimmers. A chariot drawn by elephants is esteemed a most important possession, and they are driven without bridles.The passage is corrupt. Groskurd proposes to add the word ὥς before καὶ καμήλους, as camels. Coraÿ changes the last word to ἀχαλίνους, which is adopted in the translation. See below, § 53.
1.43
A woman is greatly honoured who receives from her lover a present of an elephant, but this does not agree with what he said before, that a horse and an elephant are the property of kings alone.
1.44
This writer says that he saw skins of the myrmeces (or ants), which dig up gold, as large as the skins of leopards. Megasthenes, however, speaking of the myrmeces, says, among the Derdae a populous nation of the Indians, living towards the east, and among the mountains, there was a mountain plain of about 3000 stadia in circumference; that below this plain were mines containing gold, which the myrmeces, in size not less than foxes, dig up. They are excessively fleet, and subsist on what they catch. In winter they dig holes, and pile up the earth in heaps, like moles, at the mouths of the openings.
