14 THALIA.

ho laughed, and conceiving them to be chains, remark­
ed, that the Ethiopians possessed much stronger. He
proceeded lastly to ask them the use of the perfumes;
and when they informed him how they were made and
applied, he made the same observation as he had be­
fore done of the purple robe. When he came to the
wine, and learned how it was made, he drank it with
particular satisfaction; and inquired upon what food
the Persian monarch subsisted, and what was the
longest period of a Persian's life. The king, they told
him, lived chiefly upon bread; and they then described
to him the properties of corn : they added, that the
longest period of life in Persia was about eighty years.
" I am not at all surprised," said the Ethiopian prince,
" that, subsisting on dung, the term of life is so short
" among them; and unless," he continued, pointing
to the wine, " they mixed it with this liquor, they
" would not live so long:" for in this he allowed they
excelled the Ethiopians.

XXIII. The Ichthyophagi in their turn questioned
the prince concerning the duration of life in Ethiopia,
and the kind of food there in use: They were told,
that the majority of the people lived to the age of one
hundred and twenty years, but that some exceeded
even that period; that their meat was baked flesh,
their drink milk. When the spies expressed astonish­
ment at the length of life in Ethiopia, they were con­
ducted to a certain fountain, in which having bathed,
they became shining as if anointed with oil, and emit­
ted from their bodies the perfume of violets. But they
asserted that the water of this fountain was of so un­
substantial a nature, that neither wood, nor any thing
still lighter than wood, would float upon its surface,
but every thing instantly sunk to the bottom. If their
representation of this water was true, the constant
use of it may probably explain the extreme length of
life which the Ethiopians attain. From the fountain
they were conducted to the public prison, where all
that were confined were secured by chains of gold ;
for among these Ethiopians, brass is the rarest of all
the metals. After visiting the prison, they saw also
what is called the table of the sun.