HKB
several rivers which fall into the Indus, losing their own names in the greatness of that superior stream. They have several islands, and their principal cities are Sedratyra and Gynæcon.
We need not detail minutely every portion of the sea-coast on the extremity of Persia, as it would lead us into too long a digression. It will suffice to say that the sea which stretches from the Caspian mountains along the northern side to the straits above mentioned, is nine thousand furlongs in extent; the southern frontier, from the mouth of the Nile to the beginning of Carmania, is fourteen thousand furlongs.
In these varied districts of different languages, the races of men are as different as the places. But to describe their persons and customs in general terms, they are nearly all slight in figure, swarthy or rather of a pale livid complexion; fierce-looking, with goat-like eyes, and eyebrows arched in a semicircle and joined, with handsome beards, and long hair. They at all times, even at banquets and festivals, wear swords; a custom which that excellent author Thucydides tells us the Athenians were the first of the Greeks to lay aside.
They are generally amazingly addicted to amatory pleasures; each man scarcely contenting himself with a multitude of concubines: from unnatural vices they are free. Each man marries many or few wives, as he can afford them, so that natural affection is lost among them because of the numerous objects of their licence. They are frugal in their banquets, avoiding immoderate indulgence and especially hard drinking, as they would the plague.
Nor, except at the king's table, have they any settled time for dining, but each man's stomach serves as his sun-dial; nor does any one eat after he is satisfied.
They are marvellously temperate and cautious, so that when sometimes marching among the gardens and vineyards of enemies, they neither desire nor touch anything, from fear of poison or witchcraft.
They perform all the secret functions of nature with the most scrupulous secrecy and modesty.
But they are so loose in their gait, and move with such correct ease and freedom, that you would think them effeminate, though they are most vigorous warriors; still they are rather crafty than bold, and are most formidable at a distance. They abound in empty words, and speak wildly and fiercely; they talk big, are proud, unmanageable, and threatening alike in prosperity and adversity; they are cunning, arrogant, and cruel, exercising the power of life and death over their slaves, and all low-born plebeians. They flay men alive, both piecemeal, and by stripping off the whole skin. No servant while waiting on them, or standing at their table, may gape, speak, or spit, so that their mouths are completely shut.
Their laws are remarkably severe: the most stringent are against ingratitude and against deserters; some too are abominable, inasmuch as for the crime of one man they condemn all his relations.
But as those only are appointed judges who are men of proved experience and uprightness, and of such wisdom as to stand in no need of advice, they laugh at our custom of sometimes appointing men of eloquence and skill in public jurisprudence as guides to ignorant judges. The story that one judge was compelled to sit on the skin of another, who had been condemned for his injustice, is either an ancient fable, or else, if ever there was such a custom, it has become obsolete.