Ἰνδική 29.7

29.7

ἐνθένδε ἄραντες τήν τε νύκτα καὶ τὴν ἡμέρην οὐδέν τι ἐλινύοντες ἔπλωον, ἀλλὰ διελθόντες γὰρ σταδίους χιλίους τε καὶ ἑκατὸν ἐξέπλωσαν τὸ ἔθνος τῶν Ἰχθυοφάγων, πολλὰ κακὰ ταύτῃ παθόντες ἀπορίῃ τῶν ἀναγκαίων.

They weighed from this cape about midnight, and having made good a course of 1,000 stadia, put into Talmena, where they found a harbour with good anchorage. They sailed thence to Kanasis, a deserted town 400 stadia distant, where they find a well ready-dug and wild palm-trees. These they cut down, using the tender heads to support life since provisions had again run scarce. They sailed all day and all night suffering great distress from hunger, and then came to an anchor off a desolate coast. Nearkhos fearing lest the men, if they landed, would in despair desert the fleet, ordered the ships to be moved to a distance from shore. Weighing from this they ran a course of 850 stadia, and came to anchor at Kanate, a place with an open beach and some water-courses. Weighing again, and making 800 stadia, they reach Taoi, where they drop anchor. The place contained some small and wretched villages, which were deserted by the inhabitants upon the approach of the fleet. Here the men found a little food and dates of the palm-tree, beside seven camels left by the villagers which were killed for food. Weighing thence about daybreak they ran a course of 900 stadia, and came to anchor at Dagasira, where the people were nomadic. Weighing again they sailed all night and all day without intermission, and having thus accomplished a course of 1,100 stadia, left behind them the nation of the Ikhthyophagi, on whose shores they had suffered such severe privations. They could not approach the beach on account of the heavy surf, but rode at anchor out at sea. In navigating the Ikhthyophagi coast the distance traversed was not much short of 10,000 stadia. The people, as their name imports, live upon fish. Few of them, however, are fishermen, and what fish they obtain they owe mostly to the tide at whose reflux they catch them with nets made for this purpose. These nets are generally about 2 stadia long, and are composed of the bark (or fibres) of the palm, which they twine into cord in the same way as the fibres of flax are twined. When the sea recedes, hardly any fish are found among the dry sands, but they abound in the depressions of the surface where the water still remains. The fish are for the most part small, though some are caught of a considerable size, these being taken in the nets. The more delicate kinds they eat raw as soon as they are taken out of the water. The large and coarser kinds they dry in the sun, and when properly dried grind into a sort of meal from which they make bread. This meal is sometimes also used to bake cakes with. The cattle as well as their masters fare on dried fish, for the country has no pastures, and hardly even a blade of grass. In most parts crabs, oysters and mussels add to the means of subsistence. Natural salt is found in the country, * * * from these they make oil.
Certain of their communities inhabit deserts where not a tree grows, and where there are not even wild fruits. Fish is their sole means of subsistence. In some few places, however, they sow with grain some patches of land, and eat the produce as a viand of luxury along with the fish which forms the staple of their diet. The better class of the population in building their houses use, instead of wood, the bones of whales stranded on the coast, the broadest bones being employed in the framework of the doors. Poor people, and these are the great majority, construct their dwellings with the backbones of fish.