Apollo too who longed to wed her, and besides them the river Halys, and
no man ever subdued her in love's embrace. And there the sons of noble
Deimachus of Tricca were still dwelling, Deileon, Autolycus and
Phlogius, since the day when they wandered far away from Heracles; and
they, when they marked the array of chieftains, went to meet them and
declared in truth who they were; and they wished to remain there no
longer, but as soon as Argestes[1] blew went on ship-board. And so with
them, borne along by the swift breeze, the heroes left behind the river
Halys, and left behind Iris that flows hard by, and the delta-land of
Assyria; and on the same day they rounded the distant headland of the
Amazons that guards their harbour.

[Footnote 1: The north-west wind.]

Here once when Melanippe, daughter of Ares, had gone forth, the hero
Heracles caught her by ambuscade and Hippolyte gave him her glistening
girdle as her sister's ransom, and he sent away his captive unharmed. In
the bay of this headland, at the outfall of Thermodon, they ran ashore,
for the sea was rough for their voyage. No river is like this, and none
sends forth from itself such mighty streams over the land. If a man
should count every one he would lack but four of a hundred, but the real
spring is only one. This flows down to the plain from lofty mountains,
which, men say, are called the Amazonian mountains. Thence it spreads
inland over a hilly country straight forward; wherefrom its streams go
winding on, and they roll on, this way and that ever more, wherever best
they can reach the lower ground, one at a distance and another near at
hand; and many streams are swallowed up in the sand and are without a
name; but, mingled with a few, the main stream openly bursts with its
arching crest of foam into the Inhospitable Pontus. And they would have
tarried there and have closed in battle with the Amazons, and would have