is like that of the watersnake; and it has wings not feathered but most
nearly resembling the wings of the bat. Let so much suffice as has been
said now concerning sacred animals.



Of the Egyptians themselves, those who dwell in the part of Egypt which
is sown for crops practise memory more than any other men and are
the most learned in history by far of all those of whom I have
had experience: and their manner of life is as follows:--For three
successive days in each month they purge, hunting after health with
emetics and clysters, and they think that all the diseases which exist
are produced in men by the food on which they live: for the Egyptians
are from other causes also the most healthy of all men next after the
Libyans (in my opinion on account of the seasons, because the seasons
do not change, for by the changes of things generally, and especially
of the seasons, diseases are most apt to be produced in men), and as to
their diet, it is as follows:--they eat bread, making loaves of maize,
which they call _kyllestis_, and they use habitually a wine made out of
barley, for vines they have not in their land. Of their fish some they
dry in the sun and then eat them without cooking, others they eat cured
in brine. Of birds they eat quails and ducks and small birds without
cooking, after first curing them; and everything else which they have
belonging to the class of birds or fishes, except such as have been
set apart by them as sacred, they eat roasted or boiled. In the
entertainments of the rich among them, when they have finished eating, a
man bears round a wooden figure of a dead body in a coffin, made as like
the reality as may be both by painting and carving, and measuring about
a cubit or two cubits each way; and this he shows to each of those who
are drinking together, saying: "When thou lookest upon this, drink and