Histories

Next to these are the Gyzantes, where much honey is made by bees, and much more yet (so it is said) by craftsmen.[*](cp. Hdt. 7.31, where men are said to make honey out of wheat and tamarisk.) It is certain that they all paint themselves with vermilion and eat apes, with which their mountains swarm.

Off their coast (the Carthaginians say) lies an island called Cyrauis, twenty-five miles long and narrow across, accessible from the mainland; it is full of olives and vines.

It is said that there is a lake on this island from which the maidens of the country draw gold-dust out of the mud on feathers smeared with pitch. I do not know whether this is true; I just write what is said. But all things are possible; for I myself saw pitch drawn from the water of a pool in +Zakinthos [20.9,37.783] (inhabited place), Nisos Zakinthos, Zakinthos, Ionian Islands, Greece, Europe Zacynthus.