Histories

The Cinyps river empties into their sea through their country from a hill called the Hill of the Graces. This hill is thickly wooded, while the rest of Libya [17,25] (nation), AfricaLibya of which I have spoken is bare of trees; it is twenty-five miles from the sea.

Next to these Macae are the Gindanes, where every woman wears many leather anklets, because (so it is said) she puts on an anklet for every man with whom she has had intercourse; and she who wears the most is reputed to be the best, because she has been loved by the most men.

There is a headland jutting out into the sea from the land of the Gindanes; on it live the Lotus Eaters, whose only fare is the lotus.[*](The fruit of the Rhamnus Lotus, which grows in this part of Africa (continent)Africa, is said to be eatable, but not so delicious as to justify its Homeric epithet “honey-sweet.”) The lotus fruit is the size of a mastich-berry: it has a sweet taste like the fruit of a date-palm; the Lotus Eaters not only eat it, but make wine of it.