Dipsades

The south of Libya is deep sand and parched earth, desert for the most part, completely infertile, all flat land, devoid of green shoots and grass and growing things and water, except perhaps for a standing pool left by the rain—and this is turbid and stinking, unfit even for a very thirsty man to drink. For this reason the country is uninhabited—for who could live in a land so wild, arid, and barren, oppressed by continual drought? The very heat of the sun, the downright fiery hotness of the air, and the temperature of the seething sand make the country completely inaccessible.

Only the Garamantes live near by—a slim, agile race, tent-dwellers, living for the most part by hunting. They sometimes cross into the country on hunting forays, generally about the time of the winter solstice, after waiting for rain, when most of the heat has abated and the sand, now damp, can be trodden after a fashion. They hunt for wild asses and the ostrich, monkeys a great deal, and an occasional elephant. Only these animals can stand the thirst and endure for long periods the pressure of the great fierceness of the sun. Nevertheless, as soon as the Garamantes exhaust the food they have brought with them they drive for home, for fear that the sand

Yet all the points I have mentioned—the heat, the lack of water, the desert, the infertility—will seem to you less unbearable than what I am going to describe, something that makes that country to be completely avoided. Crawlers of many kinds, of enormous size and in vast numbers, monstrous in shape and deadly poisonous, live in the country. Some of them live underground hiding in holes in the sand; others crawl on the surface—puff-adders, asps, vipers, horned snakes, ox-beetles, darters, double-ended snakes, pythons, and two kinds of scorpions—a big multi-jointed one that crawls on the ground, and a winged one that flies, though its wings are of membrane like those of locusts, cicadas, and bats. The number of these flying, winged creatures make that part of Libya difficult of access.

But the most terrible reptile of all that the sand breeds is the dipsad, a snake not particularly big, resembling a viper. Its bite is strong and its poison is thick, causing immediate and lasting pain. It burns and corrodes and sets on fire and its victims scream as if lying on a pyre. But what is

The doctors say that this is because the thick poison flows more easily when wetted by drinking and becomes more liquid, naturally enough, and so spreads over a greater area.

I myself never saw anyone so affected and I pray I may never see a human being tormented in this way; but then I have never set foot in Libya, I am glad to say. I have heard of an inscription which one of my friends said he himself had read on the tombstone of a man who had died in this way. He said that on a journey from Libya to Egypt his route passed the great Syrtis gulf, the only way he could go. There on the shore right by the water’s edge he found a grave with a stone on it revealing the manner of death. There was a man carved on it looking like Tantalus in the paintings, standing in a lake and scooping up water, obviously to drink it, with the animal, a dipsad, wound round his foot clinging tight; a number of women were fetching water and pouring it over him together. Nearby lay eggs of the ostriches

1. Such were the sufferings, methinks, of Tantalus too,
2. Never to still hot venom’s racking thirst,
3. Such the jar Danaïd maids ne’er filled,
4. Though ever drawing water with unending toil of carrying.

The neighbouring tribes collect these eggs and prize them, not only for eating. They use the empty shells for utensils and make cups from them (they cannot work in earthenware because the earth is all sand). Any big egg they come across is made into two caps, either half being big enough to fit a man’s head.

It is there then that the dipsads lie in wait hard by the eggs. When someone approaches they creep out of the sand and bite the poor fellow. Then follow the torments I mentioned just now—continual drinking, increasing thirst without relief.

It is certainly not to rival Nicander the poet [*](Nicander’s poem, Theriaca, is an account of snakes and other poisonous creatures and gives remedies for their bites.) that I have given these details, nor to let you see that I have not neglected the natural history of the reptiles of Libya. Doctors would win more approbation for this—they have to know these things so that they can use their skill to resist the disease. No, I think I feel towards you—in the name of friendship do not resent the comparison from animals—as those who are