He expressed huge wonder, and then told us his
own story, saying: “By birth, strangers, I am a
Cypriote. Setting out from my native land on a
trading venture with my boy whom you see and with
many servants besides, I began a voyage to Italy,
bringing various wares on a great ship, which you
no doubt saw wrecked in the mouth of the whale.
As far as Sicily we had a fortunate voyage, but
there we were caught by a violent wind and driven
out into the ocean for three days, where we fell in
with the whale, were swallowed up crew and all,
and only we two survived, the others being killed.
We buried our comrades, built a temple to Poseidon
and live this sort of life, raising vegetables and
eating fish and nuts. As you see, the forest is
extensive; and besides, it contains many grape-vines,
which yield the sweetest of wine. No doubt you
noticed the spring of beautiful cold water, too. g We
make our bed of leaves, burn all the wood we want,
snare the birds that fly in, and catch fresh fish by
going into the gills of the animal. We also bathe
there when we care to. Another thing, there is a


 

Jake not far off, twenty furlongs in circumference,
with all kinds of fish in it, where we swim and sail
in a little skiff that I made. It is now twenty-seven
years since we were swallowed.

 

Everything else is
perhaps endurable, but our neighbours and fellow-countrymen are extremely quarrelsome and unpleasant, being unsociable and savage.” ‘ What!” said I,
“are there other people in the whale, too?” “Why,
yes, lots of them,” said he; “they are unfriendly
and are oddly’ built. In the western part of the
forest, the tail part, live the Broilers, an eel-eyed,
lobster-faced people that are warlike and bold, and
carnivorous. On one side, by the starboard wall,
live the Mergoats,
 According to Herodotus (2, 46), uévdns was Egyptian for
goat; but there is nothing goatish in the Tritonomendetes as
Lucian describes them. 
like men above and catfish below:
they are not so wicked as the others. To port
there are the Crabclaws and the Codheads, who are
friends and allies with each other. The interior
is inhabited by Clan Crawfish and the Solefeet, good
fighters and swift runners. The eastern part, that
near the mouth, is mostly uninhabited, as it is
subject to inundations of the sea. I live in it,
however, paying the Solefeet a tribute of five
hundred oysters a year.

 
Such being the nature
of the country, it is for you to see how we can fight
with all these tribes and how we are to get a living.”
“How many are there of them in all?” said I.
"More than a thousand,” said he. “What sort of
weapons have they?” “Nothing but fishbones,”



 

he said. “Then our best plan,” said I, “would be
to meet them in battle, as they are unarmed and
we have arms. If we defeat them, we shall live
here in peace the rest of our days.” 
This was resolved on, and we went to the boat and
made ready. The cause of war was to be the withholding of the tribute, since the date for it had
already arrived. They sent and demanded the tax,
and he gave the messengers a contemptuous answer
and drove them off. First the Solefeet and Clan
Crawfish, incensed at Scintharus—for that was his
name—came on with a great uproar.
 

Anticipating their attack, we were waiting under arms,
having previously posted in our front a squad
of twenty-five men in ambush, who had been
dirécted to fall on the enemy when they saw that
they had gone by, and this they did. Falling on
them in the rear, they cut them down, while we
ourselves, twenty-five in number (for Scintharus and
his son were in our ranks), met them face to face
and, engaging them, ran our hazard with strength
and spirit. Finally we routed them and pursued
them clear to their dens. The slain on the side of
the enemy were one hundred and seventy; on our
side, one—the sailing-master, who was run through
the midriff with a mullet-rib.