We determined to go still farther into the interior, but we met some of the Hippogyps, as they
call themselves, and they arrested us. These
Hippogyps are men riding on great vultures,
using the birds like horses, for the vultures are
large and for the most part three-headed. You
may understand their size from this: each of their
feathers is longer and thicker than the mast of a
good-sized merchantman. Now it was the business of our Hippogyps to fly about the country,
and, if they found a stranger, bring him to the
king. Accordingly, they took us in charge and


 

brought us to him.
When he had looked at us,
he said: "I see, strangers, that you are Greeks.”
For he judged from our appearance and clothing.
Upon our replying that we were, he asked:
"How, then, have you come hither, traversing
such a waste of air?"
We told him our whole story, and then he began in turn and told us about himself: how he,
too, was a man, Endymion by name, and had
once been snatched up from our earth in his
sleep, and, arriving here, had become king of the
country. He said that this earth was what appeared to us below to be the moon. But he bade
us take heart and suspect no danger, for we should
have everything we wanted.