hout
touching it with any flame, it will catch light from the rays which
are sent forth from a fire, burning the air which is between both. The
natives, in order to show Alexander the qualities of naphtha, lightly
sprinkled with it the street which led to his quarters, and when it
became dark applied a match to one end of the track which had been
sprinkled with it. As soon as it was alight in one place, the fire ran
all along, and as quick as thought the whole street was in flames. At
this time Alexander was in his bath, and was waited upon by Stephanus,
a hard-favoured page-boy, who had, however, a fine voice.
Athenophanes, an Athenian, who always anointed and bathed King
Alexander, now asked him if he would like to see the power of the
naphtha tried upon Stephanus, saying that if it burned upon his body
and did not go out, the force of it must indeed be marvellous. The boy
himself was eager to make the trial, and was anointed with it and set
on fire. He was at once enveloped in flame, and Alexander was
terrified for him, fearing that he would be burned to death. Indeed,
had it not chanced that several attendants with pitchers of water in
their hands had just arrived, all help would have been too late. They
poured water over the boy and extinguished the flames, but not before
he had been badly burned, so that he was ill for some time after. Some
writers, who are eager to prove the truth of ancient legends, say
that this naphtha was truly the deadly drug used by Medea, with which
she anointed the crown and robe spoken of in the tragedies: for flame
could not be produced by them, nor of its own accord, but if fire were
brought near to clothes steeped in naphtha they would at once burst
into flame. The reason of this is that the rays which fire sends forth
fall harmlessly upon all other bodies, merely imparting to them light
and heat; but when they meet with such as have an oily, dry humour,
and thereby have a sympathy with the nature of fire, they easily cause
them to catch fire. It is a disputed question, however, how the
naphtha is produced, though most writers conceive its combustible
principle to be supplied by the greasy and fiery nature of the soil;
for all the district of Babylonia is fiery hot, so that often barley
is cast up out of the ground in which it is sown, as if the earth
throbbed and vibrated with the heat, and during the hottest part of
summer the inhabitants are wont to sleep upon leathern bags filled