hose
however who dwell about Thebes and about the lake of Moiris hold them
to be most sacred, and each of these two peoples keeps one crocodile
selected from the whole number, which has been trained to tameness, and
they put hanging ornaments of molten stone and of gold into the ears
of these and anklets round the front feet, and they give them food
appointed and victims of sacrifices and treat them as well as possible
while they live, and after they are dead they bury them in sacred tombs,
embalming them: but those who dwell about the city of Elephantine even
eat them, not holding them to be sacred. They are called not crocodiles
but champsai, and the Ionians gave them the name of crocodile, comparing
their form to that of the crocodiles (lizards) which appear in their
country in the stone walls.

70. There are many ways in use of catching them and of various kinds: I
shall describe that which to me seems the most worthy of being told. A
man puts the back of a pig upon a hook as bait, and lets it go into the
middle of the river, while he himself upon the bank of the river has
a young live pig, which he beats; and the crocodile hearing its cries
makes for the direction of the sound, and when he finds the pig's back
he swallows it down: then they pull, and when he is drawn out to land,
first of all the hunter forthwith plasters up his eyes with mud, and
having so done he very easily gets the mastery of him, but if he does
not do so he has much trouble.

71. The river-horse is sacred in the district of Papremis, but for the
other Egyptians he is not sacred; and this is the appearance which he
presents: he is four-footed, cloven-hoofed like an ox, 66 flat-nosed,
with a mane like a horse and showing teeth like tusks, with a tail and
voice like a horse, and in size as large as the largest ox; and his hide
is so exceedingly thick that when it has been dried shafts of javelins
are made of it.

72. There are moreover otters in the river, which they consider to be
sacred; and of fish also they esteem that which is called the lepidotos
to be sacred, and also the eel; and these they say are sacred to the
Nile: and of birds the fox-goose.

73. There is also another sacred bird called the phoenix which I did
not myself see except in painting, for in truth he comes to them very
rarely, at intervals, as the people of Heliopolis say, of five hundred
years; and these say that he comes regularly when his father dies; and
if he be li