ust now: and there also the trees which grow wild produce
wool which surpasses in beauty and excellence that from sheep, and the
Indians wear clothing obtained from these trees.

107. Then again Arabia is the furthest of inhabited lands in the
direction of the midday, and in it alone of all lands grow frankincense
and myrrh and cassia and cinnamon and gum-mastich. All these except
myrrh are got with difficulty by the Arabians. Frankincense they collect
by burning the storax, which is brought thence to the Hellenes by the
Phenicians, by burning this, I say, so as to produce smoke they take
it; for these trees which produce frankincense are guarded by winged
serpents, small in size and of various colours, which watch in great
numbers about each tree, of the same kind as those which attempt to
invade Egypt: 9701 and they cannot be driven away from the trees by any
other thing but only the smoke of storax.

108. The Arabians say also that all the world would have been by this
time filled with these serpents, if that did not happen with regard to
them which I knew happened with regard to vipers: and it seems that the
Divine Providence, as indeed was to be expected, seeing that it is wise,
has made all those animals prolific which are of cowardly spirit and
good for food, in order that they may not be all eaten up and their race
fail, whereas it has made those which are bold and noxious to have small
progeny. For example, because the hare is hunted by every beast and bird
as well as by man, therefore it is so very prolific as it is: and this
is the only one of all beasts which becomes pregnant again before the
former young are born, and has in its womb some of its young covered
with fur and others bare; and while one is just being shaped in the
matrix, another is being conceived. Thus it is in this case; whereas
the lioness, which is the strongest and most courageous of creatures,
produces one cub once only in her life; for when she produces young
she casts out her womb together with her young; and the cause of it is
this:--when the cub being within the mother 98 begins to move about, then
having claws by far sharper than those of any other beast he tears the
womb, and as he grows larger he proceeds much further in his scratching:
at last the time of birth approaches and there is now nothing at all
left of it in a sound condition.

109. Just so also, if vipers and the winged serpents of the Arabians
were produced in the ord