ose 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. 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 done so he very
easily gets the mastery of him, but if he does not do so he has much
trouble.

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, 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. 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.

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 like the painting he is o