3
Yet all the points I have mentioned—the heat, the lack of water, the desert, the infertility—will seem to you less unbearable than what I am going to describe, something that makes that country to be completely avoided. Crawlers of many kinds, of enormous size and in vast numbers, monstrous in shape and deadly poisonous, live in the country. Some of them live underground hiding in holes in the sand; others crawl on the surface—puff-adders, asps, vipers, horned snakes, ox-beetles, darters, double-ended snakes, pythons, and two kinds of scorpions—a big multi-jointed one that crawls on the ground, and a winged one that flies, though its wings are of membrane like those of locusts, cicadas, and bats. The number of these flying, winged creatures make that part of Libya difficult of access.
4
But the most terrible reptile of all that the sand breeds is the dipsad, a snake not particularly big, resembling a viper. Its bite is strong and its poison is thick, causing immediate and lasting pain. It burns and corrodes and sets on fire and its victims scream as if lying on a pyre. But what is particularly wearing and exhausting is indicated by the reptile’s name. Dipsad means “the thirst-causing one.” Its victims suffer agonies of thirst, and, strangest of all, the more they drink the greater is their craving for water—their longing increases enormously. It is impossible ever to quench their thirst. Even if you gave them the Nile itself or the whole Ister to drink, you would only add to the burning by watering the disease—like trying to quench a fire with oil.
5
The doctors say that this is because the thick poison flows more easily when wetted by drinking and becomes more liquid, naturally enough, and so spreads over a greater area.
