In conclusion he writes :—
For
us the story partakes no longer of the marvellous. The gold-digging
ants were originally neither real ants, as the ancients supposed, nor,
as the many eminent men of learning have supposed, larger animals
mistaken for ants on account of their subterranean habits, but men of
flesh and blood, and these men Thibetan miners, whose mode of life and
dress were in the remotest antiquity exactly what they are at the
present day.
I
append an extract from Sir Henry Rawlinson's translation of the passage
in Herodotus, as it may be of interest to some readers:—
Besides
these there are Indians of another tribe, who border on the city of
Kaspatyrus and the country of Paktyika : these people dwell northward
of all the rest of the Indians, and follow nearly the same mode of life
as the Bactrians. They are more warlike than any of the other tribes,
and from them the men are sent forth who go to procure the gold, for it
is in this part of India that the sandy desert lies. Here in this
desert there live, amid the sand, great ants, in size somewhat less
than dogs, but bigger than foxes. The Persian king has a number of
them, which have been caught by the hunters in the land whereof we are
speaking. These ants make their dwellings underground, and, like the
Greek ants, which they very much resemble in shape, throw up sandheaps
as they burrow. Now, the sand which they throw up is full of gold. The
Indians, when they go into the desert to collect this sand, take three
camels and harness them together, a female in the middle, and a male on
either side in a leading-rein. The rider sits on the female, and they
are particular to choose for this purpose one that has just dropped her
young ; for their female camels can run as fast as horses, while they
bear burdens very much
better.....When, then, the Indians reach the place
where the gold is, they fill their bags with the sand and ride away at their best speed ; the ants, however, scent-
