So I smoked that Moor as I had the ass. I used one of his shoulder blades and strips of his hide to make a new shovel. He proved almost as tough as the ass, but without him Satyros and I should never have won through to the mouth of the Lixus.
It was the third of Boedromion, in the second year of the 167th Olympiad, when I entered Eldagon's warehouse in Gades once more. Eldagon—portly and dignified, with his beard hanging down to his girdle—came towards me with a polite nod, saying:
"What can I do for you, sir?" Then he sighted Satyros, who had now reached his full scarlet-and-blue glory, on his leash. "By Tanith's teats, what is that extraordinary beast?"
"Don't you know me, Eldagon?"
He looked puzzled. "Speak once more, I pray. Your voice sounds familiar."
"What ails you, man? It hasn't been quite a year since—"
"Good Baal Hammon, it is Eudoxos!" He threw himself into my arms, laughing and weeping. "Thrice welcome! Tubal and I had given you up for good, this time. But I might have known you would turn up."
"Why didn't you know me? Herakles! Have I changed so much?"
"Have you seen yourself in a mirror?"
"No."
"Well, have a look."
When I saw my face, I almost dropped the mirror. My skin was as black as that of many lighter Ethiops, while my hair and beard were pure white. I looked older than Kronos.
"By Our Lady, no wonder!" I said.
"What has befallen you? What of your ships and cargo?"
"The blacks got them, and my crew have all either died of disease or been eaten by cannibals. But now I should like you to meet a friend of mine. Satyros, this is Eldagon ben-Balatar, an old associate."
The baboon nodded gravely. Eldagon sent a man to fetch his brother Tubal. Then he asked:
"Did you manage again to amass a fortune on the way home, despite your disasters?"
"Oimoi! No. I arrived in Tingis with nothing but an ass, which I sold to pay my passage to Gades. But, knowing how you are about animals, I have brought you Satyros. If he likes you, he may deign to take up residence in your menagerie."
"I knew you would produce something unexpected," he said. "In Tingis, did you have any more trouble with King Bocchus?"
"No. Nobody paid any heed to a penniless old vagabond."
Well, that is my story. It was six years ago that I returned to Gades from my second assault on the African continent. Eldagon was so grateful for the baboon that he invited me to live with him as a kind of retired senior partner, since the journey had aged me to the point where I was no longer fit for strenuous seafaring. The sons of Balatar could not have been kinder. Instead of blaming me for the loss of the ships and cargo, they attributed my misfortunes to Fate and the gods and praised me for having succeeded in returning at all.
Since then, I have earned my keep by designing rigging for Tubal's smaller vessels. I persuaded him to let me rig a fishing smack with my triangular sail and spent the rest of the summer tacking about the Bay of Gades to show what the sail could do. Although seamen are a hidebound lot, the ability of my rig to beat away from a lee shore at last impressed them. They began to order new ships—small craft like fishermen and coasters—with the fore-and-aft rig. They also commenced to have old ones converted to this rig in Tubal's yard. We put it about that I am the only man who can set the rig up right. In time, they will doubtless discover that the rig is really easy to copy, and that will end the profit we have been garnering from it.
The past year I have spent mostly in dictating my adventures, and this manuscript is the result I daresay your uncles and other kinsmen will find it interesting, whether or not the public does.
I still think the route from Gades around Africa to India is feasible, although I am no longer up to trying it. The ships should, however, avoid stops along the damp, jungled coast where I met with disaster. If the crew are not devoured by the natives, they will die off from the horrible diseases wherewith this land is rife. How far one must sail to reach a healthier clime I know not. But, if Necho's Phoenicians could do it, we moderns, with all our technical advances, should be able to.
Now, my son, I should like you to do certain tasks for me. As I explained in the introductory letter, one is to edit this manuscript and arrange for its publication. As I think you will agree, mine has been no humdrum life. It is not mere vanity that leads me to wish my successes and failures, my sufferings and triumphs immortalized. I think the tale itself is a worthy addition to the literature of Hellas, making up in excitement and the lore of distant lands what it may lack in literary polish.
Furthermore, if possible, I should like you to do something about the god-detested Hippalos, who is as hateful to me as the gates of Hades. I hear that he is back in Alexandria. The whipworthy trickster has set himself up as the high priest of some weird cult, which he claims is the true scientific religion, based upon his lifelong study of the mysteries of the East.
In addition, he has wormed his way into the confidence of Kleopatra the Wife and her present co-ruler, her son Ptolemaios Alexandros. (As you doubtless know, she quarreled some time ago with her other son, King Ptolemaios Lathyros, and drove him to Cyprus, where he now rules.) Now the dog-faced knave is promoting yearly voyages to India by the route I discovered, from the Red Sea.
To add insult to injury, he has named the half-yearly winds across the Indian Ocean after himself instead of after me. I doubt if you can do anything with the queen, who will still bear me a grudge. But you might send a petition to Lathyros in Cyprus asking him to proclaim me the true and proper discoverer of this golden wind. He may be all the more willing because of his feud with his mother, and be may also some day regain the throne of Egypt.
Lastly, if you ever get a chance to do evil to the polluted Hippalos himself, without untoward risk, I pray and exhort you, as your duty to your sire, to take advantage of it. Avenge both your parents thus.
I had plenty of leisure for thought on my three-hundred league march along the African coast. I decided that, if Hippalos had made your mother happy, I might by now have been willing to forgive and forget, as old Giaukos had advised. I was not a satisfactory husband to her, either; but at least I never tormented her to the point of suicide. So the greatest pleasure you could give your old father in his last years would be to send him the scoundrel's head, pickled in brine. I know that the chances of your obtaining this trophy are not good, for that temple thief is a fox who can slip through any hole. But the mere thought of it gives me pleasure.
Convey my love to all the kinsmen. Strength to you!
AUTHOR'S NOTE
This story is based upon a passage in the works of Poseidonios the Stoic, quoted by Strabon the geographer (II, iii, 4-5):
4. Posidonius, in speaking of those who have sailed round Africa, tells us that Herodotus was of opinion that some of those sent out by Darius [* An error for Necho II.] actually performed this enterprise; and that Heraclides of Pontus, in a certain dialogue, introduces one of the Magi presenting himself to Gelon, and declaring that he had performed this voyage; but he remarks that this wants proof. He also narrates how a certain Eudoxus of Cyzicus, sent with sacrifices and oblations to the Corean games, travelled into Egypt in the reign of Euergetes II.; and being a learned man, and much interested in the peculiarities of different countries, he made interest with the king and his ministers on the subject, but especially for exploring the Nile. It chanced that a certain Indian was brought to the king by the [coast]-guard of the Arabian Gulf. They reported that they had found him in a ship, alone, and half dead: but that they neither knew who he was, nor where he came from, as he spoke a language they could not understand. He was placed in the hands of preceptors appointed to teach him the Greek language. On acquiring which, he related how he had started from the coasts of India, but lost his course, and reached Egypt alone, all his companions having perished with hunger; but that if he were restored to his country he would point out to those sent with him by the king, the route by sea to India. Eudoxus was of the number thus sent. He set sail with a good supply of presents, and brought back with him in exchange aromatics and precious stones, some of which the Indians collect from amongst the pebbles of the rivers, others they dig out of the earth, where they have been formed by the moisture, as crystals are formed with us.