But India was above all else a land of marvels (Fig. 8). Here were pygmies who fight with storks and giants who combat with griffons; here were “gymnosophists” who contemplate the sun all day, standing in the hot rays first on one leg and then on the other; here were men with feet turned backward and eight toes on each foot; _cynocephali_, or men with dogs’ heads and claws, who bark and snarl; people whose women give birth to but one child and that one with white hair; races whose hair is white in youth but turns dark with age; one-eyed men; people who shade themselves from the sun by lying on their backs and holding up a single huge foot (_skiapodes_); persons who live on the smell of food alone; headless men with eyes in their stomachs; forest peoples with hairy bodies, dogs’ teeth, and terrific voices; and a variety of horrible non-human monsters combining the parts of several animals.[1286] These marvels and more still are related by nearly all the Western writers of our period who concern themselves with India and the Orient. They originated, as we have seen, early in classical times. Collected by Ctesias,[1287] Pliny, Solinus and others, they were passed on to our age, when we find them faithfully retold by the author of the _De imagine mundi_, by Gervase of Tilbury, by Rudolf of Hohen-Ems,[1288] and in the _Image du monde_. They made their way into the Romance of Alexander as exemplified by the _Pseudo-Callisthenes_ and the _Letter from Alexander to Aristotle_. In short, the “marvels of India” were a stock feature of medieval geography.[1289] They figure on maps and in miniatures and even in architectural sculpture—a _skiapod_ helps adorn the façade of Sens cathedral. Two mythological personages and one historical character, the story of whose exploits became mythological in the Middle Ages, were supposed to have visited India. These were Bacchus (Liber Pater), Hercules, and Alexander the Great. The Altar of Liber and the Column of Hercules are shown on the Psalter map in the region between the Red Sea and Paradise.[1290] On the Jerome map of Palestine two columns mark the ultimate limits of the journeys of Alexander and of Hercules.[1291] _The Letter of Alexander to Aristotle_ mentions the miraculous trees of the sun and moon, which spoke oracular words to the Macedonian conqueror and figured widely in the medieval geography of the Far East, appearing prominently on many of the maps.[1292] _Legend of St. Thomas in India_