The kings of Æthiopia are said even at the present day to be forty-five in number. (30.) The whole of this country has successively had the names of Ætheria,[728] Atlantia, and last of all, Æthiopia, from Æthiops, the son of Vulcan. It is not at all surprising that towards the extremity of this region the men and animals assume a monstrous form, when we consider the changeableness and volubility of fire, the heat of which is the great agent in imparting various forms and shapes to bodies. Indeed, it is reported that in the interior, on the eastern side, there is a people that have no noses, the whole face presenting a plane surface; that others again are destitute of the upper lip, and others are without tongues. Others again, have the mouth grown together, and being destitute of nostrils, breathe through one passage only, imbibing their drink through it by means of the hollow stalk of the oat, which there grows spontaneously and supplies them with its grain for food. Some of these nations have to employ gestures by nodding the head and moving the limbs, instead of speech. Others again were unacquainted with the use of fire before the time of Ptolemy Lathyrus, king of Egypt. Some writers have also stated that there is a nation of Pygmies, which dwells among the marshes in which the river Nile takes its rise; while on the coast of Æthiopia, where we paused,[729] there is a range of mountains, of a red colour, which have the appearance of being always burning. All the country, after we pass Meroë, is bounded by the Troglodytæ and the Red Sea, it being three days’ journey from Napata to the shores of that sea; throughout the whole of this district the rain water is carefully preserved at several places, while the country that lies between is extremely productive of gold. The parts beyond this are inhabited by the Adabuli, a nation of Æthiopia; and here, over against Meroë, are the Megabarri,[730] by some writers called the Adiabari; they occupy the city of Apollo; some of them, however, are Nomades, living on the flesh of elephants. Opposite to them, on the African side, dwell the Macrobii,[731] and then again, beyond the Megabarri, there are the Memnones and the Dabeli, and, at a distance of twenty days’ journey, the Critensi. Beyond these are the Dochi, and then the Gymnetes, who always go naked; and after them the Andetæ, the Mothitæ, the Mesaches, and the Ipsodoræ, who are of a black tint, but stain the body all over with a kind of red earth. On the African side again there are the Medimni, and then a nation of Nomades, who live on the milk of the cynocephalus, and then the Aladi and the Syrbotæ,[732] which last are said to be eight cubits in height.