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[5] They subsist by eating the flesh of stranded whales. They build up the walls of their houses from . . .1 and construct roofs with whale's ribs, which furnish them rafters eighteen cubits in length.2 In the place of tiles, they covered their roofs with the scales of these beasts.3

1 Arrian's account (Arrian. 6.23.3) states that the walls were made of shells, but Diodorus seems to be thinking only of materials secured from whales. All of these anecdotes probably derive from Nearchus (cp. Strabo 15.2.2).

2 Twenty-seven feet. Cp. Arrian Indica 30.8.

3 Whales, of course, do not have scales.

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