[7] There was a plant resembling the laurel, which if eaten by the beasts of burden caused them to die of epilepsy, accompanied with foaming at the mouth. A thorn also, the fruit of which, like gourds, strewed the ground, and was full of a juice; if drops of it fell into the eyes of any kind of animal it became completely blind. Many persons were suffocated by eating unripe dates. Danger also was to be apprehended from serpents; for on the sand-hills there grew a plant, underneath which they crept and hid themselves. The persons wounded by them died. The Oritæ, it was said, smeared the points of their arrows, which were of wood hardened in the fire, with deadly poisons. When Ptolemy was wounded and in danger of his life a person appeared in a dream to Alexander, and showed him a root with leaves and branches, which he told him to bruise and place upon the wound. Alexander awoke from his dream, and remembering the vision, searched and found the root growing in abundance, of which both he and others made use; when the Barbarians perceived that the antidote for the poison was discovered, they surrendered to the king. It is probable, however, that some one acquainted with the plant informed the king of its virtues, and that the fabulous part of the story was invented for the purpose of flattery. Having arrived at the palace1 of the Gedrosii on the sixtieth day after leaving the Ori,2 and allowed his army a short period of rest, he set out for Carmania.
The Geography of Strabo. Literally translated, with notes, in three volumes. London. George Bell & Sons. 1903.
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