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So speaking, he unstrung the bow, and gave it into the hands of the
messengers. Then, taking the purple robe, he asked them what it
was, and how it had been made. They answered truly, telling him
concerning the purple, and the art of the dyer - whereat he observed
"that the men were deceitful, and their garments also." Next he
took the neck-chain and the armlets, and asked about them. So the
Icthyophagi explained their use as ornaments. Then the king laughed,
and fancying they were fetters, said, "the Ethiopians had much
stronger ones." Thirdly, he inquired about the myrrh, and when they
told him how it was made and rubbed upon the limbs, he said the same as
he had said about the robe. Last of all he came to the wine, and
having learnt their way of making it, he drank a draught, which
greatly delighted him; whereupon he asked what the Persian king was
wont to eat, and to what age the longest-lived of the Persians had
been known to attain. They told him that the king ate bread, and
described the nature of wheat - adding that eighty years was the
longest term of man's life among the Persians. Hereat he remarked,
"It did not surprise him, if they fed on dirt, that they died so
soon; indeed he was sure they never would have lived so long as eighty
years, except for the refreshment they got from that drink (meaning
the wine), wherein he confessed the Persians surpassed the Ethiopians."
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