But there was also the hunting of the swift-footed ostriches, with hunters selected from the tribe of the Struthophagi; and this hunt provided the maddest enjoyment and excited Caleb and Tarrar in particular; and Thrasyllus and Cora also came to look on, for it was a most diverting spectacle, in which the hunters disguised themselves as ostriches, with little skirts of feathers and with one hand stuck into a stuffed ostrich-neck, with the stuffed head sticking out on top. There were first wild bird-dances; then the hunters darted forward and scattered corn and lured the real birds, which rushed after them and pecked at the grains, until they were caught in ravines from which they could find no issue and were shot with arrows. And with their precious feathers, bleached and curled, the Struthophagi made costly coverings, soft and white and downy, which Caleb bought for a song to send to Alexandria and Rome, where they were a great luxury, so that Caleb made a pretty penny by the transaction.
Sometimes there was danger in the forest. There was danger when the Struthophagi met the Sionians, a tribe of nomads with whom they were always at war; it was dangerous when the Acridophagi appeared, the verminous locust-eaters; but the travellers' strong escort, the huge Libyans and nimble Arabs, inspired respect and the wild nomads fled at the first bow-shot. And Caleb was afraid of nobody; he feared only the wood-nymphs, who, when they have caught you in their arms, which are pythons, laugh and laugh into your ears, until you go mad, and then dance round with you, until you drop dead. And, when he lay down at night to sleep under a black ostrich-feather covering, he also feared the scorpions, which have no fewer than four jaws and whose bite is not fatal but produces a slow, incurable canker.
They also caught lions, in nets, and hippopotami, in pits, and wild buffaloes, which they pursued with the huge hounds of the Cynamolgian hunters. They hunted from tall trees and they hunted from the reeds in the water. It was a rude and stimulating life; and Caleb once said to Lucius, seriously, that he felt the courage to go on and to go on again ... to fight the great snake in the ocean that encompassed the earth....