Strabo, Geography
H.C. Hamilton, Esq., W. Falconer, M.A., Ed.

Above Mauretania, on the exterior sea (the Atlantic), is the country of the western Ethiopians, as they are called, which, for the most part, is badly inhabited. Iphicrates¹ says, that camel-leopards are bred here, and elephants, and the animals called rhizeis,² which in shape are like bulls, but in manner of living, in size, and strength in fighting, resemble elephants. He speaks also of large serpents, and says that even grass grows upon their backs; that lions attack the young of the elephants, and that when they have wounded them, they fly on the approach of the dams; that the latter, when they see their young besmeared with blood, kill them; and that the lions return to the dead bodies, and devour them; that Bogus king of the Mauretanians, during his expedition against the western Ethiopians, sent, as a present to his wife, canes similar to the Indian canes, each joint of which contained eight chœnices,³ and asparagus of similar magnitude.