No river is like this, and none sends forth from itself such mighty streams over the land.

If a man should count every one he would lack but four of a hundred, but the real spring is only one.

This flows down to the plain from lofty mountains, which, men say, are called the Amazonian mountains.

Thence it spreads inland over a hilly country straight forward; wherefrom its streams go winding on, and they roll on, this way and that ever more, wherever best they can reach the lower ground, one at a distance and another near at hand; and many streams are swallowed up in the sand and are without a name; but, mingled with a few, the main stream openly bursts with its arching crest of foam into the Inhospitable Pontus.

And they would have tarried there and have closed in battle with the Amazons, and would have fought not without bloodshed--for the Amazons were not gentle foes and regarded not justice, those dwellers on the Doeantian plain; but grievous insolence and the works of Ares were all their care; for by race they were the daughters of Ares and the nymph Harmonia, who bare to Ares war-loving maids, wedded to him in the glens of the Acmonian wood--had not the breezes of Argestes come again from Zeus; and with the wind they left the rounded beach, where the Themiscyreian Amazons were arming for war.