The Commerce and Navigation of the Erythræan Sea: Being a Translation of the Periplus Maris Erythræi, by an Anonymous Writer, and of Arrian's Account of the Voyage of Nearkhos, from the Mouth of the Indus to the Head of the Persian Gulf
History
The Commerce and Navigation of the Erythræan Sea: Being a Translation of the Periplus Maris Erythræi, by an Anonymous Writer, and of Arrian's Account of the Voyage of Nearkhos, from the Mouth of the Indus to the Head of the Persian Gulf
Classical geography; Geography, Ancient; India -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800; Indian Ocean Region -- Commerce -- History
XXV. After this action they draw the ships on shore and repair all
that had been damaged. On the 6th day they weighed again, and after a
course of 300 stadia reached a place called Malana, the last on the
coast, of the Oreitai.[56] In the interior these people dress like
the Indians, and use similar weapons, but differ from them in their
language and their customs. The length of the coast of the Arabies,
measured from the place whence the expedition had sailed, was about
1,000 stadia, and the extent of the coast of the Oreitai 1,600 stadia.
Nearkhos mentions that as they sailed along the Indian coast (for
the people beyond this are not Indians), their shadows did not fall
in the usual direction, for when they stood out a good way to the
southward, their shadows appeared to turn and fall southward.[57] Those
constellations, moreover, which they had been accustomed to see high
in the heavens, were either not visible at all, or were seen just on
the verge of the horizon, while the Polar constellations which had
formerly been always visible now set and soon afterwards rose again. In
this Nearkhos appears to me to assert nothing improbable, for at Syênê
in Egypt they show a well in which, when the sun is at the Tropic,
there is no shadow at noon. In Meroë also objects project no shadow at
that particular time. Hence it is probable that the shadow is subject
to the same law in India which lies to the south, and more especially
in the Indian ocean, which extends still further to the southward.
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