XXXII. To the Ikhthyophagi succeed the Gadrôsii, who occupy a most wretched tract of country full of sandy deserts, in penetrating which Alexander and his army were reduced to the greatest extremities, of which an account is to be found in my other work. But this is an inland region, and therefore when the expedition left the Ikhthyophagi, its course lay along Karmania.[81] Here, when they first drew towards shore, they could not effect a landing, but had to remain all night on board anchored in the deep, because a violent surf spread along the shore and far out to sea. Thereafter the direction of their course changed, and they sailed no longer towards sunset, but turned the heads of the vessels more to the north-west. Karmania is better wooded and produces better fruit than the country either of the Ikhthyophagi or the Oreitai. It is also more grassy, and better supplied with water. They anchor next at Badis, an inhabited place in Karmania, where grew cultivated trees of many different kinds, with the exception of the olive, and where also the soil favoured the growth of the vine and of corn.[82] Weighing thence they ran 800 stadia, and came to an anchor off a barren coast, whence they descried a headland projecting far out into the sea, its nearest extremity being to appearance about a day’s sail distant. Persons acquainted with those regions asserted that this cape belonged to Arabia, and was called Maketa, whence cinnamon and other products were exported to the Assyrians.[83] And from this coast where the fleet was now anchored, and from the headland which they saw projecting into the sea right opposite, the gulf in my opinion (which is also that of Nearkhos) extends up into the interior, and is probably the Red Sea. When this headland was now in view Onesikritos, _the chief pilot_, proposed that they should proceed to explore it, and by so shaping their course, escape the distressing passage up the gulf; but Nearkhos opposed this proposal. Onesikritos, he said, must be wanting in ordinary judgment if he did not know with what design Alexander had sent the fleet on this voyage. He certainly had not sent it, because there were no proper means of conducting the whole army safely by land, but his express purpose was to obtain a knowledge of the coasts they might pass on their voyage, together with the harbours and islets, and to have the bays that might occur explored, and to ascertain whether there were towns bordering on the ocean, and whether the countries, were habitable or desert. They ought not therefore to lose sight of this object, seeing that they were now near the end of their toils, and especially that they were no longer in want of the necessary supplies for prosecuting the voyage. He feared, moreover, since the headland stretched towards the south, lest they should find the country there a parched desert destitute of water and insufferably hot. This argument prevailed, and it appears to me that by this counsel Nearkhos saved the