XXXIX. Weighing thence they came to an inhabited district with a town called Hieratis, after accomplishing a distance of 750 stadia. They anchored in a canal which drew its waters from a river and emptied into the sea, and was called Heratemis.[101] Weighing next morning about sunrise, and sailing by the shore, they reached a winter torrent called the Padargos, where the whole place was a peninsula, wherein were many gardens and all kinds of trees that bear fruit. The name of the place was Mesambria.[102] Weighing from Mesambria and running a course of about 200 stadia, they reach Taôkê on the river Granis, and there anchor. Inland from this lay a royal city of the Persians, distant from the mouths of the river about 200 stadia.[103] We learn from Nearkhos that on their way to Taôkê a stranded whale had been observed from the fleet, and that a party of the men having rowed alongside of it, measured it and brought back word that it had a length of 50 cubits. Its skin, they added, was clad with scales to a depth of about a cubit, and thickly clustered over with parasitic mussels, barnacles, and seaweed. The monster, it was also noticed, was attended by a great number of dolphins, larger than are ever seen in the Mediterranean. Weighing from Taôkê they proceeded to Rhogonis, a winter torrent, where they anchored in a safe harbour.[104] The course thither was one of 200 stadia. Weighing thence, and running 400 stadia, they arrived at another winter torrent, called Brizana, where they land and form an encampment. They had here difficulty in anchoring because of shoals and breakers and reefs that showed their heads above the sea. They could therefore enter the roads only when the tide was full; when it receded, the ships were left high and dry.[105] They weighed with the next flood tide, and came to anchor at the mouth of a river called the Arosis, the greatest, according to Nearkhos, of all the rivers that in the course of his voyage fell into the outer ocean.[106]