TRANSLATED FROM MÜLLER’S EDITION (As given in the _Geographi Græci Minores_: Paris, 1855). WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES. THE VOYAGE OF NEARKHOS. INTRODUCTION. The coasting voyage from the mouth of the Indus to the head of the Persian Gulf, designed by Alexander the Great, and executed by Nearkhos, may be regarded as the most important achievement of the ancients in navigation. It opened up, as Vincent remarks, a communication between Europe and the most distant countries of Asia, and, at a later period, was the source and origin of the Portuguese discoveries, and consequently the primary cause, however remote, of the British establishments in India. A Journal of this voyage was written by Nearkhos himself, which, though not extant in its original form, has been preserved for us by Arrian, who embodied its contents in his little work on India,[23] which he wrote as a sequel to his history of the expedition of Alexander. Nearkhos as a writer must be acknowledged to be most scrupulously honest and exact,—for the result of explorations made in modern times along the shores which he passed in the course of his voyage shows that his description of them is accurate even in the most minute particulars. His veracity was nevertheless oppugned in ancient times by Strabo, who unjustly stigmatises the whole class of the Greek writers upon India as mendacious. “Generally speaking,” he says (II. i. 9), “the men who have written upon Indian affairs were a set of liars. Deimakhos holds the first place in the list, Megasthenês comes next, while Onêsikritos and Nearkhos, with others of the same class, stammer out a few words of truth.” (παραψελλίζοντες). Strabo, however, in spite of this censure did not hesitate to use Nearkhos as one of his chief authorities for his description of India, and is indebted to him for many facts relating to that country, which, however extraordinary they might appear to his contemporaries, have been all confirmed by subsequent observation. It is therefore fairly open to doubt whether Strabo was altogether sincere in his ill opinion, seeing it had but little, if any, influence on his practice. We know at all events that he was too much inclined to undervalue any writer who retailed fables, without discriminating whether the writer set them down as facts, or merely as stories, which he had gathered from hearsay.