OF CENTRAL AND EASTERN ASFA. 19% 
_ per direction as to the points of the compass. But I think 
there is scarcely an example, that so extensive a line, reaching 
across nearly half a continent, should be so entirely changed. 
_ Tbelieve also that the error occurs chiefly in vague boundary 
lines, or in coasts, where the vessel, according to ancient prac- 
tice, followed all the windings of the shore, and was acted upon 
by various tides and currents. It might then be difficult to as- 
certain the general line of their course, and an erroneous idea, 
once formed, might not readily be corrected. But a land- 
route is in a much more direct line; and as travellers have an 
obvious interest to know the direction in which they are mo- 
ving, so the most superficial observation of the celestial pheno- 
mena will enable them to avoid any error of great magnitude. 
ProLeMy, we may observe, enumerates very particularly all the 
changes of direction made by the: great caravan in its course 
through Asia. From the passage of the Euphrates to Hecatom- 
pylos, the capital of Parthia, he makes it east; which that line ve-- 
ry nearly is. Thence'to the capital of Hyrcania, north ; that is,., 
north-east, as east is always understood to be the general direction. 
Then to the capital of Margiana, by a circuitous route through: 
Aria, first south, and then north ; to Bactra, east ; to the ascent 
of the Montes Comedorum, north-east ; which agrees with Mr 
Epuinstone’s map ; then south-east, being the direction of the: 
plain of Little Thibet ; then again north-east, which is the di- 
rection of the valley of the Ladauk, the established line of 
communication with Great Thibet. Thus, along the whole of 
this immense line, the minutest variations are clearly recogni- 
sed; and the improbability is greatly increased, that, in the 
next stage, so extraordinary an error should be committed: 
The merchants farther informed Mazinus, that, lengthened 
as the march now described had been, it formed scarcely half 
_ ofthe peregrination to Sera; that from the Purgos Lithinos, com- 
menced. 
