Chap. 26.] ACCOUNT OF COUNTEIES, ETC. 63 



aid of a westerly wind, which is there known by the name - 

 of Hippalus. 



The age that followed pointed out a shorter route, and a - 

 safer one, to those who might happen to sail from the same 

 promontory for Sigerus, a port of India ; and for a long time 

 this route was followed, until at last a still shorter cut was 

 discovered by a merchant, and the thirst for gain brought 

 India even still nearer to us. At the present day voyages are 

 made to India every year : and companies of archers are carried 

 on board the vessels, as those seas are greatly infested with 

 pirates. 



It will not be amiss too, on the present occasion, to set forth 

 the whole of the route from Egypt, which has been stated to 

 us of late, upon information on which reliance may be placed, 

 and is here published for the first time. The subject is one well 

 worthy of our notice, seeing that in no year does India drain 

 our empire of less than five hundred and fifty millions 65 of 

 sesterces, giving back her own wares in exchange, which are 

 sold among us at fully one hundred times their prime cost. 



Two miles distant from Alexandria is the town of Juliopolis. 66 

 The distance thence to Coptos, up the Nile, is three hundred 

 and eight miles ; the voyage is performed, when the Etesian 

 winds are blowing, in twelve days. From Coptos the journey 

 is made with the aid of camels, stations being arranged at 

 intervals for the supply of fresh water. The first of these 

 stations is called Hydreuma, 67 and is distant 68 twenty-two 

 miles ; the second is situate on a mountain, at a distance of one 

 day's journey from the last ; the third is at a second Hydreuma, 



65 35,000,000 francs, according to Ansart, which would amount to 

 1,400,000 of our money. 



66 Pliny is the only writer that mentions this place among the towns of 

 Lower Egypt. Some suppose it to have been Nicopolis, or the City of 

 Victory, founded by Augustus B.C. 29, partly to commemorate the reduc- 

 tion of Egypt to a Roman province, and partly to punish the Alexandrians 

 for their adhesion to the cause of Antony and Cleopatra. Mannert, how- 

 ever, looks upon it as having heen merely that suhurb of Alexandria which 

 Strabo (B. xvii.) calls Eleusis. 



67 From the Greek vdptvpa, a " watering-place." 



68 From Coptos, the modern Eouft or Keft. Ptolemy Philadelphia, 

 when he constructed the port of Berenice, erected several caravansaries or 

 watering-places between the new city and Coptos. Coptos was greatly 

 enriched by the commerce between Lybia and Egypt on the one hand, and 

 Arabia and India on the other. 



