A. D. 73. 157 



ed by Hippalus, [Periplus, p. 174] yet till about this time Patala was the 

 only Indian port heard of at Rome; and now the names of two or three 

 ports beyond it were for the firfl time announced to the Romans by 

 Pliny [L. vi, c. 23.] The fome author has given us the following cir- 

 cumftantial account of the inland navigation and land carriage in Egypt, 

 by which the adventure from Alexandria commenced. 



From Juliopolis, a kind of fuburb of Alexandria, they failed 303 Ro- 

 man miles up the Nile to Coptos, the emporium of the trade in Upper 

 Egypt, by favour of the etefian winds in twelve days *, From Coptos 

 the goods were carried by camels 258 miles acrofs the defert to Bere- 

 nice upon a road which had been furnifhed with proper refting places 

 by the attention of the Ptolemies : and this journey performed, accord- 

 ing to the cuflom of thofe climates, moftly in the night-time on account 

 of the heat, took up other twelve days f . At Berenice or Myos Hormos, 

 a port farther up the coaft, they embarked with their goods for their 

 various voyages. Thofe bound for India took their departure (in modern 

 nautical language) from Okelis on the fouth coafl of Arabia, and arrived 

 in forty days at Muziris on the weft coaft of India. The homeward 

 paflage was begun in December, or early in January, with the north-eaft 

 monfoon (which Pliny erroneoufly calls Vulturnus, a wind about eaft- 

 fouth-eaft) by which they were carried to the entrance of the Red fea, 

 where they generally met with foutherly winds, which carried them up 

 to their port. Of their various voyages, and the outward and home- 

 ward cargoes, I fhall now have an opportunity of giving an account from 

 better materials thaa were known to Pliny. 



Very unfortunately the age of the author of the Periplus % of the 

 ERYTHRiEAN SEA, a work, which, for approved accuracy of geographical, 

 nautical, and commercial, information, ftands unrivaled by any produc- 

 tion of antiquity which has come down to our times, cannot be fettled 

 fo near as, whether he lived about the middle of the firft, or the middle 

 of the fecond, century §. In this uncertainty I here introduce an ex- 

 tradb of the commercial information contained in this pretious relique. . 



* Agatharchides [£. v, c. 32] fays, that vef- harbours, and trade, as far as Nelkynda near the 



fels could eafily fail in ten days from Alexandria foutheni extremity of India, are given from his 



to Ethiopia, the neareft part of which is far above own judicious obfervations, the plain narrative of 



Coptos. an honeft man, teliing what he faw and knew. His 



•j- In S.rabo's time they went from Coptos to account of tlie eall fide of India, though far inferi- 



Myos Hormos, a journey of fix or feven days, or indeed, is the narrative of the fame honeft man, 



^Strata, L. \\\\, p. 11 70.] . ufing his bell endeavour to convey inftruclion to his 



X Periphis, faih'ng round, or circumnavigation. countrymen, but frequently mifled by the ignorance 



J The Periplus not being quoted or mentioned or roguery of thofe, whom his tliirft of knowlege 



by any antient writer, we can have no knowlege urged him to apply to in every port for information 



of the author, but what we can derive from him- refpefting their native countries, or thofe they had 



feir. And from himfe'.f we know, that he was an traveled to. He mentions the names of feveral 



Egyptian Greek, a merchant, and a navigator upon kings reigning when lie wrote, and embaffies fent 



the Erythraean fea ; and, indeed, it is eafy to fee, by Charibael, king of the Homerites and Sabxans 



that all the very accurate dcfcriptions of the coafts, to the Roman emperors. Some of the fame kingj 

 I, ar». 



