V/ E S T E R N H I >J D O O S T A K. 7 



that account ; the Geographer mentions ^Termed among other 

 ftations near that great river. When the goods were fhipped 

 from Sa772arca?id, they fell down the flream, which, in the 

 timxC of Herodotus, paffed through a marfhy tratSt, the paludes 

 excipientes araxem, now the Aral lake, out of which it flowed, 

 and, going fouth-vreft, fell into the Cafpiaii fea in the bay of 

 Balchan. This paffage has been dellroyed above two centuries 

 ago, and its ancient channel is fcarcely to be traced. Mafter 

 Anthonie Jenkinfoft, a mod authentic traveller, gives the fol- 

 lowing account of the caufe, in his travels into thofe parts in 

 1558, as related by Purchas, (fee p. 236) : " The water that 

 " ferueth all that countrey, is drawne by ditches out of the 

 *« river Oxiis vnto the great deftrudtion of the faid river, for 

 " which caufe, it falleth not into the Cafpian fea, as it hath 

 « done in times paft, and in fhort time all that land is like to 

 " be deftroyed and to become a wilcierneffe for want of water, 

 « when the river of Oxus fhall faile." 



I WILL now briefly enter on fome other ways pointed out by Other Routes. 

 the ancients as commercial routes into India. One is that 

 mentioned by Pliny, (lib. vii. c. 17.) who probably fpeaks 

 on good authority ; his account is founded on intelligence 

 delivered down by Po^npey, when he was purfuing the mitbri- 

 datic war. It was then certainly known, that it was but feven 

 days journey out of India to the BaBryan country, even to the 

 river Icarus, which runs into the Oxus, by means of which, 

 the Indian commerce may be tranfported by the channel of the 

 Cafpian ^2., and again by the river Cyrus, the modern Kur, on Caspian Sea. 

 the weftern fide as far as Pbafis, the Rione or modern Fafz, a 

 large and navigable river, which falls into the head of the 



Eiixine 



