120 History of Nature. [BooK VI. 



Winds are mild with them, the Sea navigable, the Nations 

 and the Cities innumerable, if any one would take in Hand 

 to reckon them all. For India hath been discovered, not 

 only by the Arms of Alexander the Great, and of other 

 Kings his Successors (for Seleucus and Antiochus, and their 

 Admiral Patrocles, sailed about it, even to the Hircan and 

 Caspian Seas) : but also other Greek Authors, who abode 

 with the Kings of India (as Megasthenes, and Dionysius, who 

 was sent thither for this purpose by Plriladelphus) have 

 made relation of the Forces of those Nations. And further 

 Diligence is to be employed, considering they wrote of 

 Things so various and incredible. They who accompanied 

 Alexander the Great in his Indian Voyage have written, 

 that in that Quarter of India which he conquered, there 

 were 5000 Towns, not one of them less than (the City) Cos : 

 and -nine Nations. Also that India is a third Part of the 

 whole Earth r 1 that the People in it were innumerable. And 

 this they delivered with good Appearance of Reason : for the 

 Indians were almost the only Men of all others that never 

 went out of their own Country. They collect that from the 

 Time of Father Liber to Alexander the Great, there reigned 

 over them 154 Kings, for the Space of 5402 Years and three 

 Months. The Rivers are of wonderful bigness. It is reported 

 that Alexander sailed every Day at least 600 Stadia upon the 

 River Indus, and yet it took him five Months and some few 

 Days to reach the end of that River, although it is allowed to 

 be less than the Ganges. Also, Seneca, one of ourselves, who 

 laboured to write Commentaries on India, hath made Report 

 of 60 Rivers therein, and of Nations, 118. It would be as 

 great a Labour to reckon up the Mountains. Imaus, Emo- 

 dus, Paropamisus, parts of Caucasus, join together ; from 

 which the whole passes into a very extensive Plain, like to 

 Egypt. But to shew the Continent, we will follow the Steps 

 of Alexander the Great. Dwgnetus and J3eton, the Mea- 

 surers of the Journeys of that Prince, have written, that from 



1 "India, a third part of the whole earth;" which is near the truth, 

 although it contradicts what Pliny says in the 33d chapter of this Book. 

 Wern. Club. 



