Dr. Vincent's Periplus of the Erythrean sea gives an exact 

 account of the trade in India from the Arabian gulf. The articles 

 imported from thence at Barbarike, a mart situated in the middle 

 channel of the Indus, are similar to those mentioned by the former 

 historian : clothing, plain, and in considerable quantities ; clothing, 

 mixed; cloth, larger in the warp than the woof; topazes, coral, 

 storax, frankincense, glass vessels, plate, specie, and wine. The 

 exports from India to Europe by the same channel were emeralds, 

 sapphires, spikenard, the spice costus, the gum bdellium, yellow 

 dye, cotton, indigo, silk, and hides from China. Most of these 

 articles are still exported from Baroche and Cambay. 



The unknown author of the Periplus, generally minute and 

 accurate in his descriptions, is in none more so than his account 

 of the tides in the gulf of Cambay, which I particularly mentioned 

 when sailing with the British detachment to the assistance of Rago- 

 bah. It is pleasant and satisfactory to see them described by 

 an accurate vo} r ager two thousand years ago. " At Barygaza the 

 violence of the flux and reflux of the tides is so remarkable, that 

 without warning, you see the bottom laid bare, and the sides next 

 the coast, where vessels were sailing but just before, left dry as it 

 were in an instant; again, upon the access of the flood tide, the 

 whole body of the sea is driven with such violence, that the stream 

 is impelled upwards for a great number of miles, with a force that 

 is irresistible. This makes the navigation very unsafe for those 

 that are unacquainted with the gulf, or enter it for the first time. 

 No anchors are a security; for when the vehemence of the 

 tide commences, there is no intermission, no retreat: large vessels 

 caught in it are hurried away by the impetuosity of the current, 



