Chap. 21.] ACCOUNT OF COUNTEIES, ETC. 39 



by the blowing of that wind," and derive its salabrity there- 

 from. 



In this region, the appearance of the heavens is totally 

 changed, and quite different is the rising of the stars ; there 

 are two summers in the year, and two harvests, while the winter 

 intervenes between them during the time that the Etesian" 

 winds are blowing : during our winter too, they enjoy light 

 breezes, and their seas are navigable. In this country there are 

 nations and cities which would be found to be quite innumerable, 

 if a person should attempt to enumerate them. For it has been 

 explored not only by the arms of Alexander the Great and of the 

 kings who succeeded him, by Seleucus and Antiochus, who 

 sailed round even to the Caspian and Hyrcanian Sea, and by 

 Patrocles," the admiral of their fieet, but has been treated of by 

 several other Greek writers who resided at the courts of Indian 

 kings, such, for instance, as Megasthenes, and by Dionysius, 

 whowassentthither by PhUadelphus, expressly for the purpose: 

 aE of whom have enlarged upon the power and vast resources 

 of these nations. StUl, however, there is no possibility of 

 being rigorously exact, so different are the accounts given, and 

 often of a nature so incredible. The followers of Alexander 

 the Great have stated in their writings, that there were no less 

 than five thousand cities in that portion of India which they 



" This appears aJso to be somewhat obscure. It is clear that if India 

 lies to the west of Gaul, it cannot be Pliny's meaning that it is refreshed 

 by the west wind blowing to it from GanL He may possibly mean that 

 the west wind, which is so refi-eshing to the west of Kurope, and Gaul in 

 particnlar, first sweeps over India, and thus becomes productive of that 

 salubrity which Posidonius seems to have discovered m India, but for 

 which we look in vain at the present day. Amid, however, such multiplied 

 chances of a corrupt text, it is impossible to assume any very definite po- 

 sition as to his probable meaning. The French translators offer no assist- 

 ance in solving the dificulty, and Holland renders it, " This west wind 

 which /toot tehind Gaul bloweth upon India, is very healthsome," &c< 



19 As to the Etesian winds, see B.ii. c. 48. 



" In the geographical work which Patrocles seems to have published, 

 he is supposed to have given some account of the countries bordering on the 

 Caspian Sea, and there is little doubt that, like other writers of that period, 

 he regarded that sea as a gulf or inlet of the Septentrional Ocean, and pro- 

 bably maintained the possibility of sailing thither by sea from the Indian. 

 Ocean. This statement, however, seems to have been strangely misinter- 

 preted by PUny in his present assertion, that Patrocles had himself accom- 

 plished this circumnavigation. 



