38 
pliny's natueal histoet. 
[Book yi. 
on human flesh. Here are also numerous wandering Nomad 
tribes of India. There are some authors who state that in a 
north-easterly direction these nations touch upon the Cicones^*^ 
and the Erysari. 
CHAP. 21. THE NATIOIfS OF II^-piA. 
But we come now to nations as to which there is a more ge- 
neral agreement among writers. Where the chain of Emodus^* 
rises, the nations of India begin, which borders not only on the 
Eastern sea, but on the Southern as well, which we have al- 
ready mentioned as being called the Indian Ocean. That 
part which faces the east runs in a straight line a distance of 
eighteen hundred and seventy-five miles until it comes to a 
bend, at which the Indian Ocean begins. Here it takes a turn 
to the south, and continues to run in that direction a distance 
of two thousand four hundred and seventy- five miles, accord- 
ing to Eratosthenes, as far as the river Indus, the boundary 
of India on the west.^^ Many authors have represented the 
entire length of the Indian coast as being forty days' and 
nights' sail, and as being, from north to south, two thousand 
eight hundred and fifty miles. Agrippa states its length to be 
three thousand three hundred miles, and its breadth, two thou- 
sand three hundred. Posidonius has given its measurement as 
lying from north-east to south-east, placing it opposite to Gaul, 
of which country he has given the measurement as lying 
from north-west to south-west ; making the whole of India 
to lie due west of Gaul. Hence, as he has shewn by un- 
doubted proofs, India lying opposite to Gaul must be refreshed 
13 See B. iv. c. 18. 
1* The Emodi Montes (so called probably from the Indian hemddri, or 
the "golden") are supposed to have formed that portion of the great 
lateral branch of the Indian Caucasus, the range of the Himalaya, which 
extends along ISTepaul, and probably as far as Bhotan. 
In c. 14 of the present Book. 
The whole of this passage seems very intricate, and it is difficult to 
make sense of it. His meaning, however, is probably this : that the 
coast of India, running from extreme north-east to south-east, relatively to 
Greece, the country of Eratosthenes, is exactly opposite to the coast of 
Gaul, running from extreme north-west to south-west — India thus lying 
due west of Gaul, without any intervening land. This, it will be remem- 
bered, was the notion of Columbus, when contemplating the possibility of 
a western passage to India. 
