Cbap. 21.] ACCOUNT OF COTJKTRIES, ETC. 
39 
by the blowing of that wind/^ and derive its salubrity 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 fleet, 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, 
who was sent thither by Philadelphus, expressly for the purpose: 
all of whom have enlarged apon the power and vast resources 
of these nations. Still, 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 also 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 Gaul. He may possibly mean that 
the west wind, which is so refreshing to the west of Europe, and Gaul in 
particular, first sweeps over India, and thus becomes productive of that 
salubrity which Posidonius seems to have discovered in 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 ofi'er no assist- 
ance in solving the difficulty, and Holland renders it, This west wind 
which from behind Gaul bloweth upon India, is very healthsome," &c. 
18 As to the Etesian winds, see B. ii. c. 48. 
1^ 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 Pliny in his present assertion, that Patrocles had himself accom- 
plished this circumnavigation. 
