60 
PLllS^T'S NATURAL HISTORY. 
[Book VI. 
here, the Peucolaitse/^ the Arsagalitae, the Geretse, and the 
AssoL 
The greater part of the geographers, in fact, do not look 
npon India as bounded by the river Indus, but add to it the 
four Satrapies of the Gedrosi,*'^ the Arachotse,^^ the Arii,®^ and 
the Paropanisidse,^^ the river Cophes thus forming the extreme 
boundary of India. All these territories, however, according 
to other writers, are reckoned as belonging to the country of 
the Arii. (21.) Many writers, too, place in India the city of 
]^ysa,^^ and the mountain of Merus, sacred to Father Bacchus ; 
in which circumstance^^ originated the story that he sprang from 
the thigh of Jupiter. They also place here the nation of the 
Astacani, whose country abounds in the vine, the laurel, the 
box- tree, and all the fruits which are produced in Greece. As 
to those wonderful and almost fabulous stories which are re- 
lated about the fertility of the soil, and the various kinds of 
fruits and trees, as well as wild beasts, and birds, and other 
sorts of animals, they shall be mentioned each in its proper 
"^^ Parisot supposes that these were the inhabitants of the district which 
now bears the name of Pekheh. 
Gedrosia comprehended probably the same district as is now known 
by the name of Mekran, or, according to some, the whole of modern Be- 
loochistan. 
^1 The people of the city and district of Arachotiis, the capital of Ara- 
chosia. M. Court has identified some ruins on the Argasan river, near 
Kandahar, on the road to Shikarpur, with those of Arachotus ; but Pro- 
fessor Wilson considers them to be too much to the south-east. Colonel 
Hawlinson thinks they are those to be seen at a place called Ulan Eobat. 
He states that the most ancient name of the city, Cophen, (mentioned by 
Pliny inc. 25 of the present Book), has given rise to the territorial desig- 
nation. See p. 57. 
^■^ Tlie people of Aria, consisting of the eastern part of Khorassan, and 
the western and north-western part of Afghanistan. This was one of the 
most important of the eastern provinces or satrapies of the Persian empire. 
^'^ This was the collective name of several peoples dwelling on the 
southern slopes of the Hindoo Koosh, and of the country which they in- 
habited^ which was not known by any other name. It corresponded to the 
eastern part of modern Afghanistan and the portion of the Punjaub lying 
to the west of the Indus. 
It is supposed that the Cophes is represented by the modern river of 
Kabul. 
The place here alluded to was in the district of Gorysea, at the 
north-western corner of the Punjaub, near the confluence of the rivers 
Cophen and Choaspes. being probably the same place as Nagara or Diony- 
sopolis, the modern Nagar or Naggar. 
2^ The word jU?7pog, in Greek, signifying a thigh." 
