Page:Indian Shipping, a history of the sea-borne trade and maritime activity of the Indians from the earliest times.djvu/152

INDIAN SHIPPING

CHAPTER II.

The Maurya Period.

We now reach the age of the Mauryas, which may be taken roughly to begin from the date of Alexander's Indian campaigns, about 325 B.C. In the accounts of these campaigns by Greek writers like Arrian, Curtius, and others, interesting light is sometimes thrown on the economic life of the period. Thus it may be stated with certainty that shipbuilding was in those very ancient days (so far back as 325 B.C.) a very flourishing industry giving employment to many, and the stimulus to its development must have come from the demands of both river and ocean traffic. Alexander's passage of the Indus was effected by means of boats^[1] supplied by native craftsmen. A flotilla of boats was also used in bridging the difficult river of the Hydaspes.^[2] For purposes of the famous voyage of Nearchus^[3] down the rivers and to the Persian Gulf, all available country boats were impressed for the service, and a stupendous fleet was formed, num-

1. V. A. Smith's Early History of India, p. 55.
2. Ibid., pp. 59, 60: "He found the fleet of galleys, boats, and rafts in readiness." Also Arrian, v. 8.
3. Ibid., p. 87.

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