38
HISTOItV OF INDIA.
[Book 1.
B.C.
India.
choosing the proper seasons, tlie one would carry him out and the other bring him home. riin/8ac- '^Ik; course of the voyage, and even the time occupied hv it, is minuUdv
count of tlio ^ r> ' l j > J
voyage to detailed by the elder Pliny.' 1'he cargo destined for India being endjaiked on the Nile, was conveyed by it and a short canal to Copto.s, a distance of 303 mih-.s. At Coptos the land carriage commenced, and was continued 258 miles ta Berenice, on the west shore of the Red Sea. From Berenice the vessel started aljout midsummer, and after a short halt near the Straits of Bab-el- mandeb, took its final departure usually for Musiris on the Malabar coast. The wliole time occupied, on an average, from the Mediterranean to India was a little more than three months, or ninety-four days. Of these, the inland navigation to Coptos occupied twelve, the land transport to Berenice twelve, the voyage down the Red Sea thirty, and the voyage across the Indian Ocean forty day.s. The time occupied by the Red Sea voyage seems out of all proportion to the other, but may be accounted for partly by the difficulty of navigating a sea notorious for
RliNS OF Tai .mvea. — From Cassas, Voyage Pittoresque <le la Syrie, &c.
baffling winds and storms, and perhaps partly also by delays which may have been occasioned by calling on both sides of the coast for the pm-pose of com- pleting the cargo. The homeward voyage, commenced earl}'" in December, appears to have been tlie far more tedious of the two.
Though the Persians had failed to take advantage of their maritime proxi- mity to India, the Romans had no sooner carried their eastern frontier to the
' Plinii Historia Naturalis, b. vi. c. 23.
