Thus it appears that the Hesperides, or Fortunate Isles, of the ancient geographers, were the most easterly of the group now called the Canaries. They are ranged in a line running parallel to the coast of Africa, and are situated about half way between the continent and the great islands, Canary and Teneriffe, which, although named, were probably never visited by the ancients.

HIPPALUS.

CHAP. VII.

DISCOVERY OF THE MONSOONS.

INCREASED TRADE WITH INDIA. COURSE PURSUED. PERIPLUS OF ARRIAN. HIS ACCURATE ACCOUNT OF THE INDIAN PENINSULA.

BUT, towards the East, a discovery was made in the age of Pliny, by an obscure individual, of far greater importance to geography and commerce than the temporary routes laid open into barbarous countries by the hardihood and ambition of the Roman generals. The regularity of the monsoons, or periodical winds, which, in the seas between Africa and India blow during one half of the year from the south-west, and during the other from the south-east, with little deviation, could not have long escaped the attention of the Arabian navigators. No advantage, however, was taken of this striking phenomenon; for among an uncultivated people time operates slowly in maturing the details of partial experience into acknowledged principles. The Greeks, however, soon learned to estimate its importance. We have seen that the voyage of Eudoxus to India originated in the circumstance of an Indian vessel being driven upon the coast of Africa by the prevalence of the easterly monsoon: Eudoxus himself, on his return to Egypt, was forced too far to the west by the same

wind. Jambolo, on the other hand, was said to have been carried by the westerly monsoon from Africa to Ceylon; and again in the reign of the emperor Claudius, a freed-man of Annius Plocamus, employed in collecting the revenues of Arabia, was driven in like manner to the same island. It appears to have been about the same time, or perhaps a little later (A.D. 50), that Hippalus, an enlightened navigator, considering the steadiness of the periodical wind to be an invariable law of nature, ventured boldly to quit sight of land, to track an unknown course across the ocean, and confide in the steadfast favour of a rude and proverbially fickle element. The success of this experiment soon effected a complete revolution in the course of the Indian trade, which Pliny assures us was only in its infancy in his time. Vessels from Berenice, in the Red Sea, now reached Cana, on the southern coast of Arabia, in thirty days; and then steering across the ocean, in forty days more arrived at Muziris, or some other port of India, whence they set sail to return as soon as the wind shifted, so as to complete the voyage to India and back again within the twelvemonth. The gratitude of the Greeks, by a judicious compliment, gave the name of Hippalus to the summer, or south-western, monsoon.

The particulars of the trade with the East, and the course followed by the vessels engaged in it, are preserved to us in a short but valuable work, the Periplus of the Erythrean sea, written by one Arrian, supposed to have been a merchant of Alexandria. The age of this work cannot be positively fixed; but some of the ablest scholars are inclined to consider Arrian as a contemporary of Pliny; the Periplus, therefore, on this supposition, must be assigned to the second half of the first century of our era.

The fleets bound to India from Egypt, having passed the straits of Babelmandel, first touched at Aden, a place of commercial importance from the earliest ages. They then coasted Arabia Felix, as far as Cana, the position of which is fixed by D'Anville, merely from resemblance

of sound, at Cava Canim. It was the capital of the Chatramotites, the inhabitants of Hadramaut, and probably stood immediately to the west of Cape Fartash, a bold projection, likely to have been the limit of the coast navigation, and to have determined the lingering mariner to stretch at once across the ocean. The ships then sailed to Dachanabades, (the city of the Decan, or South,) a name given by the Greeks to the whole peninsula of the Decan. The Mekran, or coast west of the Indus, does not appear to have been visited by strangers from the time of Alexander till the discoveries of the Portuguese but the Greeks were well acquainted with the rich and populous countries to the south of that river. They knew the Gulf of the Canti, at present the bay of Cutch; the Sanscrit word canta, and the modern expression cutch, both signifying the coast. Among the chief emporia mentioned by Arrian were Barygaza (Baroatch), in the Gulf of Cambay; Ozene, now called Ougein, in Malwa ; and Tagara, the ancient and revered city of Deoghir (the hill of God), the ruins of which are near those of Ellore, within about four coss of the modern Aurungabad. The fine muslins and chintzes of Tagara were conveyed, by a journey of ten days, to Plutana (at present Pultaneh), and thence, in twenty days more, to Barygaza, by difficult roads over steep and lofty mountains. In the account of these mountain

roads we have a distinct notice of the Balagauts..

Proceeding to the south, Arrian mentions, among other places, Kalliene, or the island of Bombay, which but a few centuries ago was still called Gallian. Farther to the south, the coast of Canara was infested with pirates; and this local characteristic continued unchanged, from the time of Arrian till the middle of the last century, when the extension of the British power along the coasts of Malabar completely put an end to those maritime depredations. On the pirate coast the Greeks place Palaipatmai, or Balepatna, the great town, or town of Bali, and some other places, the names of which are still preserved. Muziris, the great mart to

which the Greek fleets steered direct from Cape Gardefui, is supposed by some to have occupied the site of the modern Mangalore, while others place it at Mizzouh. The name of the Aii, the ancient inhabitants of Malabar, is still preserved in that of Aycotta, near Cranganoor. Pliny places on this coast the mountain Maleus; hence it might be concluded that the indigenous race were named Mal-ayes, or Mountaineers, in ancient times, as they are at the present day.

At Muziris the Greek merchants met the traders from the East, and not having any occasion to proceed further along the coast, the minute accuracy of their information terminates at this point. Yet some may have occasionally ventured to navigate the seas to the eastward of the peninsula; and the reports of these, added to the relations of the natives, extended the geography of the Greeks as far as commercial intercourse existed in the East, that is, to China; for the error of those commentators must be carefully avoided, who studiously confine the knowledge of the Greeks to the countries which they actually visited, and make no allowances for hearsay information. Yet their picture of the East grows gradually more vague and imperfect as we advance from Muziris, until it at length terminates in names of places obviously learned at second-hand, and accompanied with such palpably erroneous indications of position as do not merit the slightest attention.

Arrian mentions Cape Comar (Comorin), so called from Caumari, the Virgin, and beyond it were the Colchi, or Coliaci. As these occupied a coast rendered important by the pearl-fishery, it is evident that they were situated near Ramana-Koil, or the temple of Ram, where the richest pearl-fishery in the world is carried on. Taprobane, or Ceylon, is described by our author as being at a distance of six days' sail from the mainland; an error which proves how little that island was resorted to by the Greeks.

Following the coast of Coromandel, we find obscurity increasing at every step; yet the Greeks were acquainted

with the river Chabaris, the Cavery of the present day, and the Masolus, or Kistnah, the ancient name of which is still preserved in that of Masulipatam, a town situated at its mouth. Farther to the north were the Hippioprosopoi, or horse-faced people (the Aswa-muc'has of the Hindoos), the Macrocephali and other monsters: these occupied the coast of Orissa, which has been in all ages the least civilised part of India. The Ganges, the greatest river of India, is next mentioned, and the Indian name Patala, or, as Ptolemy writes it, Passala, that is, the lower region, is correctly applied to the country round its mouth. Beyond this point Arrian gives no topographical details; but we are not justified on that account in limiting the stretch of his hearsay information. Arrian always speaks like a merchant, and carefully notes an island, situated beyond the golden Chersonese, under the rising sun, and producing the finest tortoise-shell in the world.

His account of the trade with the Chinese will be related farther on.