Character of the vessels engaged on the voyage from the Indus to Susa.
Time occupied. given no account whatever of the size or number of vessels under his command. An attentive perusal of his story shows however, clearly enough, that they were of the smallest description of craft then in use for sea-going purposes. During the whole voyage they closely hugged the land, invariably anchoring during the night; and though occasionally, when the wind was fair and strong, the journal records a run of sixty, and once of even eighty miles, the average distance did not exceed twenty-five, add to which, the joy of the crew when they reached Karamania, and formed a naval camp on shore, indicates but too plainly that, on board, they had been uncomfortably crammed from want of space.[1]
The voyage itself is recorded with great care by Nearchus; and Heeren, in his "Asiatic Nations,"[2] ?] gives a condensed account of it, which is alike interesting and clear, especially in that portion of it referring to the leading outlines of the coast. It is interesting to read in the records of Nearchus that he speaks of the marauding habits of a people who, having reached a high state of civilization, and even refinement, seem to have degenerated from what they were two thousand years ago, and to observe that, by even this circumstance, the navigator by sea and the traveller by land, of our own time, can recognize the accuracy of his description.[3]*
- ↑ Vincent, "Commerce in India," vol. i. p. 326.
- ↑ In 1838, the author, then a young man in command of the Olive Branch, a barque of four hundred tons, sailed along the whole of this coast, frequently following the route which Nearchus had taken, and sometimes obliged to anchor on account of the intricacy of the navigation, as Nearchus had done, overnight. He can, therefore, confirm the accuracy of Heeren's condensed description of the voyage in its
