Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1879 edition. Excerpt: ... THE VOYAGE OF NEARKHOS. Introduction. The coasting voyage from the mouth of the Indus to the head of the Persian Gulf, designed by Alexander the Great, and executed by Nearkhos, may be regarded as the most important achievement of the ancients in navigation. It opened up, as Vincent remarks, a communication between Europe and the most distant countries of Asia, and, at a later period, was the source and origin of the Portuguese discoveries, and consequently the primary cause, however remote, of the British establishments in India. A Journal of this voyage was written by Nearkhos himself, which, though not extant in its original form, has been preserved for us by Arrian, who embodied its contents in his little work on India,1 which he wrote as a sequel to his history of the expedition of Alexander. Nearkhos as a writer must be acknowledged to be most scrupulously honest and exact, --for the result of explorations made in modern times along the shores which he passed in the course of his voyage shows that his description of them is accurate even in the most minute particulars. His veracity was nevertheless oppugned in ancient times by Strabo, who unjustly stigmatises the whole class of the Greek writers upon India as mendacious. "Generally speaking," he says (II. i. 9), "the men who have written upon Indian 1 Written in the Ionic dialect. t affairs were a set of liars. Deimakhos holds the first place in the list, Megasthenes comes next, while Onesikritos and Nearkhos, with others of the same class, stammer out a few words of truth." (napa DEGREESreWi(ovrcs). Strabo, however, in spite of this censure did not hesitate to use Nearkhos as one . of his chief authorities for his description of India, and is indebted to him for many facts relating to...
