[186] Plutarch says that Alexander called this island Skilloustis, but others Psiltoukis. It was from this island Nearchos started on his memorable voyage early in October, before the monsoon had subsided. On his reaching the port now called Karachi, the great emporium of the trade of the Indus, he remained there for twenty-four days, and renewed the voyage as soon as the weather permitted.
[187] The eastern branch of the Indus is that now called the Phuleli. It separates from the main channel at Muttâri, twelve miles above Haidarâbâd, and enters the sea by the Kori estuary, named by Ptolemy the Lonibari mouth. Its bed is now almost dry except at the time of the inundations, when it assumes the appearance of a great river. At the lower part of its course it is known as the Guni. On its east side it receives the branch of the Indus, which in ancient times passed Arôr, and is now called the Purana darya or Old river.
[188] This exaggerated estimate Arrian has taken from the Journal of Nearchos. Aristoboulos said that the distance was 1000 stadia. The truth is here pretty accurately hit.
[189] “This great lake (says Saint-Martin) might have been the western extremity of the Ran of Kachh, a vast depression which abuts on the point where the estuary begins, and which for some months of the year (from July to October) is inundated by the waters of several rivers. By a singular coincidence the terrible earthquake of 1819 has formed a large hollow and created a spacious lake traversed by the Korî, and occupying probably the same site as the lake mentioned by Arrian. Brahmanic tradition, moreover, preserves the memory of a lake formerly existing near the Korî, not far from its embouchure. In the Bhagavata Purâna translated by Bournouf, we read that ‘in the west at the confluence of the Sindhu and the ocean is the vast tank of Nârâyana Saras, which is frequented by the Recluses and the Siddhas.’... A local tradition picked up by M’Murdo refers to the disappearance of this lake of old times, and explains the event by a conflagration of the country” (v. Etude, pp. 178, 179).
[190] In Italy the Pleiades set in the beginning of November. The south-west monsoon prevails from April to October. It sets in on the Sindh coast with strong west-south-westerly winds, which cause a heavy swell on the sea. The north-east monsoon, which is favourable for navigation, begins in the Arabian Sea about the middle of October.
[191] The name of this river has various forms, Arabis, Arbis, Artabis, and Artabius. It is now called the Purâli and is the river which, rising in the mountain range called by Ptolemy the Baitian, flows through the present district of Las into the Bay of Sonmiyâni. It gave its name to the Arabioi, whose territory it divided from that of the Oritai, who were farther west. Curtius states that Alexander reached the eastern boundary of the Arabioi (which may be placed about Karâchi) in nine days from Patala, and their western boundary formed by the Arabius in five days more. The distance from Haidarâbâd to Karâchi is 114 miles, and from Karâchi to Sonmiyâni fifty miles. The average of a day’s march was therefore about twelve miles, the same as now in these parts.
[192] The Arabitai are called in the Indika, Arabies; in Strabo, Arbies; in Diodôros, Ambritai; in Marcian the geographer, Arbitoi; and in Dion. Perieg. Aribes. Their territories extended from the western mouth of the Indus to the river Purâli. This people and their neighbours, the Orîtai, Cunningham would include within the geographical limits of India, although they have always been beyond its political boundaries during the historical period. They were tributary to Darius Hystaspês, and were still subject to the Persians when the Chinese pilgrim Hwen Thsiang visited their country in the seventh century of our aera.
[193] In the country of the Oreitai is a river called the Aghor, from which, it has been supposed, the people take their name, as thus: Aghoritai, Aoritai, Oritai, or Horatae, as they are called by Curtius. They are the Neoritai of Diodôros. The length of their coast Arrian gives in his Indika at 1600 stadia, while Strabo extends it to 1800. The actual length is 100 English miles, somewhere about half of Arrian’s estimate taken from Nearchos. The western boundary of the Oritai was marked by Cape Mâlân (the Malana of Arrian), which is twenty miles distant from the river Aghor. According to Strabo the Oritai were the people by whose poisoned arrows Ptolemy was all but mortally wounded.
[194] This name is probably a transcription of the Indian Râmbâgh, which designated the place where pilgrims assemble before starting for the Aghor Valley, in which the principal sacred places are connected with the history of Râma, the great hero of the Râmâyana. Cunningham accordingly identifies Râmbâgh with Arrian’s Rambakia, and remarks that the occurrence of the name of Râmbâgh at so great a distance to the west of the Indus, and at so early a period as the time of Alexander, shows not only the wide extension of Hindu influence in ancient times, but also the great antiquity of the story of Râma (v. his Anc. Geog. of India, pp. 307-310).
[195] D’Anville and Vincent have assumed that Ora is the Haur mentioned by Edrisi as lying on the route from Dîbal, near the mouth of the Indus, to Firûzâbâd in Mekran. Its situation is uncertain, however, as its name does not occur in any recently published account of the country. Ora may perhaps have been in the neighbourhood of Kôkala, mentioned in the Indika as situated on the Oreitian coast, probably near Cape Katchari, to the east of the Hingul river, where the fleet was supplied with a fresh stock of provisions. Perhaps it may have here denoted the country of the Oreitai.