[196] Gadrôsia in Arrian denotes the inland region which extends from the Oreitai to Karmania. The maritime region between the same limits he calls the country of the Ichthyophagoi. The Gedrôsian desert since the days of Alexander has protected Lower Sindh from any attack by the maritime route. The Persian invader has preferred to encounter the dangers and difficulties of the mountain passes of Afghânistân rather than to expose himself to such horrible sufferings in the burning desert as were experienced by the soldiers of Semiramis, Cyrus, and Alexander. The length of the Makrân or Beluchistan coast between the Oreitai and Karmania is given by Arrian at 10,000 stadia and by Strabo at 7000 only. The actual length is 480 English miles, and the time taken by Nearchos in its navigation was twenty days.
[197] A description of this unguent is given by Pliny (N. H. xii. c. 26). He there mentions that a special kind of it was produced in the Gangetic regions. In the 33d chapter of the same book will be found a description of the myrrh-tree and its produce.
[198] Chinnock notes that this was probably the snow-flake.
[199] This, says Sintenis, can be nothing else than a kind of acacia. He points out that Dioscorides (i. 33) applies to this thorn the expression ἀκακία, which Willdenow identifies with the acacia catechu. It grows abundantly in the Bombay and Bengal presidencies, producing a gum employed both as a colouring matter and a medicinal astringent, and known in commerce by the name of cutch.
[200] These people were the Ichthyophagoi of whom Arrian makes frequent mention in his Indika when describing the voyage of Nearchos along their coast. His description of their appearance and habits closely agrees with that given by Strabo in his chapter on Ariana.
[201] Kallatis or Kallatia was a large city of Thrace on the coast of the Euxine, colonised from Milêtos. Pliny says its former name was Cerbatis.
[202] v. [Note V], Alexander’s march through Gedrôsia, Poura.
[203] In Latin triumphi.
[204] That is, to one who, like Alexander, approached it from Central Asia.
[205] Eratosthenes and other ancient writers describe India as of a rhomboidal figure with the Indus on the west, the mountains on the north, and the sea on the east and the south. Curtius follows them here in reckoning its length from west to east.