[315] Strabo takes for the source of the Indus the place where it passes through the mountains to enter the Punjab. The site of Aornos seems to correspond with Renas.—Gossellin.
[316] The Sibæ, according to Quintus Curtius, who gives them the name of Sobii, occupied the confluent of the Hydaspes and the Acesines. This people appear to have been driven towards the east by one of those revolutions so frequent in all Asia. At least, to the north of Delhi, and in the neighbourhood of Hardouar, a district is found bearing the name of Siba.
[317] That is, the Macedonians transferred the name of the Caucasus, situated between the Black Sea and the Caspian, to the mountains of India. The origin of their mistake arose from the Indians giving, as at present, the name of Kho, which signifies “white,” to the great chain of mountains covered with snow, from whence the Indus, and the greater part of the rivers which feed it, descend.
[318] This people occupied the Paropamisus, where the mountains now separate Candahar from Gaour.
[320] Under the name of Ariana, the ancients comprehended almost all the countries situated between the Indus and the meridian of the Caspian Gates. This large space was afterwards divided by them according to the position of the different nations which occupied it.—Gossellin. There can be no doubt the modern Iran represents the ancient Ariana. See Smith, art. Ariana, and b. ii. c. v. § 32, vol. i. p. [196], note903.
[321] Eratosthenes and Strabo believed that the eastern parts of Asia terminated at the mouth of the Ganges, and that, consequently, this river discharged itself into the Eastern Ocean at the place where terminated the long chain of Taurus.
[322] According to Major Rennell, Emodus and Imaus are only variations of the same name, derived from the Sanscrit word Himmaleh, which signifies “covered with snow.”
[323] In some MSS. the following diagram is to be found.
| The River Indus. |