[681] Peludje, at the entrance of the Gulf of Gran.
[682] Heeren (Comment. Gotting. 1793. Vol. xi. pp. 66, 67) supposes that this city was founded by Chaldæans solely for the purpose of a depôt for the transit of goods to Babylon, the trade having for a long time been in the hands of the Phœnicians. He also conjectures that the most flourishing period of the town was when the Persians, for political reasons, destroyed the commerce of Babylon, and Gerrha then became the sole depôt for the maritime commerce of India.
[683] El-Der.
[684] The island Ormus, which before the year 1302 was called Turun or Gerun, from which the Greeks formed the names Tyros, Tyrine, Gyris, Gyrine, Ogyris, and Organa. Gossellin.
[685] Arek.
[686] Besides the islands Tyre and Aradus, there existed even in the time of Alexander, and near the present Cape Gherd, a city called Sidon or Sidodona, which was visited by Nearchus, as may be seen in his Periplus. The Phœnician inhabitants of these places appear to have afterwards removed to the western side of the Persian Gulf, and to the islands Bahraïn, to which they gave the names Tylos, or Tyre, and Aradus. The latter name still exists; it was from this place that the Phœnicians moved, to establish themselves on the shores of the Mediterranean, and transferred the name of Sidon, their ancient capital, and those of Tyre and Aradus, to the new cities which they there founded. Gossellin.
[687] As Nearchus in his voyage kept along the coast, this distance must not be understood as so much to the south of Carmania in the open sea, but as the distance from Cape Jask, the commencement of Carmania.
[688] In Ptolemy, this island is called Vorochtha, now Vroct, or Kismis, or Dschisme.
[689] ἡ καυσία, a broad-brimmed Macedonian hat.
[690] Pliny, v. 21, mentions a place which he calls Massica, situated on the Euphrates, near the mouth of a canal which communicated with the Tigris near Seleucia. It is now called Masseib-khan, and is at a short distance above Babylon, on the borders of the desert. I do not know whether this is the Mæcene of Strabo. Gossellin.