Greek Texts & Translations

the Etesian winds, India, as Eratosthenes affirms, is watered by summer rains, and the plains are overflowed. During the rainy season flax, ^note millet, sesamum, rice, and bosmorum ^note are sowed; and in the winter season, wheat, barley, pulse, and other esculent fruits of the earth with which we are not acquainted. Nearly the same animals are bred in India as in Ethiopia and Egypt, and the rivers of India produce all the animals of those countries, except the hippopotamus, although Onesicritus asserts that even this animal is found in them.

The inhabitants of the south resemble the Ethiopians in colour, but their countenances and hair are like those of other people. Their hair does not curl, on account of the humidity of the atmosphere. The inhabitants of the north resemble the Egyptians. 14

Taprobane ^note is said to be an island, lying out at sea, distant from the most southerly parts of India, which are opposite the Coniaci, seven days' ^note sail towards the south. Its length is about 8000 stadia in the direction of Ethiopia. ^note It produces elephants.

This is the account of Eratosthenes. The accounts of other writers, in addition to this, whenever they convey exact information, will contribute to form the description ^note (of India). 15

Onesicritus, for example, says of Taprobane, that its magnitude is 5000 stadia, without distinction of length or breadth, and that it is distant twenty days' sail from the continent, but that it was a voyage performed with difficulty and danger by vessels with sails ill constructed, and built with prows at each end, but without holds and keels; ^note that there are other islands between this and India, but that Taprobane lies farthest to the south; that there are found in the sea, about the island, animals of the cetaceous kind, in form like oxen, horses, and other land-animals. 16

Nearchus, speaking of the accretion of earth form-