Greek Texts & Translations

face of the skin. Hence we say it is that the Indians have not woolly hair, nor is their colour so intensely ^note dark, because they live in a humid atmosphere.

With respect to children in the womb, they resemble their parents (in colour) according to a seminal disposition and constitution, on the same principle that hereditary diseases, and other likenesses, are explained.

The equal distance of the sun from all nations (according to Onesicritus) is an argument addressed to the senses, and not to reason. But it is not an argument addressed to the senses generally, but in the meaning that the earth bears the proportion of a point to the sun, for we may understand such a meaning of an argument addressed to the senses, by which we estimate heat to be more or less, as it is near or at a distance, in which cases it is not the same; and in this meaning, not in that of Onesicritus, the sun is said to be near the Ethiopians. 25

It is admitted by those who maintain the resemblance of India to Egypt and Ethiopia, that the plains which are not overflowed do not produce anything for want of water.

Nearchus says, that the old question respecting the rise of the Nile is answered by the case of the Indian rivers, namely, that it is the effect of summer rains; when Alexander saw crocodiles in the Hydaspes, and Egyptian beans in the Acesines, he thought that he had discovered the sources of the Nile, and was about to equip a fleet with the intention of sailing by this river to Egypt; but he found out shortly after- wards that his design could not be accomplished, for in midway were vast rivers, fearful waters, and first the ocean, ^note into which all the Indian rivers discharge themselves; then Ariana, the Persian and Arabian Gulfs, all Arabia and Troglodytica.

The above is what has been said on the subject of winds and rains, the rising of rivers, and the inundation of plains. 26

We must describe these rivers in detail, with the particulars, which are useful for the purposes of geography, and which have been handed down to us by historians.

Besides this, rivers, being a kind of physical boundaries of the size and figures of countries, are of the greatest use in