tioned as lying to the weft of that river, and confequently the western one of India, yet he appears himself to render a little doubtful fuch a notion; fince he calls the tract including the western bank of the Indus Indofcythia, which amounts to an infinuation, that it appertained to India. But this only implies, that the Indians and Scythians bordering upon the frontiers were intermixed one with another, as we have already obferved the neighbouring Libyans and Carthaginians, Syrians and Phoenicians, who from this circumftance received the names of Libyphoenicians and Syrophoenicians, were. It will not, therefore, follow from Ptolemy's denominating the people on the immediate eaftern and western banks of the Indus, Indofcythians, either that the latter were fubject to the Indians, or the former to the Scythians; but only that those people were a mixture or compofition of both nations. We may, therefore, reasonably prefume, that Ptolemy took the Indus to be the western limit of India Propria; especially as we find this afferted by Diodorus Siculus, Arrian, and Strabo. Nay, Pliny, though this renders him a little inconfiftent with himself, comes into the fame opinion. With regard to the extent of this country, authors are not agreed. It formed a fort of rhomboides, according to Strabo, two of whofe fides exceeded those oppofite to them three thousand ftadia. One of the former was thirteen thousand, and the other fixteen thousand, of thofe ftadia; befides which, there were two capes or promontories belonging to the country now under confideration, that projected three thousand stadia into the Indian ocean. In this Eratofthenes and Megafthenes, two of Strabo's authors, agreed; but Patrocles, another of them, was of a different opinion. India equaled in extent all the other kingdoms of Afia, if we may give any credit to Ctefias. Nearchus fays, that it could not be traverfed under four months, and Oneficritus afferts it to have been a third part of the habitable world. Diodorus Siculus affirms India to have been thirty thousand ftadia broad, and twenty-eight thousand ftadia long; but all these computations not a little exceed the truth b.

IN fact this vaft region is fituated between the 69th and goth Its fituadegrees of longitude from the meridian of London, and the tion. the 8th and 36th degrees of north latitude; fince it extends

b PTOL. & DIONYS. CHARACEN. ubi fup. BOCHART. Chan. lib. i. c. 1. & c. 25. ARRIAN. ubi fupra. DIOD. SIC. lib. ii. c. 85, 86, 87. PLIN. lib. vi. c. 17. ERATOSTHENES, MEGASTHENES, & PATROCLES, apud Strabon. lib. xv. ut & ipfe STRAB. ibid. CTESIAS, NEARCHUS, & ONESICRITUS apud STRAB. ubi fupra,

E 3

from

from the moft western mouth of the Indus to the most eastern one of the Ganges, and from Mus Tag or mount Imaus to cape Comorin. It is beautifully diverfified by mountains, rivers, and spacious fruitful plains; which renders it one of the most agreeable and delicious countries in the world. The riches produced in the bowels of it are immense; but these we fhall touch upon hereafter c.

The priTHE river Ganges, according to the old geographers, dimary divi- vided this country into two parts, which they called India infion of In- tra Gangem, and India extra Gangem; and this divifion, efpedia Pro- cially among the learned, ftill prevails. India intra Gangem

pria.

India intra

Gangem.

was limited on the weft by the Indus, on the north by mount Imaus, on the eaft by the Ganges, and on the fouth by the Indian ocean. It contained a great number of kingdoms or provinces, as well as cities and towns, the principal of which we must here endeavour to give our readers fome idea of, and then proceed to a fhort defcription of the other part of India fituated to the east of the Ganges".

SOME place in the northern part of this tract the Afpii, Thyrai, and Arafaci, not far from the river Choafpes, whom Alexander fubdued in his march to that river. The chief towns here were Plegerium and Gorydalis, according to Strabo. The Gurai were a neighbouring people, through whose territories Alexander paffed, in order to attack the Affaceni. The former of thefe had a town near the confluence of the Cophen and the Choafpes, that went under the names of Nagara and Dionyfiopolis; but this was not a place of fuch note as Maffaga or Mazaga, the capital of the Affaceni, which, after a brave defence, furrendred to the Macedonians. Ora and Bazira likewife were two fortreffes in this diftrict taken by Alexander, who obliged the garison of the latter, that had a very high fituation, to abandon the place, and retire to a fteep rock called Aornos. This rock was two hundred stadia in circumference, and eleven ftadia high, according to Arrian, and a poft of fuch ftrength, that the Indians confidered it as impregnable. For it could only be afcended by one narrow path, which had been made with great difficulty, and had on its fummit a fountain of pure water, with as much arable ground as would produce corn fufficient to fupport a thousand men; infomuch that it had baffled all the efforts of Hercules himfelf. However, Alexander at laft poffeffed himself of it with inconfiderable lofs, after he had forced Peucela or Peucelagtis, Embolima, and feveral other towns near the western bank of the Indus, to furrender at difcretion. We

e lidem ibid. & alib.

ProL. geogr. lib. vii. Diop.

SIC. STRAB. PLIN. ARRIAN. ubi fup.

muft

muft not omit obferving here, that the famous city of Nyfa, supposed to be built by Bacchus, according to Strabo, ftood in the tract between the Cophen and the Indus. Mount Meros, or Merus, ftood in the neighbourhood of Nyla, which was famous for Bacchus's prefervation, with his army, upon it, when the plague, and other diftempers, made a dreadful havock in the circumjacent plains. This occafioned the fable infinuating Bacchus to have been twice born, and taken out of Jupiter's thigh, if we will believe Diodorus Siculus, unpòs in Greek fignifying a thigh. The towns and petty nations, or cantons, mentioned here, we could not prevail upon ourfelves to omit, as fome authors of credit feem to annex them to India, though others, with more reason, separate them from India Propria, as being fituated to the weft of the Indus e.

TAXILA was a large and opulent city not far from the eaftern bank of the Indus, and the moft confiderable of all thofe feated between the Indus and the Hydafpes. It was celebrated for the wifdom of its laws, and political inftitutions. It is probable, that the Samarabria, Sambruceni, Bifambrite, Ofii, Antixeni, and others, inhabited part of the country where Taxila ftood. The whole tract, according to Pliny, went under the name of Amanda. It appears from fome good authors, that Alexander the Great, to perpetuate the memory of the victory he gained over Porus, and of his horfe Bucephalus, built two cities, which he called Nicea and Bucephala; the former of which probably ftood upon the eastern, and the latter upon the western, bank of the Hydafpes.

THE kingdom of Porus, who was defeated by Alexander, lay between the Hydafpes and the Acefines, and was one of the moft flourishing kingdoms of India, when that conqueror carried his victorious arms into this region. It was then extremely rich, and contained three hundred towns, according to Strabo. But the names of few of them have been handed down to us by any of the antient geographers 8.

THE Adraifta, an Indian canton, poffeffed a district to the east of the Acefines and the Hydraotes, near the eastern bank of which laft river ftood a city, which Alexander forced to a capitulation. The name of this city, according to Arrian and Curtius, was Pimprama. After the reduction of it,

e ARRIAN. de expedit. Alexand. lib. iv. c. 28. STRAB. 1. XV. DIOD. SIC. lib. ii. c. 88. PTOL. ubi fupra. Vid. etiam CHRISTOPH. CELLAR. geograph. antiq. lib. iii. c. 23. f ARRIAN. ubi fup. lib. v. c. 4. & c. 8. STRAB. ubi fupra. DIOD. Sic. lib. xvii. c. 95. CURT. 1. ix. c. 1, & alib. PLIN. lib. vi. C. 20, & alib. PTOL. geograph. lib. vii. c. 1.

geogr. lib. xv.

* STRAB.

Alexander penetrated into the territories of the Cathai, as Arrian calls them, or the Cathei, as we find them named by Strabo. That prince foon made himself mafter of Sangala, their metropolis, feated near the western bank of the Hyphafis, the laft river he paffed in his Indian expedition. The word Cathai here feems to be of Tartarian extraction, and amounts to a fort of proof, that the Tartars had extended their frontiers on that fide as far as the Hyphafis, at the time of this expedition; unless we will fuppofe, that Alexander's foldiers applied the name of a neighbouring nation to the tract between the Hydraotes and the Hyphafis by mistake. And that there is nothing abfurd in fuch a fuppofition, appears from hence, that the Macedonians called the (A) laxartes the Tanais; which made Curtius and Arrian to confound those two rivers, according to Pliny. In fine, as the Greeks must have had very imperfect and inadequate ideas of the parts of Tartary and India which they traverfed, we must expect to meet with many inaccuracies and mistakes in their authors, who have tranfmitted down to us relations of Alexander's military exploits in thofe countries. Nor did the ignorance of the Greeks in the Scythian, or Tartarian, and Indian languages, a little contribute hereto; it being almost impoffible for the Macedonian conqueror to find any perfon thoroughly verfed both in thofe languages and the Greek. But, not to infift longer upon this, Alexander erected twelve altars on the eastern bank of the Hyphafis, for a memorial, that the fpot on which they ftood was the limit of his conquefts, his troops refufing to follow him to the Ganges. Having, therefore, repaffed the H phafis, he made the neceffary difpofitions for a march towards the Hydafpes .

NEAR the confluence of the Hydraotes and the Acefines, the Oxydrace had their habitations. They were a fierce and valiant nation, as were alfo their neighbours the Malli, whose territories bordered upon the Hydraotes. Both these nations Alexander reduced by the fuperiority of his arms; but was in great

ARRIAN. ubi fup. lib. v. STRAB. ubi fupra. PLIN. lib. vi. c. 16, 17, & alib. CURT. lib. vi. & lib. vii. Vid. etiam CHRISTOPH. CELLAR. ubi fup. lib. iii. c. 21. & c. 23.

(A) The word laxartes was a corruption of Ikfertes, or Ykfert, which name it retains to this very day. In the antient Seytbo Mungalian language, Yk

fignifies great, and fart, or fert, a river; so that Ikfertes, or corruptly laxartes, denotes the great river (1).

(1) Van Strablenberg's introdu&. p. 8, 9.

danger

danger of his life, in an affault he made upon a city of the Oxydraca, if we will believe Curtius and Arrion, though that city belonged to the Malli, according to Strabo. In the neighbouring diftrict he is faid to have built a new city, to which, as Cellarius imagines, he gave the name of Alexandriai.

To the fouth of the Malli were fituated the Sabraca, a powerful nation, according to Curtius; near whom, in a foutherly direction, we may place the Sogdii, in whofe country Alexander built another city, which he likewise probably called Alexandria. The Muficani, whofe kingdom or dynafty we find mentioned by Oneficritus in Strabo, had ftill a more foutherly fituation; and, to the fouth of them, Curtius has fixed the feat of the Prafti. The kingdom of Sabus, or, as Diodorus Siculus will have it, Sambus, approached ftill nearer the Indian ocean. All the nations, or tribes, and places here mentioned, bordered upon the eastern bank of the Indus, as did likewife the town and ifland of Patala, the laft of which was formed by the mouths of that river. Some of the antients have denominated the ifland Patalena, Pattalena, and Patalia, and the city Patala or Pattala; this was built in the upper part of the island, and defended by a very strong citadel. The Porticani, another Indian tribe, feem to have been placed between the Muficani and Patalena, both by Diodorus Siculus and Strabo k.

BESIDES the nations and places above-mentioned, we find many more fituated on the fea-coaft between the mouths of the Indus and the Ganges, enumerated by Ptolemy. But as these were, for the most part, infignificant and obfcure in the days of that geographer, we fhall only touch upon a few of the moft confiderable of them here. For, it would be of no advantage to the bulk of our readers, nor even prove the least amusement to the more curious part of them, fhould we take any notice of the reft

THE three first places that present themselves to our view are Barygaza, Supara, and Simylla. Barygaza, or Burygaza Emporium, was a maritim city, and port, upon the river Namadus, in a fouthern direction from the mouths of the Indus. The neighbouring gulph, from it, received the denomination of Sinus Barygazenus. The true name of this town seems

i CURT. lib. ix. c. 4. ARRIAN. ubi fup. lib. vi. c. 11. STRAB: ubi fup. CELLAR. ubi fup. c. 23. * CURT. lib. ix. c. 8. DIOD. SIC. lib. xvii. c. 102. ARRIAN. ubi fupra, lib. vi. c. 17. PLIN. lib. vi. c. 20, 21. DIONYS. CHARACEN. perieg. v. 1093. ONESICRIT. apud Strabon. ubi fupra. ut et ipfe STRAB. ibid. ProL. geogr. ubi fup.

to