Page:History of India Vol 9.djvu/25

 ..-.', - **'" t*. AN INDIAN DECORATIVE DESIGN. CHAPTER I ACCOUNT OF INDIA BY THE GREEK WHITER STRABO First Century B. C. AMONG the interesting early accounts of India is one by the Greek geographer Strabo, who wrote in the first century before the Christian era. Strabo was an extensive traveller, and although he had not visited India itself, he had journeyed sufficiently in distant lands to be able to judge of the general char- acteristics of countries described by others, even if he himself had not seen them. His account of Hindustan he draws chiefly from Greek records of Alexander's campaigns and of the historians of Seleukos. He fre- quently cites Megasthenes and Onesikritos, who accom- panied the Macedonian conqueror on his victorious march through the East, but he places more confidence in Aristoboulos, who was likewise with Alexander on i