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 2 ACCOUNT OF INDIA BY STRABO the expedition, and in Nearchos, the chief commander of Alexander's fleet. Strabo's account of India is found in the first portion of the fifteenth book of his Geog- raphy, and I have reproduced it here with a few unim- portant omissions. He opens his description as fol- lows: indulgence, for the country lies at a very great distance, and few persons of our nation have seen it; and those who have visited it have seen only some portions of it; the greater part of what they relate is from hearsay, and even what they saw, they observed during their passage through the country with an army, and in great haste. For this reason they do not agree in their ac- counts of the same things, although they write about them as if they had examined them with the greatest care and attention. Some of these writers were fellow soldiers and fellow travellers, for example, those who belonged to the army which, under the command of Alexander, conquered Asia; yet they frequently con- tradict each other. If, then, they differ so much re- specting things which they had seen, what must we think of what they relate from hearsay? Nor do the writers who, many ages since Alexan- der's time, have given an account of these countries, nor even those who at the present time make voyages thither, afford any precise information. Apollodoros, for instance, author of the " History of Parthia," when he mentions the Greeks who occasioned the revolt of Baktriane from the Syrian kings, who were the sue-
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