Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/151

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by one of the branches of the Indus into Cashmir, running almost in a continuous line with the road through Asia Minor mentioned by Herodotus. This great eastern route has been fully described by both Strabo and Pliny, who derived their knowledge chiefly from the writings of the companions of Alexander.

According to these accounts, it appears to have gone directly east in about 36° N. latitude to Ecbatana, the capital of Media, and thence to the Caspian gates, through which everything coming from the west necessarily passed. On the north lay the Hyrcanian mountains; on the south an impenetrable desert; and on one portion of the route there was the narrow defile, about eight Roman miles in length, which Pliny describes as having been cut through the rocks. From the Caspian Pass, the road led with various considerable turns till it reached Peucela on the Indus. From Alexandria in Ariis (Herát), and Ortospanum (Kâbul), other routes turned off into Bactriana, and thence proceeded into Great Tatary and Central Asia. As there was considerable commercial intercourse between the neighbouring inhabitants of the city of Bactra (Balkh) and of Upper India, another route ran due north to Marakanda (Samarcand); and Heeren is of opinion that caravans traversed the desert from Badakhshan to Serica (China), and from that country to the Ganges.

Herodotus relates that from the Greek establishments on the Black Sea there were commercial routes through Central Asia, over the Ural Mountains to the country of the Calmucks of Great