Page:The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago.djvu/50

Rh Patale with the west wind (Favonius) which they call there the Hippalos, a distance reckoned at 1,435 miles. In the next generation it was judged to be both a safer and nearer course to proceed from the same promontory direct to Sigerus, a port of India. And this mode of navigation was preserved for a long time, until merchants discovered a shorter route and the profits of India were thus brought nearer to hand; The voyage is now made every year with cohorts of archers on board the ships, on account of the pirates who infest those seas. It will be worth while to set forth their whole course trom Egypt, accurate information concerning it being now for the first time available. The subject is one worthy of attention, there being no year in which India does not drain our Empire of at least 55,000,000 sesterces (£486,979) sending us in return wares which are sold for a hundred times their original value.”

“They begin the navigation in the middle of summer before the rising of the Dog-star or immediately after its appearance, and arrive in about thirty days at Ocelis in Arabia, or Cane in the frankincense-bearing region. There is also a third port called Muza which is frequented not by those sailing to India, but by the merchants, who trade in frankincense and other Arabian perfumes. In the interior is a city, the capital of the kingdom called Sapphar and another called Sane. But for those whose course is directed to India it is most advantageous to start from Ocelis. From thence they sail with the wind called Hippalos in forty days to the first commercial station of India named Muziris, which is not much to be recommended on account of the neighbouring pirates who occupy a place called Nitrias: nor does it furnish any abundance of merchandise. Moreover the station of shipping is far from the land and cargoes have to be loaded and unloaded in barges. The ruler of the country at the time of which I