Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/135

 CHAP. i. 23. INTRODUCTION. 121 run due west and east, 1 divides, by means of this line, the habit- able earth into two portions, which he calls the northern and southern divisions ; each of these he again essays to subdivide into as many smaller partitions as practicable, which he deno- minates sections. 2 He makes India the first section of the southern part, and Ariana 3 the second; these two countries pos- sessing a good outline, he has been able not only to give us an accurate statement of their length and breadth, but an almost geometrically exact description of their figure. He tells us that the form of India is rhomboidal, being washed on two of its sides by the southern and eastern oceans [respectively], which do not deeply indent its shores. The two remaining sides are contained by its mountains and the river [Indus], so that it presents a kind of rectilinear figure. 4 As to Ariana, he considered three of its sides well fitted to form a parallelogram ; but of the western side he could give no regular definition, as it was in- habited by various nations ; nevertheless he attempts an idea of it by a line drawn from the Caspian Gates 5 to the limits of Carmania, which border on the Persian Gulf. This side he calls western, and that next the Indus eastern, but he does not tell us they are parallel to each other ; neither does he say this of the other sides, one bounded by the mountains, and the other by the sea ; he simply calls them north and south. 23. Having in this manner but imperfectly traced the out- lines of his second section, the third section, for various rea- sons, is still less exact. The first cause has been already explained, viz. that the line from the Caspian Gates to Car- mania is not clearly defined, as the side of the section is common both to the third and second sections. Secondly, on account of the Persian Gulf interrupting the continuity of 1 This is rather free, but the text could not well otherwise be rendered intelligibly. 2 atypayidaQ is the Greek word ; for which section is a poor equivalent, but the best we believe the language affords. 3 The name of a considerable portion of Asia. 4 From Eratosthenes' description of India, preserved by our author in his 1 5th book, we gather that he conceived the country to be something in the form of an irregular quadrilateral, having one right, two obtuse, and one acute angle, consequently none of its sides parallel to each other. On the whole Eratosthenes' idea of the country was not near so exact as that of Megasthenes. 5 The Caspian Gates are now known as the Strait of Firouz Koh.