Lastly, The Name India Was Used So Vaguely
By The Ancients, Even By Strabo Occasionally, That It Is Not Improbable He
Meant By It, Merely The Coast Of Arabia, Beyond The Straits.
It is well
asked by Dr. Vincent, in reference to this account of Strabo, might not
that geographer, from
Knowing the ships brought home Indian commodities,
have supposed that they sailed to India, when in reality they went no
farther than Hadramant, in Arabia, or Mosullon, on the coast of Africa,
where they found the produce of India?
It is not, however, meant to be denied that a few vessels, in the time of
Ptolemies, reached some part of India from the Red Sea, by coasting all the
way. The author of the Periplus of the Red Sea, informs us that, before the
discovery of the monsoon, by Hippalus, small vessels had made a coasting
voyage from Cana, in Arabia, to the Indies. But these irregular and
trifling voyages are deserving of little consideration, and do not militate
against the position we have laid down and endeavoured to prove, that in
the time of the Ptolemies the commerce of Egypt was confined within the
limits of the Red Sea, partly from the want of skill and enterprize, and
from the dangers that were supposed to exist beyond the straits, but
principally because the commodities of India could be procured in the ports
of Sabaea.
Many instances have already been given of the patronage which the Ptolemies
bestowed on commerce, of the facilities and advantages they afforded, and
of the benefits which the science of geography derived from the library and
observatory of Alexandria:
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