On its steadiness and regularity,
and that by its change, the ships could be brought as safely and quickly
back from India, as they had reached it, the ancients, who at first only
ventured to the mouth of the Indus, gradually made their way down the
western coast of the Indian peninsula.
The Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, a work which has been frequently
referred to, is rich in materials to illustrate the geographical knowledge
and the commercial enterprize of the ancients in the part of the world to
which it relates. We have already assigned its date to the age of Nero. Our
limits will prevent us from giving a full account of this work; we shall
therefore, in the first place, give a short abstract of the geographical
knowledge which it displays, and in the next place, illustrate from it, the
nature of the commerce carried on, on the Red Sea, the adjacent coasts of
Africa and Arabia, and the ports of India, which are noticed in it.
At the time of Strabo, the geography of the ancients did not extend, on the
eastern coast of Africa, further to the south than a promontory called Noti
Cornu, (the Southern Horn,) which seems to have been in about 12-1/2
degrees north latitude.
