choosing the proper seasons, the one would carry him out and the other bring
him home.
Pliny's account of the voyage to India.
The course of the voyage, and even the time occupied by it, is minutely
to detailed by the elder Pliny.[1] The cargo destined for India being embarked on
the Nile, was conveyed by it and a short canal to Coptos, a distance of 303 miles.
At Coptos the land carriage commenced, and was continued 258 miles ta Berenice,
on the west shore of the Red Sea. From Berenice the vessel started about
midsummer, and after a short halt near the Straits of Bab-el-mandeb, took its
final departure usually for Musiris on the Malabar coast. The whole time
occupied, on an average, from the Mediterranean to India was a little more than
three months, or ninety-four days. Of these, the inland navigation to Coptos
occupied twelve, the land transport to Berenice twelve, the voyage down the
Red Sea thirty, and the voyage across the Indian Ocean forty days. The time
occupied by the Red Sea voyage seems out of all proportion to the other, but
may be accounted for partly by the difficulty of navigating a sea notorious for
baffling winds and storms, and perhaps partly also by delays which may have been occasioned by calling on both sides of the coast for the purpose of completing the cargo. The homeward voyage, commenced early in December, appears to have been the far more tedious of the two.
Though the Persians had failed to take advantage of their maritime proximity to India, the Romans had no sooner carried their eastern frontier to the
- ↑ Plinii Historia Naturalis, b. vi. c. 23.
