of nourishing food. For since there is a double rainfall in the course of each year one in the winter season, when the sowing of wheat takes place as in other countries, and the second at the time of the summer solstice, which is the proper season for sowing rice and bosporum, as well as sesamum and millet—the inhabitants of India almost always gather two harvests annually; and even should one of the sowings prove more or less abortive, they are always sure of the other crop. The fruits, moreover, of spontaneous growth, and the esculent roots, which grow in marshy places and are of varied sweetness, afford abundant sustenance for man."
The excellent manufactures of India were known to the traders of Phoenicia and in the markets of Western Asia and Egypt long before the Christian era. Megasthenes naïvely says that the Indians were "well skilled in the arts, as might be expected of men who inhale a pure air and drink the very finest water." The soil, too, has " under ground numerous veins of all sorts of metals, for it contains much gold and silver, and copper and iron in no small quantity, and even tin and other metals, which are employed in making articles of use and ornament, as well as the implements and accoutrements of war."
With regard to finery and ornament, Megasthenes says that "in contrast to the general simplicity of their style, they love finery and ornament. Their robes are worked in gold and ornamented with precious stones, and they also wear flowered garments of the finest
