6 ACCOUNT OF INDIA BY STRABO country called Patalene, which resembles the Delta of Egypt. By the exhalation of vapours from such vast rivers, and by the Etesian winds, as Eratosthenes affirms, India is watered by summer rains, and the plains are inundated. . . . Nearchos, speaking of the accretion of earth formed THE GANGES AT BENARES. by the rivers, adduces the following instances. The plains of Hermos, Kaystros, Maiandros, and Kaikos have these names because they have been formed by the soil which has been carried over the plains by the rivers; or rather they were produced by the fine and soft soil brought down from the mountains; whence the plains are, as it were, the offspring of the rivers, and it is rightly said that the plains belong to the
