332

THE INDIAN AITTIQUABY.

[DECEMBER, 1879.

Persian Gulf and the peninsula of India.11 The
Pei ipUs could not have been compiled from a single
voyage ; indeed, at that period, the ships were
committed to the monsoon, and 'did not approach
the coast except where they had to receive or
deliver goods. Now, here, the narrator proceeds
from one port to another without seeming to quit
the coast. For this it would be necessary that a
ship should be under his orders, as might no
tloubt be done for a political personage, but this is
not natural. In attributing the compilation of the
Periplus to the agent of a company, it is clear that
this agent might hare seen a number of the places
himself, and that, for the rest, he was aided by
notes supplied by his colleagues. On the whole,
I am in accord with Dodwell, in taking the ex*
pression emperors in the plural. Doubtless some
scholars have remarked that this circumstance is
no u. a sufficient argument, and that the word em-
perors might designate emperors in general ; the
remark is just ; but as we shall see this is not the
only argument.18 . . . . ........

The vessels sailed from MyosHormos, a port
hi the same latitude with K o p t o s and Thebes,
and it was from these two cities* that the mer-
chandise of eastern Asia descended the Nile to
Alexandria, by the same route that the commerce
of Europe was conveyed to the shores of the Bed
Sea, A joad, of which traces are still found, led
from the Bed Sea to the Nile. All that in Egypt
related to the navigation of the eastern seas,
formed a special administration entrusted to the
direction of the functionary charged with the ad-
ministration of Upper Egypt.13 None but ships
of small draught went up as far as the present
town of Suez.

This state of things rose from the dangers pre-
sented by the navigation of the sea towards the
novtb* which has only been changed in. these latter
times from the application of steam to navigation.
An A rab'writer in the first half of the tenth century
of our era says ; " Vessels from the Persian Gulf
which enter the Bed Sea stop at Je d d a. They
dare not advance beyond that) because of the
difficulties of the navigation and the great number
of rocks which rise from the water. Add* to this,

" VoptaniB, JEKtforto Augwito, on Kratis.

" M.Vmende Saint Marian in Le *wrd do I'Afrique
&ws I'a&ijwttf grecaue et romow*, strongly supports the
opinion of H. Oh. Hfiller. l?or toe western shore of the Bed
Sea and iiha coast of Zanzibar, he has compared (pp. 195
ff.Vtlie account of Ptolemy andtfcaiof the PaKpHis, and is
taken withfce idea feat Ptolemy id not only later than
iheadfcoro* the Panpfcte, bat tart when writing he had
it undar hi* ey*. Now toe atefcement of the Perivlfa is
almost from beginning i6 end a rectification of that of
PtolftW. At iW 3 Ptolemy n*s jumbled matters w*
tnust «Axftft &a* ita iHbsfeions geometer, .who appears
aeret fe> hate left bis poultry, had only defect*?* info*-

after him, in respect to 'tiw memoir of h» pre-

that on the coasts there is neither government nor
inhabited places. A ship that sails in this sea
requires to seek every night for a place of refuge
for fear of being dashed against the rooks; it pro*
ceeds by day but stops by night. This sea indeed
is foggy and liable to disagreeable exhalations.
Nothing good is found at the bottom of this sea
nor at its surface."1*

In the time of Pliny the naturalist, the Boman
vessels did not come even so far as M y o s H o r-
m o s, but stopped to the south of it at B e r e n i k 6
under the tropic of Cancer and almost in the
latitude of Syene,15 A special road placed this
port in communication with the Nile valley. Why
this difference P We know that in the third century
of our era the barbarous populations called B1 e m-
y e s pressed Egypt on the south and threatened
the security of the caravans.16 This was probably
the cause of the change.

The ship took a southern course. Under
Augustus, Abyssinia was subject to a queen who
lived in the interior* in the district called the Isle
of M e r o e. In the 3rd century the capital had
been removed near the coast to As urn, a few
marches from the sea, and having Adulis, a
place much frequented, for its port. At the time
of the arrival of the ship at A d a 1 i s, the country
was under a native prince, who is called Z^cr/coXi??
and who like most barbaric princes of that age was
initiated in Greek letters. It is this prince's
name which serves as M. Charles Muller's chief
argument for placing the Perfpftb about the year
80 of our era.

The Ebhiopien chronicles, properly speaking, do
not commence till after the 10th century, For
the preceding periods we have only lists of the
names of kings, which do not always agree among
themselves. Those lists were published by Salt
in 1816,ir and reproduced with more exactitude in
1853 by Dillmann, a German orientalist." Ordi-
narily the names of persons are preceded by the
letters e-Oj of which the meaning is not known.
Now on the authority of Salt, Miiller remarks that
tinder a date corresponding to a little before 80 A.D*
there was a king called HSglS, and he does
not hesitate to recognize in this the name of

r his position to supply so far what
as the reputations of both are saved

decessor, profited t
was still wanting j t
(see below, p, 877).

19 Recueil des inscriptions grecques et lattoes da V Egypt,
par Lefcronae, t, n. pt 85, He was Srpanryo* ri)ff 'nfliwjr
icai *Łputfpas daXaaroip,

" folationg des voyages des Artibes et des P&rsans damp
Vlfide d U Qhtoe, torn, Lp. 143.

» Plin, fltt*. Nat, lib. VI. c, xxvi.

18 See the observations of Letrtrme, Wn. de VAcad.
des insvr. torn. IX. p. 156; torn. X. pp. 135 sectq.

17 Salt, Abyssinia, pp. 460 ff.j conf. also IwZ. Ant.
Y6LVII.p,385.

M JowrtttJ of the German OrinMl Sob. voL TO. p. 888.