Ἰνδική 33.1

33.1

ἀλλὰ ἔπλωον γὰρ ἀπὸ τοῦ αἰγιαλοῦ ἄραντες τῇ γῇ προσεχέες, καὶ πλώσαντες σταδίους ὡς ἑπτακοσίους ἐν ἄλλῳ αἰγιαλῷ ὡρμίσαντο· Νεόπτανα οὔνομα τῷ αἰγιαλῷ.

He feared, moreover, since the headland stretched towards the south, lest they should find the country there a parched desert destitute of water and insufferably hot. This argument prevailed, and it appears to me that by this counsel Nearkhos saved the expedition, for all accounts represent this cape and the parts adjacent as an arid waste where water cannot possibly be procured. On resuming the voyage they sailed close to land, and after making about 700 stadia anchored on another shore called Neoptana. From this they weighed next day at dawn, and after a course of 100 stadia anchored at the mouth of the river Anamis in a country called Harmozeia. Here at last they found a hospitable region, one which was rich in every production except only the olive. Here accordingly they landed, and enjoyed a welcome respite from their many toils—heightening their pleasure by calling to remembrance what miseries they had suffered at sea and in the Ikhthyophagi country, where the shores were so sterile, and the natives so brute-like, and where they had been reduced to the last extremities of want. Here, also, some of them in scattered parties, leaving the encampment on the shore, wandered inland searching for one thing and another that might supply their several requirements. While thus engaged, they fell in with a man who wore a Greek mantle, and was otherwise attired as a Greek and spoke the Greek language.