The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c25.183

v1.c25.183

The account which Nearchus left of his voyage lay before Strabo and Arrian, as well as the subsidiary, more anecdotal, account of Onescritus, who acted as pilot. Through later writers we still possess an abstract of the book of Nearchus. To fit the names in it to modern sites is, of course, an interesting geographical puzzle, which will never perhaps be made out with certainty. The place from which the fleet started, ‘Wooden Town’ (Xylinē Polis) the changes in the coast line have made indiscoverable. The haven to which the Greeks came after some days’ sail, and which they named ‘Alexander’s Haven,’ perhaps corresponded in position with Karāchi. Here the Greeks waited twenty-five days for the wind to change. They built a stone wall round their camp on shore to protect it from the Arava tribesmen, and spent their enforced leisure in fishing up oysters and mussels from the sea. At the mouth of the Hab river (Arabis) they again came to a good harbour (Pliny’s statement that Nearchus built a town there is probably a misunderstanding). Beyond the Hab river they coasted along the country of the Oritae, where Leonnatus either just before or soon after fought his decisive battle with the tribesmen. Nearchus does not seem to have detected the mouth of the Purali, where Hephaestion had just traced the walls of an Alexandria, but at Cocala, probably somewhere near, fresh stores had been deposited for the fleet by Alexander’s order, and there was an exchange of men between Nearchus and Leonnatus. At the mouth of the river Tomerus (Hingol) the Greeks found some 600 half-naked inhabitants ‘living in stuffy huts’ who made show of hostility, but were easily put to flight by the mail-clad Europeans. Here they remained five days to repair the ships, and then sailed on past the promontory of Malana (modern Rās Malan) the limit of the Oritae and of India².