The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c26.70

v1.c26.70

The climate of the country, the new laws of the weather, struck the Greeks. They had never known anything like the rains which broke upon them in the summer of 326 b.c. Aristobulus¹ recorded that rains began when the European army reached Takshaçilā in the spring of 326 and became continuous, with the prevalence of the monsoon, all the time they were marching eastward along the foothills of the Himālayas. At the same season the following year the Europeans were voyaging down the Lower Indus. Here they had no rain. The rainfall of Sind, which is unrefreshed by either of the monsoons, is scanty and irregular. Almost rainless seasons are the rule. The cause of the summer rains Eratosthenes found partly in the moisture brought by the monsoon (and in so far he was correct), partly in the exhalations of the Indian rivers².