Intercourse between India and the Western World from the Earliest Times to the Fall of Rome c10.31.2

c10.31.2

Here he conciliated the natives by presents, and received much kindness from them in return, for they gave him water and pilots for the homeward journey. He wrote down, like the scholar he was, several words of their language. But the strangest thing that happened there was the discovery of a ship’s prow carved in the form of a horse. The natives declared that it belonged to a strange ship which came from the west². Eudoxus took the prow back to Alexandria. Here he was again basely robbed³, on the plea that he had misappropriated the ship’s cargo. But some sailors declared that the prow was that of a Cadiz ship, and one even asserted that it was the actual prow of a vessel which had sailed away “beyond the river Lixus in Mauretania” and had never been heard of again. Eudoxus now shook the dust of Alexandria from off his feet, and sailed home. The information he had acquired presented two fascinating problems. Had the mysterious vessel whose prow he had found, really rounded Africa? And if so, was it possible to reach India by following this course? Eudoxus determined to try. Having realised his whole fortune, he fitted out a ship, with which he sailed to Italy, Marseilles, and Cadiz, collecting subscriptions for the great undertaking. Everywhere the project was hailed with enthusiasm, and Eudoxus was able to fit out at Cadiz a large vessel with two light boats for exploring the coast.