Intercourse between India and the Western World from the Earliest Times to the Fall of Rome c11.29

c11.29

We may now turn to the detailed account given in the Periplus of the coasting voyage to India, as far as the writer’s personal experience went. Coming down the Red Sea, the first port trading direct with India was Muza, the modern Mocha, which sent its ships straight to Barygaza. Evidently these Arabs were rivals of the Greeks, and preferred to use their own vessels. We then come to Okelis, a roadstead with good water and anchorage. Aden (Arabia Felix) the great emporium (which, in the time of the Ptolemies, when the direct voyage to India was not made, had been almost as busy a port of exchange as Alexandria), had lately been sacked by its trade-rivals, and was now in ruins. The writer attributes its overthrow to “Caesar,” but as Roman arms never penetrated to Aden, it is supposed that we have here a misreading for Eleazar¹ (King of the Frankincense Country) or Charibael².