Intercourse between India and the Western World from the Earliest Times to the Fall of Rome c12.12

c12.12

Before we find fault with a system which led to such extraordinary results, we should remember the difficulties with which Ptolemy had to contend. He was dependent for his information upon ignorant sailors, who often misspelt hopelessly the very names of the ports at which they touched. He had only their word for the direction in which they sailed from port to port, and this was often entirely wrong; and for distance, as he himself confesses, he had to be content with calculating from the average run of a ship per day, with deductions to allow for irregularities of the coast, and other disturbing factors. The result of attempting to plot a map upon such data may be seen from the charts of Ptolemy. It led to the strangest contortions of the coast of India itself. Ptolemy seems to be quite unaware of the southward trend of the great peninsula; he thinks that Barygaza is very little to the north of Cape Kory, while Palura is actually to the south of it! In fact he pictures the coast of India, and of the country beyond, as running from west to east in a more or less continuous line, only broken by the Gangetic Gulf or Bay of Bengal. From Cape Kory to the Ganges, we have a series of towns, of which the most interesting is perhaps one, not named, which lies between Maesolia and Palura. Maesolia, the Masalia of the *Periplus*, is probably the Masulipatam district, and Palura, at the beginning of the Gangetic Gulf, lies a little further to the north¹. From this place ships set out on the voyage to the Far East². Crossing the Bay of Bengal, they arrived at Sada in the Silver Country³, and from Sada to Temala or Tamala near Cape Negrais. From here to a port called Zaba⁴, was a voyage of twenty days; and from Zaba about the same distance to Kattigara. On this part of the voyage, however, Ptolemy admits himself to be very doubtful. His information is taken from Marinus, who in turn derived his from a trader named Alexander. Alexander's expression "some days," says Ptolemy, may mean anything,—few or many.