Note 37 — THE VOYAGE OF NEARKHOS.

The general effect of the monsoon Nearkhos certainly knew; he was a native of Crete, and a resident at Amphipolis, both which lie within the track of the annual or Etesian winds, which commencing from the Hellespont and probably from the Euxine sweep the Egêan sea, and stretching quite across the Mediterranean to the coast of Africa, entered through Egypt to Nubia or Ethiopia. Arrian has accordingly mentioned the monsoon by the name of the Etesian winds; his expression is remarkable, and attended with a precision that does his accuracy credit. These Etesian winds, says he, do not blow from the north in the summer months as with us in the Mediterranean, but from the South. On the commencement of winter, or at latest on the setting of the Pleiades, the sea is said to be navigable till the winter solstice (Anab. VI. 21-1) Vincent I. 43 sq.