Note 540 — Chapter I

There is no doubt that the expressions which Deimachus appears to have used were correct. It seems that he wished to show that beyond the Indus the coasts of India, instead of running in a direction almost due east, as the Greeks imagined they did, sloped in a direction between the south and the north-east, which is correct enough. As Deimachus had resided at Palibothra, he had had an opportunity of obtaining more exact information relative to the form of India than that which was current at Alexandria. This seems the more certain, as Megasthenes, who had also lived at Palibothra, stated that by measuring India from the Caucasus to the southern extremity of the continent, you would obtain, not its length, as the Greeks imagined, but its breadth. These correct accounts were obstinately rejected by the speculative geographers of Alexandria, because they imagined a certain uninhabitable zone, into which India ought not to penetrate.