On this supposition, the
route may be traced in the following manner: the produce and manufactuers
of India were collected at Patala, a town near the mouth of the Indus; they
were carried in vessels up this river as far as it was navigable, where
they were landed, and conveyed by caravans to the Oxus: being again
shipped, they descended this river to the point where it approached nearest
to the Ochus, to which they were conveyed by caravans. By the Ochus they
were conveyed to the Caspian, and across it to the mouth of the river
Cyrus, which was ascended to where it approached nearest the Phasis:
caravans were employed again, till the merchandize were embarked at
Serapana on the Phasis, and thus brought to the Black Sea. According to
Pliny, Pompey took great pains to inform himself of this route; and he
ascertained, that by going up the Cyrus the goods would be brought within
five day's journey of the Phasis. There seems to have been some plan formed
at different times, and thought of by the Emperor Claudius, to join Asia to
Europe and the Caspian Sea, by a canal from the Cimmerian Bosphorus to the
Caspian Sea.
The route which we have thus particularly described was sometimes deviated
from by the merchants: they carried their goods up the Oxus till it fell
into lake Aral; crossing this, they transported them in caravans to the
Caspian, and ascending the Wolga to its nearest approach to the Tanais,
they crossed to the latter by land, and descended it to the sea of Azoph.
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