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If we may credit Pliny, the Greek merchants of Egypt for some years after
the discovery of the monsoon, did not venture further out to sea than was
absolutely necessary, by crossing the widest part of the entry of the
Persian Gulf, to reach Patala at the mouth of the Indus; but they
afterwards found shorter routes, or rather stretched more to the south, so
as to reach lower down on the coast of India: they also enlarged their
vessels, carried cargoes of greater value, and in order to beat off the
pirates, which then as at present infested this part of the Indian coast,
they put on board their vessels a band of archers. Myos Hormos, or
Berenice, was the port on the Red Sea from which they sailed; in forty days
they arrived at Musiris, on the west coast of India. The homeward passage
was begun in December or January, when the north east monsoon commenced;
this carried them to the entrance of the Red Sea, up which to their port
they were generally favored by southerly winds.
As there is no good reason to believe that the ancients made regular
voyages to India, previously to the discovery of the monsoons; yet, as it
is an undoubted fact that some of the exclusive productions of that
country, particularly cinnamon, were obtained by them, through their
voyages on the Red Sea; it becomes an important and interesting enquiry, by
what means these productions were brought to those places on this sea, from
which the Romans obtained them.
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