the charge of keeping an itinerary of his marches, and, as far as they had opportunities, they surveyed the countries through which he passed. Many of the valuable materials contained in the Journal of Nearchus, were happily preserved by Arrian.* Whether Clitarchus of Eolia, who likewise wrote a history of Alexander, accompanied him to India, is uncertain. But the works principally consulted by Arrian, in his account of the expedition of Alexander, were the journals of Ptolemy Lagus and Aristobulus. They were both favourite generals of Alexander, much about his person, and no doubt had access to, and made use of the topographical journals of Diognetus and Beton, and which are supposed to have been still extant when Strabo and Pliny wrote. Ptolemy and Aristobulus,

* It is to be noticed that Strabo has copied this Journal as evidently as Arrian, and that he is indebted to Nearchus for many facts; which, however extraordinary they might appear in his age, have been confirmed by modern observation."-Vincent, vol. i. p. 69.

there is one, said to have been composed by Daimachus, who, after the return of Megasthenes from Palibothra, was sent thither by Seleucus as ambassador to Allitrochades the successor of Sandrocotus; and also by another Patrocles, who, under Seleucus and his son Antiochus Soter, appears to have governed provinces of their dominions contiguous to the Indus, and to have visited India.*

It was on account of the supposed fabulous narratives contained in the works of former authors, that Strabo preferred those of Eratosthenes and Patrocles, though the former had never visited India at all; and though Patrocles, according to Dr. Vincent, and which, indeed, seems probable, had never been beyond the Panjab, that is, not farther, and perhaps not so far as Alexander had been, whereas Megasthenes and Daimachus had resided on the banks of the Ganges.

The accuracy of the ancients in the geo

* See Plin. lib. vi. c. 17.

graphy of India Intra Gangem, when compared with their means of acquiring a knowledge of it, must surprise all those who may attentively consider the subject. Rennell says that the ancient authors will be found at least as correct in their observations, and in the positions given by them to places, and to have had as just an idea of the country Intra Gangem, as European geographers possessed forty years before the date of his Memoir, that is, only about sixty years ago.* The journals of Ptolemy, Aristobulus, and Nearchus, long formed the basis of the geography of India, and of the labours of subsequent authors on that subject. It has been observed, that The Antiquité Géographique de l'Inde, by that great modern geographer D'Anville, is far from standing on a level with the

See in the "Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh," April, 1816, an "Essay by Mr. Hugh Murray, on the Ancient Geography of Central and Modern Asia, with Illustrations derived from recent discoveries in the North of India."