the river Indus; who sailed from Caspatyrus, a town at its source, and near the territories of Pactya, eastward to the sea; thence, turning westward, he arrived at the place where the Phoenicians had formerly sailed round Africa, after which Darius subdued the Indians, and became master of that coast. His conquests, however, were not extensive, as they did not reach beyond the territory watered by the Indus; yet the acquisition was very important, as the revenue derived from the conquered territory, according to Herodotus, was near a third of that of the whole Persian empire. But very little knowledge of the country was acquired by this expedition of Darius, for the Greeks paid no regard to the transactions of barbarians; and as for Scylax, he told so many incredible stories in the account he gave of his voyage, that he was disbelieved in almost every thing, whether true or false. The Greeks acquired much more knowledge of India by Alexander's expedition, although be went no farther into the country than the Setlege (Hyphasis). See HINDOSTAN. The breadth of this district, from Ludhana on the Setlege to Attock on the Indus, is computed to be 259 geographical miles in a straight line; and Alexander's march, computed in the same manner, did not exceed 200; nevertheless by the spreading of his numerous army over the country, and the exact measurement and delineation of all his movements by men of science whom he employed, a very extensive knowledge of the western part of India was obtained. Of this celebrated conqueror's exploits, previous to this expedition, an account will be found under the article MACEDON.

According to major Rennel, the space of country through which Alexander sailed on the Indus was not less than 1000 miles; and as, during the whole of that navigation, he obliged the nations on both sides of the river to submit to him, we may be certain that the country on each side was explored to some distance. An exact account, not only of his military operations, but of every thing worthy of notice relating to the countries through which he passed, was preserved in the journals of his three officers, Lagus, Nearchus, and Aristobulus; and these journals Arrian followed in the composition of his history. From these authors we learn, that, in the time of Alexander, the western part of India was possessed by seven very powerful monarchs. The territory of Porus, which Alexander first conquered and then restored to him, is said to have contained no fewer than 2000 towns; and the king of the Prasii had assembled an army of 20,000 cavalry, 2000 armed chariots, and a great number of elephants, to oppose the Macedonian monarch on the banks of the Ganges. The navigable rivers with which the Panjab country abounds, afforded then, and still continue to afford, an intercourse from one part to another by water: and, as these rivers probably had then many ships on them for commerce, Alexander might easily collect all the number he is said to have had, viz. 2000; since it is reported, that Semiramis was opposed by double the number on the Indus, when she invaded India.

The country on each side the Indus was

found, in the time of Alexander, to be in no degree inferior in population to the kingdom of Porus. The climate, soil, and productions of India, as well as the manners and customs of the inhabitants, are exactly described, and the descriptions found to correspond in a surprising manner with modern accounts. The stated change of seasons, now known by the name of monsoons, the periodical rains, the swellings and inundations of the rivers, with the appearance of the country during the time they continue, are particularly mentioned. The descriptions of the inhabitants are equally particular; their living entirely upon vegetables; their division into tribes or casts, with many of the particularities of the modern Hindoos. The military operations, however, extended but a very little way into India properly so called; no further indeed than the modern province of Lahore, and the countries on the banks of the Indus, from Moultan to the sea. To secure the obedience of those countries, Alexander built, it is said, a number of fortified cities; and, the farther eastward he extended his conquests, the more necessary did he find this task. Three he built in India itself; two on the banks of the Hydaspes, and a third on the Acesines, both navigable rivers, falling into the Indus, after they have united their streams. By these he intended not only to keep the adjacent countries in awe, but to promote a commercial intercourse between different parts. With this view, on his return to Susa, he surveyed the course of the Euphrates and Tigris, causing the cataracts or dams to be removed, which the Persian monarchs had built to obstruct the navigation of these rivers. After the navigation was thus opened, he proposed that the valuable commodities of India should be imported into the other parts of his dominions by the Persian Gulf, and through the Red Sea to Alexandria, and thence dispersed over Europe.

On the death of Alexander, the eastern part of his dominions devolved first on Pytho, the son of Agenor, and afterwards on Seleucus. The latter was sensible of the advantages of keeping India in subjection. With this view, he undertook an expedition into that country, partly to confirm his authority, and partly to defend the Macedonian territories against Sandracottus, king of the Prasii. The particulars of his expedition are very little known; Justin being the only author who mentions them. Plutarch tells us that Seleucus carried his arms farther into India than Alexander; and Pliny, whose authority is of considerably greater weight than either, corroborates the testimony of Plutarch in this instance, though his language is obscure. Bayer thinks it implies that Seleucus marched from the Hyphasis to the Hysudrus, thence to Palibothra, and thence to the mouth of the Ganges; the distances of the principal stations being marked, and amounting in all to 2244 Roman miles. But Dr. Robertson considers it very improbable that the expedition of Seleucus should have been continued so far, as in that case the ancients would have had a more accurate knowledge of this part of the country than they seem ever to have possessed.' The career of Seleucus in the east was stopped by Antigonus, who prepared

which fitteth them be their virtues, let polity acknowledga itself indebted to religion, godliness being the chiefest top and well-spring of all true virtues, even as God is of all things. Hooker. He for himself

Indebted and undone, has nought to bring.

Milton. Let us represent to our souls the love and beneficence for which we daily stand indebted to God.

Rogers. Few consider how much we are indebted to government, because few can represent how wretched mankind would be without it. Atterbury.

This blest alliance may
Th' indebted nation bounteously repay.

Granville.

We are wholly indebted for them to our ancestors. Swift.

Thy forehead wrapt in clouds,

A leafless branch thy sceptre, and thy throne,
A sliding car indebted to no wheels. Cowper.

For the most valuable comforts of life we are indebted to the social and benevolent attentions of one another. Beattie.

Friends fail-slaves fly-and all betray-and more Than all the most indebted--but a heart That loves without self-love. 'Tis here--now prove it. Byron. Fr. indecence; Lat. in and decet. Any

INDECENCY, n. s. INDECENT, adj.

INDECENTLY, adv.

Sthing unbecoming;

any thing contrary to good manners; something wrong, but scarcely criminal: unfit to be seen of heard.

And it is abominable, because it abounds in filthy and indecent images. Beattie.

INDECIDUOUS, adj. Lat. in, de, cado In and deciduous. Not falling; not shed. Used of trees that do not shed their leaves in winter.

We find the statue of the sun framed with rays about the head, which were the indeciduous and unshaken locks of Apollo. Browne.

INDECLINABLE, adj. Fr. indeclinable; Lat. indeclinabilis. Not varied by terminations. Pondo is an indeclinable word, and when it is joined to numbers it signifies libra. Arbuthnot.

INDECOROUS, adj. › Lat. in, decus, indeINDECORUM, n. s. Scorus. Conduct unsuitable, unsemly, and improper: unbecoming. What can be more indecorous than for a creature to violate the commands, and trample upon the authority, of that awful Excellence to whom he owes his life? Norris.

The soft address, the castigated grace, Are indecorums in the modern maid. Young. INDEED', adv. Belg. inde dadt; Teut. inder that, i.e. that is truly. See DEED. reality; in truth: used emphatically to express

In

superiority, as above the common rate: this is to be granted; a particle of connexion. It is used sometimes as a slight assertion or recapitulation in a sense hardly perceptible or explicable, and, though some degree of obscure power is perceived, might, even where it is properly enough inserted, beommitted without being missed. To denote concession in comparisons.

Some, who have not deserved judgment of death, have been for their goods' sake caught up and carried streight to the bough: a thing indeed very pitiful and horrible. Spenser.

Though such assemblies he had indeed for Religion's sake, hurtful nevertheless they may prove as well in regard of their fitness to serve the turn of hereticks, and such as privily will venture to instil their poison into new minds. Hooker.

Then didst thou utter, I am yours for ever, 'Tis grace indeed. Shakspeare. Against these forces were prepared to the number of near one hundred ships; not so great of bulk indeed, but of a more nimble motion. Bacon.

I said I thought it was confederacy between the juggler and the two servants; tho' indeed I had no reason so to think. Id.

Borrows in mean affairs his subjects' pains; But things of weight and consequence indeed, Himself doth in his chamber them debate.

I dread it, indeed, but upon far other grounds; ! dread it from a consciousness of the tremendous power Great Britain possesses of pushing hostilities in which she may be engaged to consequences which I shudder to contemplate. Canning.

INDEFATIGABLE, adj. › Spanish and INDEFATIGABLY, adv. $ French, indefatigable; Lat. in and defatigo. Unwearied; not exhausted with labor; diligent: without intermission, and without tiring.

Who shall spread his airy flight,
Unborne with indefatigable wings,
Over the vast abrupt.

Milton

A mar. indefatigably zealous in the service of the church and state, and whose writings have highly deserved of both. Dryden.

to invade the western part of his dominions. The former was therefore obliged to conclude a treaty with Sandracottus; but Dr. Robertson is of opinion, that during the lifetime of Seleucus, which continued forty-two years after the death of Alexander, no diminution of the Macedonian territories took place. With a view of keeping up a friendly intercourse with the Indian prince, Seleucus sent Megasthenes, one of Alexander's officers, to Palibothra, capital of the kingdom of the Prasii, on the banks of the Ganges. This city is by Dr. Robertson thought to be the modern Allahabad, but major Rennel supposes it to be Patna. As Megasthenes resided in this city for a considerable time, he made many observations relative to India in general, which he afterwards published. But he mingled with his relations the most extravagant fables; such as accounts of men with ears so large that they could wrap themselves up in them; of tribes with one eye, without mouths or noses, &c., if the extracts from his book, given by Arrian, Diodorus, and other ancient writers, can be credited. After the embassy of Megasthenes to Sandracottus, and that of his son Damaichus to Allitrochidas, the successor of Sandracottus, we hear no more of the affairs of India with regard to the Macedonians, until the time of Antiochus the Great, who made a short incursion into India about 197 years after the death of Seleucus. All that we know of this expedition is, that the Syrian monarch, after finishing a war he carried on against the two revolted provinces of Parthia and Bactria, obliged Sophagasenus, king of the country which he invaded, to pay a sum of money, and give him a number of elephants. It is probable that the successors of Antiochus were oblized, soon after his death, to abandon all their Indian territories.

After the loss of India by the Syrians, an intercourse was kept up for some time betwixt it and the Greek kingdom of Bactria. This last became an independent state about sixty-nine years after the death of Alexander; and, according to the few hints we have concerning it in ancient authors, carried on a great traffic with India. Nay, the Bactrian monarchs are said to have conquered more extensive tracts in that region than Alexander himself had done. Six princes reigned over this new kingdom in succession; some of whom, elated with the conquests they had made, assumed the title of the great king, by which the Persian monarchs were distinguished in their highest splendor. Strabo informs us, that the Bactrian princes were deprived of their territories by the Scythian Nomades, who came from the country beyond the Saxartes, and were known by the names of Asii, Pasiani, Tachari, and Scaurauli. This is confirmed by the testimony of the Chinese historians, quoted by M. de Guignes. According to them, about 126 years before the Christian era, a powerful horde of Tartars pushed from their native seats on the confines of China, and obliged to move farther to the west, passed the laxartes, and, pouring in upon Bactria like an irresistible torrent, overwhelmed that kingdom, and put an end to the dominion of the Greeks, after it had lasted nearly 130 years. From this time to the close of the

fifteenth century all thoughts of establishing any dominion in India were totally abandoned by the Europeans. The only object now was to promote a commercial intercourse with that country; and Egypt was the medium by which that intercourse was to be promoted. Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, first raised the power and splendor of Alexandria, by carrying on a trade to India. His son Ptolemy Philadelphus prosecuted the same plan very vigorously. In his time the Indian commerce once more began to centre in Tyre; but, to remove it effectually thence, he attempted to form a canal between Arsinoe on the Red Sea, near the place where Suez now stands, and the Pelusiac, or eastern branch of the Nile. This canal was about 100 cubits broad, and thirty deep; so that by means of it the productions of India might have been conveyed to Alexandria entirely by water. We know not whether this work was ever finished, or whether it was found useless on account of the dangerous navigation towards the northern extremity of the Red Sea; but it is certain that no use was made of it, and a new city, named Berenice, situated almost under the tropic upon the western shore of the Red Sea, became the staple of Indian commerce. Thence the goods were transported by land to Coptos, a city three miles from the Nile, to which it was joined by a navigable canal. Thus, however, there was a very tedious land carriage of no less than 258 Roman miles through the barren desert of Thebais; but Ptolemy caused search to be made every where for springs, and, wherever these were found, he built inns for the accommodation of travellers.

Ships during this period sailed from Berenice, and coasting along the Arabian shore to the promontory of Syagrus, now Cape Rafalgate, held their course along the coast of Persia, till they arrived at the mouth of the western branch of the Indus. They either sailed up this branch till they came to Pattala, now Tatta, at the upper part of the Delta, or continued their course to some other emporium on the west part of the Indian coast. A more convenient course was afterwards found by sailing directly to Zizenis, a place concerning which there is now some dispute. Montesquieu believes it to have been the kingdom of Sigertis, on the coast adjacent to the Indus, and which was conquered by the Bactrian monarens; but major Rennel is of opinion that it was a port on the Malabar coast. Dr. Robertson thinks that during the time of the Ptolemies very little progress was made in the discovery of India, and contests the opinion of major Rennel, that under the Ptolemies the Egyptians extended their navigation to the extreme point of the Indian continent, and even sailed up the Ganges to Palibothra, now Patna.' In this case, he thinks, that the interior parts of India must have been much better known to the ancients, than we have any reason to believe they were. The extreme danger of navigating the Red Sea in ancient times seems to have been the principal reason which induced Ptolemy to remove the communication with India, from Arsinoe to Berenice, as there were other harlours on the same coast considerably nearer the Nile

than it. After the ruin of Coptos, by the emperor Dioclesian, the Indian commodities were conveyed from the Red Sea to the Nile from Cosseir, supposed by Dr. Robertson to be the Philoteras Portus of Ptolemy, to Cous, the Vicus Apollinis, a journey of four days. Hence Cous, from a small village, became an opulent city; but in process of time the trade from India removed to Kene, farther down the river. It was to this monopoly of Indian commerce, that Egypt owed its vast wealth and power, during the time of its Macedonian monarchs; but it appears surprising that no attempt was made by the Syrian monarchs to rival them in it, especially as the latter were in possession of the Persian gulf, from whence they might have imported the Indian commodities by a much shorter navigation than could be done by the Egyptians.

On the conquest of Egypt by the Romans, the Indian commodities continued, as usual, to be imported to Alexandria in Egypt, and from thence to Rome; but the most ancient communication betwixt the east and west parts of Asia seems never to have been entirely given up. Syria and Palestine are separated from Mesopotamia by a desert; but the passage through it was much facilitated by its affording a station which abounded in water. Hence the possession of this station became an object of such consequence, that Solomon built upon it the city called in Syria Tadmor, and in Greek Palmyra. Both these names are expressive of its situation in a spot adorned with palm trees. Though its situation for trade may to us seem very unfavorable; being sixty miles from the Euphrates, by which alone it could receive the Indian commodities, and 203 from the nearest coast of the Mediterranean; yet the value and small bulk of the goods in question rendered the conveyance of them by a long carriage over land not only practicable but lucrative and advantageous. Hence the inhabitants became opulent and powerful, and this place long maintained its independence after the Syrian empire became subject to Rome.

2. India from its intercourse with the Romans, until the erection of the Gaznian empire.-The excessive eagerness of the Romans for Asiatic luxuries of all kinds kept up an unceasing intercourse with India, during the whole time that the empire continued in its power; and, even after the destruction of the western part, it was kept up between Constantinople and those parts of India which had been visited formerly by merchants from the west. Long before this period, however, a much better method of sailing to India had been discovered by one Hippalus, the commander of an Indian ship, who lived about eighty years after Egypt had been annexed to the Roman empire. This man having observed the periodical shifting of the monsoons, and how steadily they blew from the east or west during some months, ventured to leave the coast, and sail boldly across the Indian Ocean, from the mouth of the Arabian Gulf to Musiris, a port on the Malabar coast; which discovery was reckoned a matter of such importance, that the name of Hippalus was given

to the wind by which he performed the voyage. Pliny gives a very particular account of the manner in which the Indian traffic was now carried on, mentioning the particular stages, and the distances between them: viz. From Alexandria to Juliopolis, according to this writer, was two miles; and there the cargo destined for India was shipped on the Nile, and carried to Coptos, distant 303 miles, the voyage being usually performed in twelve days. From Coptos they were conveyed by land to Berenice, distant 258 miles, and halting at different stations as occasion required. The journey was finished on the twelfth day; but on account of the heat the caravan travelled only in the night. The ships left Berenice about midsummer, and in thirty days reached Ocelis, now Gella, at the mouth of the Arabian Gulf, or the modern Cape Fartaque on the coast of Arabia Felix; from whence they sailed in forty days to Musiris, already mentioned. Their homeward voyage began early in December; when setting sail with a north-east wind, and meeting with a south or south-west one when they entered the Arabian Gulf, the voyage was completed in less than a year. With regard to the situation of Musiris, as well as of Barace, another Indian port to which the ancients traded, major Rennel and Dr. Robertson agree that they stood between Goa and Tellicherry; and that probably the modern Meerzaw or Merjee is the Musiris, and Barcelore the Barace of the ancients. Ptolemy, who flourished about A. D. 200, having the advantage of so many previous discoveries, gives a more particular description of India than is to be met with in any of the ancient writers; notwithstanding which his accounts are frequently inconsistent not only with modern discoveries, but with those of more ancient geographers than himself. A capital error in his geography is, that he makes the peninsula of India stretch from the Sinus Barygazenus, or gulf of Cambay, from west to east; instead of extending, according to its real direction, from north to south; and this error appears the more extraordinary, that Megasthenes had published a measurement of this peninsula, nearly consonant to truth, which had been adopted with some variations by Eratosthenes, Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, and Pliny. His information concerning the situation of places, however, was much more accurate. With respect to some districts on the eastern part of the peninsula, as far as the Ganges, he comes very near the truth. M. d'Anville, has determined the modern names of many of Ptolemy's stations, as Kilkare, Negapatam, the mouth of the river Cauveri, Masulipatam, &c. The peninsula of Malacca was in all probability the boundary of the ancient discoveries by sea, but by land they had correspondence with countries still farther distant.

While the Seleucida continued to enjoy the empire of Syria, the trade with India continued to be carried on by land in the way already mentioned. The Romans, having extended their dominions as far as the Euphrates, found this method of conveyance still established, and the trade was by them encouraged and protected. But the progress of the caravans being frequently