him, bringing a present of tunny-fish broiled in pans (the first
instance of cookery among the Ikhthyophagi, although these were
the very last of them), accompanied with small cakes and dates. He
accepted their offering with the proper acknowledgments, but said he
wished to see their town, which he was accordingly allowed to enter.
No sooner was he within the gates than he ordered two of his archers
to seize the portal by which they had entered, while he himself with
two attendants and his interpreter mounting the wall hard by, made the
preconcerted signal, on seeing which the troops under Arkhias were to
perform the service assigned to them. The Makedonians, on seeing the
signal, immediately ran their ships towards land, and without loss of
time jumped into the sea. The barbarians, alarmed at these proceedings,
flew to arms. Upon this Nearkhos ordered his interpreter to proclaim
that if they wished their city to be preserved from pillage they must
supply his army with provisions. They replied that they had none, and
proceeded to attack the wall, but were repulsed by the archers with
Nearkhos, who assailed them with arrows from the summit of the wall.
Accordingly, when they saw that their city was taken, and on the point
of being pillaged, they at once begged Nearkhos to take whatever corn
they had, and to depart without destroying the place. Nearkhos upon
this orders Arkhias to possess himself of the gates and the ramparts
adjoining, and sends at the same time officers to see what stores were
available, and whether these would be all honestly given up. The stores
were produced, consisting of a kind of meal made from fish roasted,
and a little wheat and barley, for the chief diet of these people was
fish with bread added as a relish. The troops having appropriated these
supplies returned to the fleet, which then hauled off to a cape _in the
neighbourhood_ called Bagia, which the natives regarded as sacred to
the sun.[71]
XXIX. They weighed from this cape about midnight, and having made good
a course of 1,000 stadia, put into Talmena, where they found a harbour
with good anchorage.[72] They sailed thence to Kanasis, a deserted
town 400 stadia distant, where they find a well ready-dug and wild
palm-trees.[73] These they cut down, using the tender heads to support
life since provisions had again run scarce. They sailed all day and
all night suffering great distress from hunger, and then came to an
anchor off a desolate coast. Nearkhos fearing lest the men, if they
landed, would in despair desert the fleet, ordered the ships to be
moved to a distance from shore. Weighing from this they ran a course of
850 stadia, and came to anchor at Kanate, a place with an open beach
and some water-courses.[74] Weighing again, and making 800 stadia,
they reach Taoi, where they drop anchor.[75] The place contained some
small and wretched villages, which were deserted by the inhabitants
upon the approach of the fleet. Here the men found a little food and
dates of the palm-tree, beside seven camels left by the villagers which
were killed for food. Weighing thence about daybreak they ran a course
of 300 stadia, and came to anchor at Dagasira, where the people were
nomadic.[76] Weighing again they sailed all night and all day without
intermission, and having thus accomplished a course of 1,100 stadia,
left behind them the nation of the Ikhthyophagi, on whose shores they
had suffered such severe privations. They could not approach the
beach on account of the heavy surf, but rode at anchor out at sea. In
navigating the Ikhthyophagi coast the distance traversed was not much
short of 10,000 stadia. The people, as their name imports, live upon
fish. Few of them, however, are fishermen, and what fish they obtain
they owe mostly to the tide at whose reflux they catch them with nets
made for this purpose. These nets are generally about 2 stadia long,
and are composed of the bark (or fibres) of the palm, which they twine
into cord in the same way as the fibres of flax are twined. When the
sea recedes, hardly any fish are found among the dry sands, but they
abound in the depressions of the surface where the water still remains.
The fish are for the most part small, though some are caught of a
considerable size, these being taken in the nets. The more delicate
kinds they eat raw as soon as they are taken out of the water. The
large and coarser kinds they dry in the sun, and when properly dried
grind into a sort of meal from which they make bread. This meal is
sometimes also used to bake cakes with. The cattle as well as their
masters fare on dried fish, for the country has no pastures, and hardly
even a blade of grass. In most parts crabs, oysters and mussels add to
the means of subsistence. Natural salt is found in the country, * * *
from these they make oil.[77] Certain of their communities inhabit
deserts where not a tree grows, and where there are not even wild
fruits. Fish is their sole means of subsistence. In some few places,
however, they sow with grain some patches of land, and eat the produce
as a viand of luxury along with the fish which forms the staple of
their diet. The better class of the population in building their houses
use, instead of wood, the bones of whales stranded on the coast, the
broadest bones being employed in the framework of the doors. Poor
people, and these are the great majority, construct their dwellings
with the backbones of fish.[78]
XXX. Whales of enormous size frequent the outer ocean, besides other
fish larger than those found in the Mediterranean. Nearkhos relates
that when they were bearing away from Kyiza, the sea early in the
morning was observed to be blown up into the air as if by the force of
a whirlwind. The men greatly alarmed enquired of the pilots the nature
and cause of this phenomenon, and were informed that it proceeded from
the blowing of the whales as they sported in the sea. This report did
not quiet their alarm, and through astonishment they let the oars
drop from their hands. Nearkhos, however, recalled them to duty, and
encouraged them by his presence, ordering the prows of those vessels
that were near him to be turned as in a sea-fight towards the creatures
as they approached, while the rowers were just then to shout as
loud as they could the _alala_, and swell the noise by dashing the
water rapidly with the oars. The men thus encouraged on seeing the
preconcerted signal advanced to action. Then, as they approached the
monsters, they shouted the _alala_ as loud as they could bawl, sounded
the trumpets, and dashed the water noisily with the oars. Thereupon
the whales, which were seen ahead, plunged down terror-struck into the
depths, and soon after rose astern, when they vigorously continued
their blowing. The men by loud acclamations expressed their joy at this
unexpected deliverance, the credit of which they gave to Nearkhos, who
had shown such admirable fortitude and judgment.
We learn further, that on many parts of the coast whales are
occasionally stranded, being left in shallow water at ebb-tide, and
thus prevented from escaping back to sea, and that they are sometimes
also cast ashore by violent storms. Thus perishing, their flesh rots
away, and gradually drops off till the bones are left bare. These are
used by the natives in the construction of their huts, the larger ribs
making suitable bearing beams, and the smaller serving for rafters. The
jaw-bones make arches for the door-ways, for whales are sometimes five
and twenty _orguiæ_ (fathoms) in length.[79]
XXXI. When they were sailing along the Ikhthyophagi coast, they were
told about an island which was said to be about 100 stadia distant
from the mainland, and uninhabited. Its name was Nosala, and it was
according to the local tradition sacred to the sun. No one willingly
visited this island, and if any one was carried to it unawares, he was
never more seen. Nearkhos states that a transport of his fleet, manned
with an Egyptian crew, disappeared not far from this island, and that
the pilots accounted for their disappearance by saying that they must
have landed on the island in ignorance of the danger which they would
thereby incur. Nearkhos, however, sent a galley of 30 oars to sail
round the island, instructing the men not to land, but to approach as
near as they could to the shore, and hail the men, shouting out the
name of the captain or any other name they had not forgotten. No one
answered to the call, and Nearkhos says that he then sailed in person
to the island, and compelled his company much against their will to go
on shore. He too landed, and showed that the story about the island
was nothing but an empty fable. Concerning this same island he heard
also another story, which ran to this effect: it had been at one time
the residence of one of the Nereids, whose name, he says, he could not
learn. It was her wont to have intercourse with any man who visited
the island, changing him thereafter into a fish, and casting him into
the sea. The sun, however, being displeased with the Nereid, ordered
her to remove from the island. She agreed to do this, and seek a home
elsewhere, but stipulated that she should be cured of her malady. To
this condition the sun assented, and then the Nereid, taking pity upon
the men whom she had transformed into fish, restored them to their
human shape. These men were the progenitors of the Ikhthyophagi, the
line of succession remaining unbroken down to the time of Alexander.
Now, for my part I have no praise to bestow on Nearkhos for expending
so much time and ingenuity on the not very difficult task of proving
the falsehood of these stories, for, to take up antiquated fables
merely with a view to prove their falsehood, I can only regard as a
contemptible piece of folly.[80]
XXXII. To the Ikhthyophagi succeed the Gadrôsii, who occupy a most
wretched tract of country full of sandy deserts, in penetrating which
Alexander and his army were reduced to the greatest extremities, of
which an account is to be found in my other work. But this is an inland
region, and therefore when the expedition left the Ikhthyophagi, its
course lay along Karmania.[81] Here, when they first drew towards
shore, they could not effect a landing, but had to remain all night
on board anchored in the deep, because a violent surf spread along the
shore and far out to sea. Thereafter the direction of their course
changed, and they sailed no longer towards sunset, but turned the heads
of the vessels more to the north-west. Karmania is better wooded and
produces better fruit than the country either of the Ikhthyophagi or
the Oreitai. It is also more grassy, and better supplied with water.
They anchor next at Badis, an inhabited place in Karmania, where grew
cultivated trees of many different kinds, with the exception of the
olive, and where also the soil favoured the growth of the vine and of
corn.[82] Weighing thence they ran 800 stadia, and came to an anchor
off a barren coast, whence they descried a headland projecting far out
into the sea, its nearest extremity being to appearance about a day’s
sail distant. Persons acquainted with those regions asserted that this
cape belonged to Arabia, and was called Maketa, whence cinnamon and
other products were exported to the Assyrians.[83] And from this coast
where the fleet was now anchored, and from the headland which they saw
projecting into the sea right opposite, the gulf in my opinion (which
is also that of Nearkhos) extends up into the interior, and is probably
the Red Sea. When this headland was now in view Onesikritos, _the chief
pilot_, proposed that they should proceed to explore it, and by so
shaping their course, escape the distressing passage up the gulf; but
Nearkhos opposed this proposal. Onesikritos, he said, must be wanting
in ordinary judgment if he did not know with what design Alexander had
sent the fleet on this voyage. He certainly had not sent it, because
there were no proper means of conducting the whole army safely by land,
but his express purpose was to obtain a knowledge of the coasts they
might pass on their voyage, together with the harbours and islets, and
to have the bays that might occur explored, and to ascertain whether
there were towns bordering on the ocean, and whether the countries,
were habitable or desert. They ought not therefore to lose sight of
this object, seeing that they were now near the end of their toils, and
especially that they were no longer in want of the necessary supplies
for prosecuting the voyage. He feared, moreover, since the headland
stretched towards the south, lest they should find the country there a
parched desert destitute of water and insufferably hot. This argument
prevailed, and it appears to me that by this counsel Nearkhos saved the
expedition, for all accounts represent this cape and the parts adjacent
as an arid waste where water cannot possibly be procured.
XXXIII. On resuming the voyage they sailed close to land, and after
making about 700 stadia anchored on another shore called Neoptana.[84]
From this they weighed next day at dawn, and after a course of 100
stadia anchored at the mouth of the river Anamis[85] in a country
called Harmozeia.[86] Here at last they found a hospitable region,
one which was rich in every production except only the olive. Here
accordingly they landed, and enjoyed a welcome respite from their
many toils—heightening their pleasure by calling to remembrance what
miseries they had suffered at sea and in the Ikhthyophagi country,
where the shores were so sterile, and the natives so brute-like, and
where they had been reduced to the last extremities of want. Here,
also, some of them in scattered parties, leaving the encampment on
the shore, wandered inland searching for one thing and another that
might supply their several requirements. While thus engaged, they fell
in with a man who wore a Greek mantle, and was otherwise attired as
a Greek and spoke the Greek language. Those who first discovered him
declared that tears started to their eyes, so strange did it appear,
after all they had suffered, to see once more a countryman of their
own, and to hear the accents of their native tongue. They asked him
whence he came, and who he was. He replied that he had straggled from
the army of Alexander, and that the army led by Alexander in person
was not far off. On hearing this they hurry the man with shouts of
tumultuous joy to the presence of Nearkhos, to whom he repeated all
that he had already said, assuring him that the army and the king were
not more than a 5 days’ march distant from the sea. The Governor of
the province, he added, was on the spot, and he would present him to
Nearkhos, and he presented him accordingly. Nearkhos consulted this
person regarding the route he should take in order to reach the king,
and then they all went off, and made their way to the ships. Early
next morning the ships by orders of Nearkhos were drawn on shore,
partly for repair of the damages which some of them had suffered on the
voyage, and partly because he had resolved to leave here the greater
part of his army. Having this in view, he fortified the roadstead with
a double palisade, and also with an earthen rampart and a deep ditch
extending from the banks of the river to the dockyard where the ships
were lying.
XXXIV. While Nearkhos was thus occupied, the Governor being aware that
Alexander was in great anxiety about the fate of this expedition,
concluded that he would receive some great advantage from Alexander
should he be the first to apprize him of the safety of the fleet and of
the approaching visit of Nearkhos. Accordingly he hastened to Alexander
by the shortest route, and announced that Nearkhos was coming from the
fleet to visit him. Alexander, though he could scarcely believe the
report, nevertheless received the tidings with all the joy that might
have been expected.
Day after day, however, passed without confirmation of the fact, till
Alexander, on comparing the distance from the sea with the date on
which the report had reached him, at last gave up all belief in its
truth, the more especially as several of the parties which he had
successively despatched to find Nearkhos and escort him to the camp,
had returned without him, after going a short distance, and meeting no
one, while others who had prosecuted the search further, and failed to
find Nearkhos and his company were still absent. He therefore ordered
the Governor into confinement for having brought delusive intelligence
and rendered his vexation more acute by the disappointment of his
hopes, and indeed his looks and perturbation of mind plainly indicated
that he was pierced to the heart with a great grief. Meanwhile,
however, one of the parties that had been despatched in search of
Nearkhos, and his escort being furnished with horses and waggons for
their accommodation, fell in on the way with Nearkhos and Arkhias, who
were followed by five or six attendants. At first sight they recognized
neither the admiral himself nor Arkhias, so much changed was their
appearance, their hair long and neglected, their persons filthy,
encrusted all over with brine and shrivelled, their complexion sallow
from want of sleep and other severe privations. On their asking where
Alexander was, they were told the name of the place. Arkhias then,
perceiving who they were, said to Nearkhos—“It strikes me, Nearkhos,
these men are traversing the desert by the route we pursue, for no
other reason than because they have been sent to our relief. True, they
did not know us, but that is not at all surprising, for our appearance
is so wretched that we are past all recognition. Let us tell them who
we are, and ask them why they are travelling this way.” Nearkhos,
thinking he spoke with reason, asked the men whither they were bound.
They replied that they were searching for Nearkhos and the fleet.
“Well! I am Nearkhos,” said the admiral, “and this man here is Arkhias.
Take us under your conduct, and we will report to Alexander the whole
history of the expedition.”
XXXV. They were accordingly accommodated in the waggons, and conducted
to the camp. Some of the horsemen, however, wishing to be the first to
impart the news, hastened forward, and told Alexander that Nearkhos
himself, and Arkhias with him, and five attendants, would soon arrive,
but to enquiries about the rest of the people in the expedition they
had no information to give. Alexander, concluding from this that all
the expedition had perished except this small band, which had been
unaccountably saved, did not so much feel pleasure for the preservation
of Nearkhos and Arkhias as distress for the loss of his whole fleet.
During this conversation Nearkhos and Arkhias arrived. It was not
without difficulty Alexander after a close scrutiny recognized who the
hirsute, ill-clad men who stood before him were, and being confirmed
by their miserable appearance in his belief that the expedition had
perished, he was still more overcome with grief. At length he held out
his hand to Nearkhos, and leading him apart from his attendants and his
guards he burst into tears, and wept for a long time. Having, after a
good while, recovered some composure, “Nearkhos!” he says, “since you
and Arkhias have been restored to me alive, I can bear more patiently
the calamity of losing all my fleet; but tell me now, in what manner
did the vessels and my people perish.” “O my king!” replied Nearkhos,
“the ships are safe and the people also, and we are here to give you
an account of their preservation.” Tears now fell much faster from his
eyes than before, but they were tears of joy for the salvation of his
fleet which he had given up for lost. “And where are now my ships,” he
then enquired. “They are drawn upon shore,” replied Nearkhos, “on the
beach of the river Anamis for repairs.” Upon this Alexander, swearing
by Zeus of the Greeks and Ammon of the Libyans, declared that he felt
happier at receiving these tidings than in being the conqueror of all
Asia, for, had the expedition been lost, the blow to his peace of mind
would have been a counterpoise to all the success he had achieved.
XXXVI. But the Governor whom Alexander had put into confinement for
bringing intelligence that appeared to be false, seeing Nearkhos in
the camp, sunk on his knees before him, and said: “I am the man who
brought to Alexander the news of your safe arrival. You see how I am
situated.” Nearkhos interceded with Alexander on his behalf, and he was
then liberated. Alexander next proceeded to offer a solemn sacrifice in
gratitude for the preservation of his fleet unto Zeus the Preserver,
and Heraklês, and Apollo the Averter of Destruction, and unto Poseidôn,
and every other deity of ocean. He celebrated likewise a contest in
gymnastics and music, and exhibited a splendid procession wherein a
foremost place was assigned to Nearkhos. Chaplets were wreathed for his
head, and flowers were showered upon him by the admiring multitude.
At the end of these proceedings the king said to Nearkhos, “I do not
wish you, Nearkhos, either to risk your life or expose yourself again
to the hardships of sea-voyaging, and I shall therefore send some
other officer to conduct the expedition onward to Sousa.” But Nearkhos
answered, and said: “It is my duty, O king! as it is also my desire,
in all things to obey you, but if your object is to gratify me in some
way, do not take the command from me until I complete the voyage by
bringing the ships in safety to Sousa. I have been trusted to execute
that part of the undertaking in which all its difficulty and danger
lay; transfer not, then, to another the remaining part, which hardly
requires an effort, and that, too, just at the time when the glory of
final success is ready to be won.” Alexander scarcely allowed him to
conclude his request, which he granted with grateful acknowledgment of
his services.[87] Then he sent him down again to the coast with only a
small escort, believing that the country through which he would pass
was friendly. He was not permitted however to pursue his way to the
coast without opposition, for the barbarians, resenting the action
of Alexander in deposing their satrap, and gathered in full force
and seized all the strongholds of Karmania before Tlepolemos, the
newly appointed Governor, had yet succeeded in fully establishing his
authority.[88] It happened therefore that several times in the course
of a day Nearkhos encountered bands of the insurgents with whom he had
to do battle. He therefore hurried forward without lingering by the
way, and reached the coast in safety, though not without severe toil
and difficulty. On arriving he sacrificed to Zeus the Preserver, and
celebrated gymnastic games.