________________
DECEMBER, 1876.]
NOTES TO ARRIAN'S INDICA.
335
six miles up the Pitti. "It is vain," says in which Karachi is situated is called KarCaptain Wood in the narrative of his Journey kalla to this day. On leaving Krokala, Nearto the Source of the Oxus, " in the delta of such chus had Mount Eiros (Manora) on his a river (as the Indos), to identify existing locali right hand, and a low flat island on his left -- ties with descriptions handed down to us by the which is a very accurate description of the historians of Alexander the Great.... (but) entrance to Karachi harbour." Burnes has, I think, shown that the mouth by Arabii.-The name is variously written,which the Grecian fleet left the Indus was the Arabitæ, Arbii, Arabies, Arbies, Aribes, Arbiti. modern Piti. The dangerous rock' of Near- The name of their river has also several forms, chus completely identifies the spot, and as it is Arabis, Arabius, Artabis, Artabius. It is now still in existence, without any other within a called the Purâli, the river which flows circle of many miles, we can wish for no stronger through the present district of Las into the bay evidence." With regard to the canal dug of Sonmiyâni. through this rock, Burnes remarks: “The Orita.--The name in Curtius is Horitæ. Greek admiral only availed himself of the ex- General Cunningham identifies them with the perience of the people, for it is yet customary people on the Aghor river, whom he says the among the natives of Sind to dig shallow canals Greeks would have named Agoritæ or Aorite, and leave the tides or river to deepen them; by the suppression of the guttural, of which a and a distance of five stadia, or half a mile, trace still remains in the initial aspirate of would call for not great labour. It is not to be 'Horitæ. Some would connect the name with supposed that sandbanks will continue unaltered | Haur, a town which lay on the route to Firafor centuries, but I may observe that there was baz, in Mekran. a large bank contiguous to the island, between B$bakta.-The form of the name is Bibaga it and which a passage like that of Nearchus in Pliny, who gives its distance from Krokala might have been dug with the greatest advan. at twelve miles. Vincent would refer it to the tage." The same author thus describes the mouth island now called Chilney-which, however, of the Piti :-"Beginning from the westward is too distant. we have the Pitti mouth, an embouchure of the Sangada.-This name D'Anville thought Buggaur, that falls into what may be called the survived in that of a race of noted pirates who Bay of Karachi. It has no bar, but a large infested the shores of the gulf of Kachh, called sandbank together with an island outside pro- the Sangadians or Sangarians. venta direct passage into it from the sea, and CHAP. XXII.-The coast from Karachi to the narrow the channel to about half a mile at its Puráli has undergone considerable changes, mouth."
so that the position of the places mentioned in Krokala.-" Karachi," says General Cun- this chapter cannot be precisely determined. ningham," must have been on the eastern fron- "From Cape Monze to Sonmiyani," says Blair, tier of the Arabitæ,-a deduction which is ad. "the coast bears evident marks of having sufmitted by the common consent of all inquirers, fered considerable alterations from the encroachwho have agreed in identifying the Kolaka ments of the sea. We foand trees which had been of Ptolemy, and the sandy island of Krokola washed down, and which afforded us a supply of where Nearchus tarried with his fleet for one fuel. In some parts I saw imperfect creeks in a day, with a small island in the bay of Kara- parallel direction with the coast. These might chi. Krokala is further described as lying off probably be the vestiges of that narrow channel the mainland of the Arabii. It was 150 stadia, through which the Greek galleys passed." or 174 miles, from the western mouth of the Domæ.-This island is not known, but it Indus-which agrees exactly with the relative probably lay near the rocky headland of Irus, positions of Karachi and the mouth of the now called Manorâ, which protects the port Ghåra river, if, as we may fairly assume, the of Karachi from the sea and bad weather. present coast-line has advanced five or six miles Morontobari.-" The name of Morontoduring the twenty-one centaries that have elapsed bara," says General Canningham," I would idensince the death of Alexander.. The identifica- tify with Muari, which is now applied to the tion is confirmed by the fact that the district headland of Rås Maari or Cape Monze, the last
