45. India has everywhere a great abundance of rivers, and her seas ebb and flow with tides of extraordinary strength, which increase with the moon, both when new and when full, and for three days after each, but fall off in the intermediate space. About +Barugaza+ they are more violent than elsewhere; so that all of a sudden you see the depths laid bare, and portions of the land turned into sea, and the sea, where ships were sailing but just before, turned without warning into dry land. The rivers, again, on the access of flood tide rushing into their channels with the whole body of the sea, are driven upwards against their natural course for a great number of miles with a force that is irresistible.
46. This is the reason why ships frequenting this emporium are exposed, both in coming and going, to great risk, if handled by those who are unacquainted with the navigation of the gulf or visit it for the first time, since the impetuosity of the tide when it becomes full, having nothing to stem or slacken it, is such that anchors cannot hold against it. Large vessels, moreover, if caught in it are driven athwart from their course by the rapidity of the current till they are stranded on shoals and wrecked, while the smaller craft are capsized, and many that have taken refuge in the side channels, being left dry by the receding tide, turn over on one side, and, if not set erect on props, are filled upon the return of the tide with the very first head of the flood, and sunk. But at new moons, especially when they occur in conjunction with a night tide, the flood sets in with such extraordinary violence that on its beginning to advance, even though the sea be calm, its roar is heard by those living near the river’s mouth, sounding like the tumult of battle heard far off, and soon after the sea with its hissing waves bursts over the bare shoals.
47. Inland from +Barugaza+ the country is inhabited by numerous races—the +Aratrioi+, and the +Arakhosioi+, and the +Gandaraioi+, and the people of +Proklaïs+, in which is +Boukephalos Alexandreia+. Beyond these are the +Baktrianoi+, a most warlike race, governed by their own independent sovereign. It was from these parts Alexander issued to invade India when he marched as far as the Ganges, without, however, attacking Limurikê and the southern parts of the country. Hence up to the present day old _drachmai_ bearing the Greek inscriptions of +Apollodotos+ and +Menander+ are current in Barugaza.