40. After the river +Sinthos+ is passed we reach another gulf, which cannot be easily seen. It has two divisions,—the Great and the Little by name,—both shoal with violent and continuous eddies extending far out from the shore, so that before ever land is in sight ships are often grounded on the shoals, or being caught within the eddies are lost. Over this gulf hangs a promontory which, curving from +Eirinon+ first to the east, then to the south, and finally to the west, encompasses the gulf called +Barakê+, in the bosom of which lie seven islands. Should a vessel approach the entrance of this gulf, the only chance of escape for those on board is at once to alter their course and stand out to sea, for it is all over with them if they are once fairly within the womb of +Barakê+, which surges with vast and mighty billows, and where the sea, tossing in violent commotion, forms eddies and impetuous whirlpools in every direction. The bottom varies, presenting in places sudden shoals, in others being scabrous with jagged rocks, so that when an anchor grounds its cable is either at once cut through, or soon broken by friction at the bottom. The sign by which voyagers know they are approaching this bay is their seeing serpents floating about on the water, of extraordinary size and of a black colour, for those met with lower down and in the neighbourhood of Barugaza are of less size, and in colour green and golden.
(40) The first place mentioned after the Indus is the Gulf of +Eirinon+, a name of which traces remain in the modern appellation the +Raṇ+ of Kachh. This is no longer covered with water except during the monsoon, when it is flooded by sea water or by rains and inundated rivers. At other seasons it is not even a marsh, for its bed is hard, dry and sandy; a mere saline waste almost entirely devoid of herbage, and frequented but by one quadruped—the wild ass. Burnes conjectured that its desiccation resulted from an upheaval of the earth caused by one of those earthquakes which are so common in that part of India. The +Raṇ+ is connected with the Gulf of Kachh, which our author calls the Gulf of +Barakê+. His account of it is far from clear. Perhaps, as Müller suggests, he comprehended under +Eirinon+ the interior portion of the Gulf of Kachh, limiting the Gulf of +Barakê+ to the exterior portion or entrance to it. This gulf is called that of Kanthi by Ptolemy, who mentions +Barakê+ only as an island, [and the south coast of Kachh is still known by the name of Kantha]. The islands of the _Periplûs_ extend westward from the neighbourhood of +Navanagar+ to the very entrance of the Gulf.