On the far east, Ptolemy joined China and
Africa; and on this imaginary western coast, fronting Malacca and
Further India, he placed various gratuitous towns and rivers. Coming to
smaller matters, he cut away the whole of the Indian peninsula proper,
though preserving the Further or "Golden" Chersonesus of the Malays, and
he enlarged Taprobane, or Ceylon, to double the size of Asia Minor. Thus
the southern coast of Asia from Arabia to the Ganges ran almost due
east, with a strait of sea coming through the modern Carnatic, between
the continent and the Great Spice Island, which included most of the
Deccan. The Persian Gulf, much greater on this map than the Black Sea,
was made equal in length and breadth; the shape of the Caspian was, so
to say, turned inside out and its length given as from east to west,
instead of from north to south; while the coast line, even of the
familiar Euxine, AEgean, and Southern Mediterranean, was anything but
true. Scandinavia was an island smaller than Ireland; Scotland
represented a great eastern bend of Britain, with the Shetlands and
Faeroes (Thule) lying a short distance to the north, but on the left-hand
side of the great island. The Sea of Azov, hardly inferior to the
Euxine, stretched north half way across Russia.
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