<span>Sometime before 100 B.C., Greek sailors coming from Egypt discovered a shortcut to India. Much easier and more direct than the arduous overland route, or than hugging the deserted coastlines of Arabia and Persia for 5,000 miles, this route took only weeks to travel. Sailing straight out into the open waters of the Arabian Sea during the late spring, ships were whisked by the monsoon winds on a steady northeast course, arriving on India’s west coast by mid-summer. It was a daring feat for those first sailors who attempted it. In a time when ships rarely ventured out of sight of land, and open waters invited the prospect of drifting aimlessly at sea, it took an extraordinarily bold, unlucky, or stupid navigator to sail out into one of the largest bodies of water on the planet. Fortunately for those first crews who made the attempt, they were saved by one of the great forces of nature: the monsoon. Plz give me branliest</span>
