Cœnus, Spitamenes was deserted by his followers, who hearing that Alexander himself also was approaching, cut off their chief's head, and sent it as an atonement for their own transgressions.

Being thus rid of this active enemy, Alexander had leisure to reduce the mountain forts of Soghdiana, lying between the sources of the Jaxartes and the Desert west of Samarkund; and the season being occupied in establishing posts and settling this country, he wintered again north of the Oxus at Karshee, and there received reports from all the Governors and Satraps he had left in the conquered territories.

In the spring of 327, B. C., while the snow was yet heavy on the ground, Alexander commenced his march through the mountains towards Bulkh, reducing the places that refused to submit. He was in this march much distressed for provisions, but every fort had its depôt, and the store of one of these, held by a chief named Chorienes, furnished a two months' supply to the whole army at a time when it was in great want. As the spring advanced, Alexander taking the route of Bulkh, approached the Hindoo Koosh again, and crossed it to the city he had built in the plain of Beghram. There he was met by Taxiles, an Indian chief, whose capital (Taxila) was across the Indus. This chief urged an advance in that direction, with the design of bringing to subjection a rival chief of Peucilaotis, supposed to be in the country near Peshawur. Alexander sent with this Indian chief Hephæstion, and the bulk of his army, marching them by the route of the Cophenes river. Under the Raja's guidance, Hephæstion passed without obstruction downwards, apparently by the Khyber, and having captured Peucilaotis, set himself with the aid of Taxiles, to build a bridge at Attuk. Alexander himself was determined to reduce the mountainous tract of country lying between the Cophenes and the Hindoo Koosh, and the number of rivers passed, and description of each given by Arrian, correspond exactly with what we now know to be in existence in that tract, though the names of several places and of races of people differ as might be expected.

Alexander from Beghram passed down the Punj-shushur river, and crossed the Tagao with difficulty, then reducing two cities, the second called Andaka, he came to the river Euaspla, (Alishung), where the Aspii were in arms. The enemy fled to the mountains, and Alexander followed to their stronghold, finding the capital which Arrian calls

Arigæum, deserted and in ruins. There was a very severe battle fought here, which ended in the complete defeat of the natives, and the capture of 230,000 head of cattle, remarked as of very fine breed. Thence Alexander marched against the Assaceni, passing through the territory of the Gurai, (Lughman,) and crossing the river of that name (now the Koner or Kama,) which Arrian states as rapid, and difficult of passage, because of the large round slippery stones in its bed. On the eastern banks of the Koner river, was the city of Massaga, somewhere near Pooshoot, which was captured with great difficulty; and some mercenaries of the garrison, stated to have been of Indian race, were incorporated with the Grecian army.

From Massaga, Alexander marched to Bazira, without crossing another river, shewing evidently, that Bazira must be the present Bajaor. He expected it to be surrendered without a siege, but was disappointed, and hearing that relief was coming from Ora, which is probably the present Punjkora, he marched with his main army first against that place, leaving a detachment before Bazira to watch it. Ora being reduced, the inhabitants of Bazira evacuated the city, and took refuge in the difficult post of mount Aornus, under which lay Embolima, which Alexander occupied. This mountain will probably be that to the south of Bajaor, and between it and the Kabool river. The dislodgement of the enemy proved a matter of extreme difficulty, because of the steep ascent of the mountain. Ptolemy, however, with some light troops effected and made good a lodgment on the ridge, aided by an attack from which, the rock was at last stormed and carried.

After this, Alexander marched north to Dyrta, (which is evidently the present Dhyr,) because he heard that the king of the Assaceni was making head in the upper part of the valley of the Koner, that is, in Chitral and Little Kashghur. From hence he crossed to the Indus by a route, which required the labour of his whole army to render at all passable. He arrived on the bank of that river at a place where there was a forest, from which he cut timber to make rafts and boats, with which he floated down to Attuk, where the bridge of boats had already been built for him by Hephæstion and Taxiles. In the country between the Kophenes and Indus, Nysa, the city of Bacchus, is said to be situated, from whence Alexander received a deputation. Its site

has not been ascertained, though, as ivy grew there, it must have been high in the mountains.

Crossing the Indus by this bridge, Alexander went with Taxiles to Taxila, the capital of the latter, which probably was near the present Tatta, about one march from the river. Thence he prosecuted his march to the Hydaspes, now the Jihlum, on the other side of which Porus was encamped with a large Indian army. To aid the passage, Alexander sent back to the Indus for some of the boats or rafts he had built, and causing them to be brought over by land, amused Porus for some days by marching up and down with great parade, as if he was about immediately to force a passage.

Arrian tells us this occurred in the rains when the river was much swollen, and that Alexander was thinking of waiting for the cold season when the waters would subside. After some days, however, finding a favorable rock to conceal his preparations, he launched his boats and effected a passage at a place where there were several alluvial islands. Porus was then defeated and made prisoner. Arrian specifically tells us, that this battle was fought in the month Munychion, which is the last but two of the Greek year, beginning in July. April and May would therefore be the time of the year indicated, but this is not reconcilable with the fact of the rains having set in to swell the stream. The date assigned by Dr. Vincent and all later commentators, is August 327, B. C. which, supposing Alexander to have crossed the Hindoo Koosh on the first opening of the passage at the end of March, or in the beginning of April, gives evidence of a celerity of movement, and rapidity of conquest to excite our wonder.

After the defeat of Porus, Alexander captured Sangala on the Hydraotes, supposed to be near Lahore, and then marched to the Sutlej at a spot below its junction with the Hyphasis (Beas) where historians say, he built pillars or altars to mark the limit of his conquests. Apollonius Tyaneus is made by Philostratus to say, that he saw them in the first century of the Christian æra, and that a king, Phraotes, of Greek race, and who conversed freely with him in Greek, was then reigning in the Punjab, and master of the country as far west as the Kabool valley. These altars however, though sought for with much avidity, have never yet been found by modern travellers. The remonstrances of the Macedonian troops, and their refusal to march further, created the im

mediate necessity for Alexander's return. But preparation had antecedently been made for it by arrangements to construct a large fleet of boats on the Hydaspes or Jihlum. These were completed by the end of the rains of 327 B. C., and Alexander then commenced a march down the Punjab and banks of the Indus, in the hope of finding a ready way back to Persia by land or sea from its mouths.

On the way down, he was troubled by the spirited resistance of the Malli and Oxydracæ, the former supposed to be settled near Mooltan, and the latter a race occupying Kuchchee. In the operations against these, Alexander received a wound with an arrow in the right breast, which very nearly proved mortal, and much alarmed his faithful troops. He recovered, however, and having reduced the Sindians, made the following arrangements at Pattala, now Tatta, for return. Craterus he sent by Kuchchee and the Bolan Pass with the bulk of his army, and the heavy baggage. Nearchus with the fleet was to skirt the coast, and so make for the Persian Gulf. Alexander himself with a lightly equipped force took the route through Beloochistan, intending to keep in communication with the fleet.

This march proved the most disastrous operation in which Alexander had yet engaged; from first to last, he suffered extremely from heat, and from the want of fresh water, and the distress his army encountered is represented as almost beyond endurance, and the mortality in consequence was very great.

Dr. Vincent states, the march down from Nicæa on the Jihlum, where the battle with Porus was fought, to Pattala or Tatta, at the head of the Indus Delta, to have occupied nine months; if it was commenced, therefore, in October 327, it will have been July 326, в. c. before he reached that city: and so far Arrian bears out this date, for he says the Etesian winds, that is the monsoon, prevented the voyage by sea at the time of Alexander being in Sindh. Having made arrangements for establishing depôts near the sea-coast, and for digging wells to supply the fleet and his own army with fresh water at the first stages along the coast, Alexander set off on his march of return in September 326, B. C., directing Nearchus to follow as soon as the season was favorable. The circumstances of this voyage have been so accurately developed by Dr. Vincent, that it is only necessary to refer to them very shortly. Nearchus left the Indus a month

after Alexander, but some time still before the monsoon had properly changed: he was in consequence compelled to make for the coast and disembark, and so consumed all his provisions by the time he reached the country of the Oritæ in Mekran. Here, however, Alexander had left a depôt under Leonatus, prior to striking off from the coast to skirt the arid desert of Gedroos. From the borders of the Oritæ to the capital of Gedroos, called by Arrian "Pura,” Alexander's march was one of sixty days, with always a very scanty supply of water, and that generally brackish. Pura is probably the Bunpoor of modern maps, which is in the same longitude with the Hamoon, or sea in which the Helmund terminates. Here Alexander remained some time to refresh, and receiving a convoy from Lower Persia, renewed his march through Karmania, (Kurman,) meeting every where, as he approached the limits of civilization, both welcome and abun dance. Either at or near Kurman he met Craterus, who had safely brought back the heavy baggage and bulk of the army by the Bolan Pass and by Kandahar, but by what route from Seistan, is no where mentioned.

The expedition ended by Alexander's return to Persepolis or Pasargada, near Shiraz, with a light division, while he sent Hephæstion to skirt the coast and relieve Nearchus. The united army of Alexander reached Susa about the end of February 325 B. C., just five years from the period of its march from Ecbatana in pursuit of Darius, and five and a half from the date of the victory of Gaugamela or Arbela.

It is difficult to account for the apparent facility with which Alexander carried his large armies over tracts now deemed impassable for more than caravans. We must allow something for the habit of dealing as slaves with the entire population of a city or province reduced after resistance in arms. This gave means of transport over mountains, such as are not commanded in the strategic operations of the present day. But, after making every allowance for the free command and use of the persons and properties of the entire population subdued, the traverse of the deserts would not have been possible, if in those days they had been in the same condition as they are at present found. Their existence is identified, but their dimensions were then probably much smaller, for it is consistent with the experience of modern philosophy, that sandy deserts progressively increase in size, as well through the ear