four months were collected, and all other necessary preparations were made for the two bold enterprises which he had planned: the voyage of the fleet along the coast to the Persian Gulf, and his own march with the army through Gedrosia in a direction, so far as might be practicable, parallel to the course of the fleet.
His plans were conceived upon a comprehensive scale. Nearchos, the admiral who had successfully commanded the flotilla during the ten months' voyage from Jihlam to the sea, was instructed to bring the fleet round the coast into the Persian Gulf as far as the mouth of the Euphrates, and to record careful observations of the strange lands and seas which he should visit. Alexander himself proposed to conduct the army back to Persia through the wilds of the country then called Gedrosia, and now known as Mukran, hitherto untrodden save by the legendary hosts of Semiramis and Cyrus. The king, who was independent of the winds, started on his march about the beginning of October, 325 B. C. Nearchos, being obliged to watch for the change of the monsoon, did not leave his anchorage in the river until two or three weeks later.
Although Gedrosia has usually remained outside the Indian political system, the province, or part of it, has been included from time to time within the dominions of the sovereigns of Hind, and its history cannot be regarded as altogether foreign to the history of India. But the satrapy of Gedrosia undoubtedly lay beyond the limits of India proper, and a summary narrative of the adventures met with by Nearchos on its coasts and
