oared galleys, besides many smaller craft.[1] He moreover found that 200 talents of silver,[2] 3,000 oxen, above 10,000 sheep for sacrificial victims, and thirty elephants had arrived as gifts from Taxiles the Indian; 700 Indian horsemen also arrived from Taxiles as a reinforcement, and that prince sent word that he would surrender to him the city of Taxila,[3] the largest town between the rivers Indus and Hydaspes.[4] Alexander there offered sacrifice to the gods to whom he was in the habit of sacrificing, and celebrated a gymnastic and horse contest near the river. The sacrifices were favourable to his crossing.
CHAPTER IV.
Digression About India.
The following are statements about the river Indus which are quite unquestionable, and therefore let me record them. The Indus is the largest of all the rivers in Asia and Europe, except the Ganges,[5] which is also an Indian river. It takes its rise on this side mount Parapamisus, or Caucasus, and discharges its water into the Great Sea which lies near India in the direction of the south wind. It has two mouths, both of which outlets are full of shallow pools like the five outlets of the Ister (or Danube).[6] It forms a Delta in the land of
- ↑ Arrian frequently uses the Ionic and old Attic word, σμικρος.
- ↑ About £480,000.
- ↑ Alexander probably crossed the Indus near Attock. The exact site of Taxila cannot be fixed.
- ↑ The Hydaspes is now called Jelum, one of the five great tributaries of the Indus.
- ↑ Herodotus considered the Danube the largest river in the world as known to him, and the Dnieper the largest of all rivers except the Danube and the Nile. See Herodotus, iv. 48-53.
- ↑ "Amnis Danubius sexaginta navigabiles paene recipiens fluvios, Beptem ostiis erumpit in mare. Quorum primum est Peuce insula supra dicta, ut interpretata sunt vocabula Graeco sermone, secundum Naracu-
