and the expedition of Alexander produced a greater revolution in the knowledge of the globe, than almost any other event recorded in ancient history; and more designedly, perhaps, than is generally imagined.

CHAP. V.

GREEKS CONTINUED.

Expedition of Alexander.-Policy of that Conqueror.-Enters India.-Resolves to explore the Persian Gulf.-The March down the Indus.-Næarchus embarks.-Suffers great Hardships.-Imagines himself at the Equator.-The Greeks dismayed at the Appearance of a Whale.-Famished in the midst of Turtle. Successful Termination of the Voyage.-Preparations made to explore the Coasts of Arabia.-Arrested by the Death of Alexander.-Grand Views of that Prince.-Remarks of the Macedonians in India.-Division of the People into Castes.-Honey made without Bees.-Elephants.-Use of Umbrellas.-The Banyan Trees.-The Faquirs.-Self-Devotion to the Flames. -City of Palibothra.-Its Situation.-Indian Fables.-Respect paid to Monkeys.-The Greeks distorted Foreign Names.-Voyage of Jambolo to Ceylon. -His Remarks on the people.-Taprobane or Ceylon variously described.Accounts of the Ancients reconciled.-The Names of that Island.-Commerce between Egypt and the East.-Geography flourished in the commercial City of Alexandria.-Eratosthenes mentions Thinæ.-Agatharchides.Describes Abyssinia.-Wealth of the Sabæans.-Eudoxus of Cyzicus.-Sails to India.-Driven to the Coast of Africa. Finds the supposed Wreck of a Ship from Gades.-Banished from Egypt.-Resolves to reach India by the Ocean.-Sails from Gades.-His Misfortunes.-Repeats the Attempt.-His Fate and Character.

THE march of Alexander was not attended with the ruin and desolation which usually mark the progress of eastern. conquerors: he aimed at establishing a dominion permanent as well as universal, and, consequently, sought to gain the affections of his newly-conquered subjects. The success which attended all his measures was the result of deliberate policy and calculation. The power which waits on knowledge did not escape his notice; and he led in his train men of science, whose duty it was to make themselves acquainted with every thing worthy of notice in the subjugated countries.

The fate of Persia being decided by the flight of Darius, the conqueror conducted his army to Bactria and the country on the Oxus; in short, to the eastern extremity of the world as it was known to Grecian geographers. But he had higher objects in view than the mere glory of subduing barbarous nations: curiosity and ambition both drew his regards to India; of which Herodotus had said, "that it was 'undoubtedly the richest and most populous country in the world." In consequence, when he had arranged the government of Persia, he marched into

Candahar by the same route which was afterwards followed by the conquering armies of Tamerlane and Nadir Shah, and which had been long trodden by the Indo-Scythians, or warlike mountain tribes of the Indian frontiers. Crossing the Indus at Taxila (the city of the Tacs), by some supposed to be the modern Attock, he shortly after entered the country of the Penj-ab, or Five Rivers, so called from the tributary waters which flow through it to the Indus. But on the banks of the first of these rivers, the Hydaspes, he found Porus, an Indian prince, prepared to dispute its passage. The true name of this chieftain, Puar or Powar, is still preserved among the noble Rajpoots: it is one of the very few noble names which have survived the revolutions to which India has been exposed. The Macedonians, however, were the victors in the engagement which ensued, and continued their march through one of the richest countries in the world; yet the Penj-ab yields in wealth and fertility to the countries situated on the banks of the Ganges. The fame of this celebrated river must have reached Alexander, and it was unquestionably his intention to embrace it within the boundaries of his empire; but when he had reached the Hyphasis, and before he had completely crossed the Penj-ab, the discontentment of his troops was so loudly declared, that he was obliged to relinquish the design of proceeding any further; and, indeed, when we remember that he entered India in the rainy season, we can readily conceive the sufferings which checked the ardour and provoked the disobedience of the hardy Macedonians. This important error alone is sufficient to show how little acquaintance the Greeks had with India: but it is also related, that when Alexander saw crocodiles in the Indus, he conceived a notion that this river was connected with the Nile, and that its navigation downwards would conduct into Egypt. This anecdote, however, is hardly credible, though frequently repeated. Herodotus long before had expressly stated that the Indus was the only river besides the Nile in which crocodiles were found; and the general arrangement of Alexander's plans, both in Egypt and India, bespeak a share of geographical information totally irreconcileable with such a blunder.

It may even be suspected that Alexander contemplated from the beginning the establishment of a commercial intercourse between Egypt and India. The care he took to examine the navigation of the Persian Gulf and of the Indus; the cities founded by him in commanding situations on the branches of this river; the well-chosen site of Alexandria, which afterwards continued for many centuries the centre of the India trade, and his boasting that his fleets should sail round Africa; all these circumstances unite to point out some plans of more

than ordinary magnitude. But whatever may have been the immediate designs of the Macedonian conqueror, it is certain that we may date from his eastern expedition the first growth of that Indian trade, which afterwards enriched for many ages his successors in Egypt, and which continues to this day an object of paramount importance to European nations.

The navigation of the Indus and of the coasts westward towards Persia being resolved upon, a fleet of eight hundred vessels was collected and entrusted to the command of Næarchus. Nicæa, on the Hydaspes, about 800 miles from the sea, was the point from which the expedition departed: the army, divided into two bodies, marched on both sides of the river to protect the fleet, and the whole had the lively air of a triumphal procession. The Macedonians entered the country of the Malli (Moultan), and afterwards received the submission of the Oxydraca (people of Outche), who were remarkable then as at present for being divided into cantons. Indeed, the feudal system exists in general on the Indian frontiers. On reaching the mouth of the Indus, Alexander, who always set the example of encountering difficulties, undertook himself to examine the eastern side of the Delta, and his vanity even impelled him to sail a short distance from land, that he might boast of being the first who went beyond the Indies. In this excursion, the fleet under his command sustained great damage from the bore, or rushing tide, a phenomenon with which the Greeks were wholly unacquainted, although they were not ignorant of the ordinary tides; and which, though common to the mouths of most great rivers, rages with peculiar. violence in that of the Indus. Four months had been consumed in the progress down the river, and six or seven more were requisite to survey the Delta, and to complete the preparations for the voyage round the coast. At length, when every thing was ready, Alexander marched with his army towards the country of the Arabite, and Næarchus with the galleys dropped down the river to proceed towards the west.

The pompous ceremonies which preceded this voyage, and the preparations, inadequately great, which were made for it, instead of provoking ridicule, will enhance its merit in the eyes of the candid critic, since they show the importance attached to an enterprise, at that time considered as one of the most perilous nature, and the resolution with which it was undertaken. Indeed this was the first naval enterprise of any moment, conducted in such a manner as to have permanent and beneficial consequences.

Næarchus set sail in October, when the trade winds set in from the north-east. He was aware that the Etesian winds, as

he called the monsoons, did not blow on the coasts of India as in the Mediterranean. But though he had learned the periods of those winds, he was not yet practically acquainted with the manner of their variations, and had started in fact a month before the winter monsoon had commenced blowing steadily. In consequence of this mistake he made but little way, accomplishing not more than eighty miles in the first forty days of his voyage. His course, during all this time, lay along the coast of the Arabita, the modern Belootches, a fierce and predatory nation. The men were reduced, in the mean time, to the greatest distress for want of water and provisions, being compelled to subsist, in a great measure, on the shell-fish they picked up on the shore. As the eastern monsoon, however, grew steady, they had the satisfaction of advancing more rapidly along the coast of the Orite, whose name is still preserved in that of Haur, the modern capital of the province.

Næarchus relates, that when in this part of his voyage, he stood out to sea a considerable way to the south, the sun was vertical, and cast no shadow. This was really a fiction, for Næarchus was never within less than twenty-five degrees of the equator; but, like the fables of Pytheas, it serves to show how speculation may sometimes outstrip experience in the discovery of truth, since we find that the most striking celestial phenomena of the arctic and equatorial regions were justly described by Grecian navigators, long before they had ever seen them.

The Greeks now continued their voyage along the coast of the Icthyophagi, or Fish-eaters, a tribe sunk in the extreme of savage wretchedness. They were clad in the skins of fish; their huts were built with fish-bones, and covered with large shells; their bread was made of pounded fish; and even their cattle subsisted on the same food. The barrenness of the land, and the productiveness of the sea on this coast, being equally adverse to industry, have perpetuated the savage condition of the inhabitants to the present day. The natives, paddling in their canoes, appeared to the Macedonians to be digging the water with a spade. But Greek pride was humbled for a moment by an accident which occurred in this part of the voyage: the sea was seen to spout up at no great distance, and when the pilot was asked to explain this singular appearance, he ascribed it to the blowing of a whale. The greatest consternation immediately prevailed throughout the whole fleet, at the thought of encountering so formidable a monster; nor did the alarm cease till the whale, assailed with shouts and the sounds of clashing arms, sunk quietly below the surface.

Famine still pressed the expedition: no meat or corn was to

be procured, and but little water. Fish, indeed, and fine turtle, were in abundance; but to be reduced to such fare, appeared to the companions of Næarchus a proof of deep distress. The Greeks had no idea of feasting on turtle: they looked upon it, perhaps, with as much abhorrence as a Virginian does on mutton; a camel would have appeared to them preferable food. It is not wonderful, therefore, that when they reached a little town called Barna, where date-trees covered the shore, and nature wore a more smiling countenance, they should sig nalise their joy with the characteristic elegance of their nation, and weave themselves garlands of flowers.

A little further on, the fleet having doubled Badis, or Cape Jask, anchored at the river Anamis, in the province of Armozeia, a name which subsequently passed to the little island of Ormuz, at that time called Organa. Here they learned the agreeable intelligence that Alexander was encamped with the army at the distance of only five days' journey from the shore. Nearchus hastened to meet the king, now almost in despair at not having heard any tidings of his fleet. The unexpected arrival of the admiral, whose appearance was so much altered by the hardships of the voyage that he could hardly be recognised, caused Alexander the most lively transports of joy: his glory was untarnished by failure, and an enterprise was accomplished under his auspices of a bold and original character, and from which he hoped to derive important consequences. The difficulties of the voyage were now over: the remainder of the navigation to the mouth of the Euphrates lay along the friendly coasts of Carmania and Persis, from which the fleet received supplies in abundance, and where it was enabled to maintain in its progress a constant communication with the army.

The voyage from the mouth of the Indus to that of the Euphrates, which, at the present day, would be performed in about three weeks, occupied Næarchus one-and-twenty. But we must not undervalue the merit of a first attempt. Great caution was requisite at first to prevent discouraging accidents; but as the Macedonians proceeded in their navigation, their skill as well as courage increased: they weighed anchor at night, took advantage of the land and sea breezes, and employed the services of native pilots. The success of this experiment encouraged Alexander to look forward to the completion of his schemes. Arrangements were made for the examination of the southern coasts of the Persian Gulf; a detachment of the army was sent forward into Arabia to protect the fleet from insults; and Næarchus was already embarked to commence the enterprise, when the untimely death of Alexander put a sudden stop to its further prosecution. The career of