20 WESTERN H I N D O O S T A N. 



felf killed by Alexander^ who found in his caftle of Canooge 

 immenfe treafures ! 



NicoEA, AND Ont the banks of this river, oppofite to each other, he builty 



BucEPHALA. ^^ ^^^ bloody fcene, two cities, Nicoea and Bucepbala. Kiccea fo 

 named from the vi<ftory, the laft in honor of his celebrated 

 horfe, which died of old age at the time of this adlion. Alex- 

 ander gratefully paid it the higheft funeral honors, erecfled a 

 magnificent fepulchre, and called the city after its name. 



I SHALL not trace the fieges, battles, and flaughters of this 

 ambitious character; of his marches and his paffages over the 

 rivers that form this part of the Panjab, but leave my readers 

 to confult his original hiftorians, Arrian and ^intus Curtius. 

 It is very certain the hero did not, amidft his deeds of arms, 

 peglecfl the ftudy of natural hiflory. It is well known that he 

 caufed every fpecies, objedls of that fcience, to be colledted for 

 the ufe of his Tutor Arijiotle. %^ Curtius relates fome few re- 

 marks on the zoology of the neighborhood. He met here with 



Rhinoceros, the Rbhwceros, with the great Serpent Boa canjiri&or^ Gm. 

 Lin. iii. 1083, w'ith parrots, or birds which could fpeak, and 

 with great flocks of wild peacocks. JElian^ in his Hijl. An. lib. v. 

 c. 21. relates, that the conqueror was fo ftruck with their beauty, 

 that he forbad his foldiers from killing them under the heavieft 

 penalties. 



Pfittacus is a name derived from Sittace, the Indtan word for a 

 parrot. Linn^us, Gm. Linn. i. 321, gives to one fpecies, long 

 known, the trivial of the Macedonian h^vo^PJittacus Alexandria, as 

 if in honor of the fpecies difcovered by his admiral Nearchus. 



The Boa. The fame great officer mentions alio the vaft fpotted ferpents, 



which he fays were about fixteen cubits long. Arrian^ i. 538, 

 Rev. Indie. His veracity has been called in queftion ; but fince 



the 



