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and, in D'Anville's Geography, is recognized in the Cots:. Hence, 

 Hephaestion and Perdiccas were sent on before with a considerable 

 detachment, to scour the country and prepare the bridge of boats 

 which would be necessary for the transportation of the army across 

 the Indus. Alexander, with the main body of the army, advanced 

 in the north-east direction towards the territories of a considerable 

 Indian nation, called the Aspii. In his progress thither, he passed 

 two other rivers, the Choe and Euaspla, and subdued the petty 

 tribes that inhabited their banks. In the vigorous opposition of the 

 Aspii, he had a specimen of the formidable resistance which he was 

 afterwards to meet with from their countrymen beyond the Indus ; 

 for, this brave people, setting fire to their principal city, which they 

 despaired of defending, resolutely opposed his army on the moun- 

 tains and the plain, nor gave over the conflict till their general was 

 slain, and forty thousand men lay dead on the field of battle*. 

 After this hard-fought contest, Alexander marched through the terri- 

 tories of the Guraei, who, terrified at the fate of the Aspii, readily 

 submitted. He here found great difficulty in crossing the river of 

 the same name, which was very rapid and dangerous ; and is, in fact, 

 the modern Attack, a word which implies forbidden ; for, the great 

 Indian law-giver fixed this stream as the ancient boundary of the 

 empire, and forbade it to be passed. TheGuraei inhabited the country 

 of Gazna, the celebrated empire formerly of Mahmud, and, in later 

 times, of Timur Shah. 



The next considerable nation, subdued on the west of the Indus, 

 were the Assaceni, answering, in the modern geography of India, to 

 Ash-Nagar. The A ssaceni, finding resistance on the open plains of 

 no effect against invaders so well disciplined in the science of war, 

 pursued a conduct exactly the reverse of that pursued by the Aspii ; 



* Arrian, lib. iv. cap. 25. 



