[ 259 ] 



country terminated, and the level plain of the Panjab commenced, 

 so much better adapted to the purpose of crossing on a bridge 

 of boats than where the stream flowed turbulent on a rapid descent*. 

 With the light-armed troops he himself marched back into the 

 territories of the Assaceni, where he was informed the brother of the 

 late king had revolted, and, with a great body of barbarians, had fled 

 to the mountains. Alexander, however, anxious to penetrate into 

 the interior of India, did not think proper to pursue him to this re- 

 treat ; and employed his troops, with the assistance of the natives, in 

 catching the elephants which abound in that province, and are taken 

 by the natives with singular dexterity, for the purpose of acting 

 against the numerous train of those animals, which he expected would 

 be opposed to him by the princes reigning beyond the eastern shore 

 of the Indus. It seems to have been during this second expedition to 

 the Assaceni and Cophenes, or Cow-River, which bounded their ter- 

 ritories on the west, that Alexander paid his memorable visit to the 

 city of Nysa, denominated Dionysopolis, in Ptolemy, from the tra- 

 dition of its having been founded by Dionysius, or Bacchus, in his 

 invasion of India, and known, in Sanscreet, by the resembling appel- 

 lation of Naishada-\-. Concerning that invasion, and the curious 

 fragment of both Indian and Greek history that regards Nysa, as 

 well as its supposed founder, and the adjacent mountain Meros, 

 (the Meru, or north-pole, of the Brahmins,) the reader has already, 

 in the former part of this work, been presented with very circum- 

 stantial details, and every thing added in this place would be 

 tautology, except that, on taking possession of the city and the moun- 

 tain, the triumphant host resigned itself, for six days together, to the 

 transports of impetuous joy and the extravagance of Bacchanalian 



* See Kennel's Memoir, p. 121. t Sir William Jones in Asiatic Researches, vol. i. p. 259, 



Vol. in. 2 L 



