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commenced in the northern mountains, had swollen them to an 

 uncommon magnitude, and greatly increased their rapidity. The 

 Sincle, as we are informed from Sauscreet authority, in its early 

 course was anciently called NILAB, or the Blue River, from the 

 dark hue of its waters ; and this native appellation, added to the 

 crocodiles and the Egyptian beans that grew on its banks, will, in 

 some degree, account for the strange mistake of Alexander, that he 

 had discovered the sources of the Nile in this region of Northern 

 India. Indian traditions mention, also, a city of the same name, 

 situated near the present Attock, which a variety of circumstances 

 combines to prove must have stood on or near the scite of the 

 ancient Taxila, and to have been the point at which Alexander 

 effected the transportation of his army ; because the same geographer 

 observes, " this appears to have been, in all ages, the pass on the 

 Indus leading from the countries of Cabul and Candahar into 

 India*;" which induced the politic Akber, in after-ages, to build, 

 on this spot, the castle of Attock, commanding that passage. 



The total number of forces which this first invader, from so remote 

 a western clime, landed on the eastern banks of the Indus, is stated 

 by Curtius to have amounted to one hundred and twenty thousand 

 men-f-; a statement which must be supposed to include the thirty 

 thousand Persian youths whom he had caused to be trained up 

 in the Macedonian discipline, and constantly carried with him in his 

 army, partly to serve as hostages and partly to act as soldiers. 

 On the safe debarkation of the troops on the opposite shore, Alex- 

 ander's first care, as usual, was to offer solemn sacrifices to the gods ; 

 after which he exhibited gymnastic sports, according to the ancient 

 custom of the Greeks. The importance of the friendship of his new 



* Kennel's Memoir, p. 92. t Curtius, lib. viii. cap. 4. 



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