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parties sent out to reconnoitre, he determined to strike terror by an 

 act of necessary rigour; and, rushing with his whole force upon the 

 unsupported foe, cut the greater part of them lo pieces ; while the 

 whole of the chariots, unable to proceed through the swampy 

 ground, inundated by the torrents of rain that had fallen in the 

 night, became the easy spoil of the victor. The troops, that escaped 

 the undistinguishing slaughter of that day, fled back to the Hydaspes, 

 and bore to the unhappy monarch the disastrous tidings of his routed 

 forces, and of his son slain while bravely fighting at the head of his 

 detachment. 



Porus, who, during the whole of Alexander's absence from his 

 camp, had been unusually harassed Avith the clamorous din of the 

 Macedonians and pretended preparations for passing the river, was 

 for some time in the deepest perplexity, whether he should wait the 

 threatening or seek the advancing foe. His magnanimity and valour 

 led him to prefer the latter of these alternatives; and, therefore, 

 leaving on the spot a certain proportion of his elephants and his army, 

 to awe and keep in check the Macedonians on the opposite shore, 

 he immediately led from their encampment an army consisting of 

 thirty thousand foot, four thousand horse, three hundred chariots, 

 and two hundred elephants, to dispute the palm of glory with the 

 conqueror of Darius. " The mighty Foor," says Ferishta, " issued 

 from Sirhind, with an army numerous as the locusts, against the 

 great Secander*." That this vast host, especially the elephants and 

 the chariots, might act without obstruction, a wide and even plain, 

 with a surface of firm sand, was judiciously sought for, and fortu- 

 nately found. Here the intrepid Indian drew up his army in the fol- 

 lowing order : The elephants were ranged in the front of all, at the 

 distance of one hundred feet from each other, forming a line of vast 



* Ferishta's Indian History, vol. i. p. 180. 





