[ 2?9 ] 



had again placed the crown upon his head, and had greatly in- 

 creased his power for offensive operation, by the addition of a large 

 adjoining territory, the wary, but dastardly, Indian, conceiving 

 himself doomed to be the victim, fled from his dominions, at the 

 head of all the brave young men capable of bearing arms, whose 

 business it should have been, and whose inclination it probably was, 

 to defend them against an invader. In the eager pursuit of him, 

 Alexander arrived on the banks of the Hydraotes,or modern Rauvee, 

 the third river of the Panjab; and, having hence dispatched He- 

 phaestion and Coenus completely to scour and reduce the whole 

 country, he also added to the kingdom of his friend Porus these 

 dominions of his ungenerous enemy. 



The passage of the Hydraotes, or Rauvee, is not mentioned by 

 Arrian as having been attended with any peculiar circumstances 

 of danger or difficulty; and it is Major Rennet's opinion, confirmed 

 by many strong local considerations, that Alexander crossed this 

 river " near the place where the city of Lahore now stands*." 

 Arrived on its eastern banks, he found a most formidable enemy 

 prepared to dispute his farther progress through the Panjab, in three 

 great confederated tribes, the Cathaei, the Malli, and the Oxydracae, 

 concerning whom it is necessary to state some particulars supplied by 

 the laborious diligence of the respectable geographer just cited. 

 By the Cathaei, or Catheri, as Diodorus writes the word, he contends 

 is meant the Kattri, or war-tribe of India, a supposition which their 

 martial character justifies. Their capital of Sarigala he places in a 

 direction south-west of Lahore, at the distance of a three days' 

 inarch, and consequently so far out of the direct line of Alexander's 

 route to the Ganges. This south-western progress of the army led 

 the Macedonians near the confines of the province of Multan, and 



* Memoir, p. 93. 



