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whole array rushing in a transport of affectionate gratitude to the 

 royal pavilion, and calling down blessings without number and 

 without bound on the head of their relenting sovereign. 



Having thus fixed the Hyphasis (its eastern bank, according to 

 Pliny) as the extreme limit of his progress, Alexander ordered 

 twelve magnificent altars of hewn stone, fifty cubits in height*, to 

 be erected on the spot, to the twelve greater deities of Greece, and 

 consecrated them as lasting monuments of his labours and expedition. 

 Plutarch informs us, that these altars remained standing in his time, 

 and that the Indians from beyond the Ganges used to come and_sa- 

 crifice upon thenrf-; (to their native deities, we must presume, in 

 memory of their deliverance from the terrible scourge of an army 

 that had desolated the rest of Asia.) We are informed by Curtius, 

 that, previous to his return, he caused the lines of intrenchment 

 around his camp to be extended to three times their usual circuit, 

 ordered beds of a vast size to be prepared, as for soldiers of gigantic 

 stature, and mangers and bits of bridles of proportionate magnitude 

 for horses, to be deposited there, with a view of imposing on posterity 

 the belief that he had invaded India with an army above the com- 

 mon standard of men J. Arrian, however, is silent in respect to this 

 puerile effort of deception, so unworthy of Alexander, and it is pro- 

 bably not fact. The erection of these altars took place, it should 

 appear, below the conflux of the Beyah with the Zaradrus, or Sut- 

 tuluz, the last of the five rivers of the Panjab, because modern geo- 

 graphy confirms the truth of the statement made to Alexander, that 

 there actually exists a desert between the lower parts of the latter river 

 and the Ganges. Its name of Bey-Passa, whence the Greek Hyphasis 

 was formed, is indeed lost, below the conflux intimated, in that of 



* It is Diodorus Siculus who is thus particular in regard to their altitude, lib. xvii. p. 663. 

 t Plutarch in Vita Alexaiid. j Curtius, in loco supra citat. 



