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of Hercules. His anxious wish was to leave no enemy behind 

 sufficiently powerful to interrupt that amity and impede that com- 

 merce. With these introductory observations, from necessity sum- 

 mary, the voyage down the Indus, and the perpetual conflicts with 

 the nations on its banks and those on the desert shores of Gedrosia, 

 will be rendered at once more interesting and intelligible. 



Every tiling being at length ready, and the protection of the gods 

 having previously been implored, by oblations more than usually 

 magnificent, on the 23d of October, at break of day, Alexander, with 

 a considerable part of his army, consisting of the archers, Agrians, 

 the light-armed infantry, and some cavalry, went on board. Taking 

 his station conspicuously on the prow of his ship, the king then 

 poured out libations from a golden goblet, and solemnly invocated the 

 three great rivers, the Hydaspes, the Acesines, and the Sinde, down 

 whose streams he was successively to descend to the ocean : Her- 

 cules, also, and Jupiter Hammon, he endeavoured to render pro- 

 pitious by renewed sacrifice. Immediately after, all the trumpets 

 sounding, which was the appointed signal, the fleet unmoored, and, 

 under the guidance of those experienced mariners who assisted in its 

 fabrication, glided leisurely and majestically down the tranquillized 

 current*. Imagination can scarcely conceive a grander or more 

 picturesque scene than was now presented to the view of the natives, 

 who anxiously flocked to the river-side in immense multitudes, and 

 beheld with astonishment the number and magnitude of the vessels ; 

 while the sound of martial music, the clash of arms, the dashing of 

 the oars, and the acclamations of the rowers, reverberated at intervals 

 from the lofty overhanging shores on each side, contributed highly 



* Arrian, lib. vi. cap. 4. Curtius, lib. ix. cap. 4. According to the latter of these authors, 

 the embarkation took place at the Acesines; but Arrian's is the more connected and probable 

 account, and that is what I have adopted in the text. 



