[ 309 3 



former he added to the prefecture of Philip, charging him to keep 

 over them a vigilant eye and a strong arm : of the Oxydracae he 

 demanded, by way of security for their future fidelity, no less than a 

 thousand of their principal citizens at once to serve as hostages, 

 and add to his triumphs, by being enrolled in his army. With these 

 terms they complied, and with the thousand hostages required, 

 gratuitously sent him, in proof of their sincerity, five hundred cha- 

 riots of war, with their horses and drivers, completely equipped for 

 action. With this mark of attention, Alexander was so well pleased 

 that he returned the hostages, declaring, that a nation so generous 

 could never be stained with the base crime of perfidy. While 

 he continued at this place waiting the full restoration of his health, 

 he enlarged his fleet by the addition of several vessels which he caused 

 to be built; and, thinking the point of the confluence a proper 

 position for erecting a city and fort, (a city for the purposes of 

 commerce and a fort to overawe the turbulent nations around,) he 

 added another Alexandria to the number of those already founded 

 on Indian ground ; but of this city no vestige remains. 



At length, Craterus, with the forces and elephants, being again 

 transported over the stream, Alexander embarked with seventeen 

 hundred auxiliary, an equal number of light Macedonian, horse, and 

 ten thousand foot ; the other divisons of the army marching, as be- 

 fore, along the two opposite shores. He soon reached the point 

 at which the Acesines, swollen with all the rivers of the Panjab, 

 discharges itself into the main stream of the Sinde, and at this 

 confluence he waited some time for Perdiccas, who had been en- 

 gaged in reducing the neighbouring tribe of Abastani. While he 

 remained here, he was visited by Oxyartes, the Bactrian, and father 

 of Roxana, whom, in commission with Python, he constituted 

 governor of all the country south of the confluence of the Acesines 

 and Sinde, as far as the ocean ; having already fixed on that conflu- 



2 R2 



