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had usually taken on board ; and, being resolved to sail out of the 

 mouth of the Indus into the ocean, he ordered Leonnatus, with a 

 thousand horse and about eight thousand infantry, to march quite 

 through the Delta, with a view more fully to explore it, and after- 

 wards join the fleet on the opposite side. He then selected the 

 stoutest and best sailing vessels of the fleet, and descended down the 

 right channel ; but, not being able to procure a native pilot, and a 

 violent storm arising on the following day, from their ignorance of that 

 channel, it received great damage, some vessels being dashed against 

 each other, and others driven violently on the bank. A sheltering 

 bay being fortunately found near at hand, the injury done the fleet 

 was soon repaired, and Pattalan pilots being at length, though with 

 great difficulty, obtained, owing to the terror their Grecian visitants 

 inspired, the voyage was continued down to a point in the river 

 where it expands two hundred stadia in breadth (twelve miles) near 

 the mouth : and here a new and unexpected calamity befel them ; a 

 calamity that had nearly proved fatal to every hope of navigating the 

 Indian Ocean. The tides at the mouth of the Indus are said to rise 

 higher than in any part of the world : Alexander and his Greeks 

 could not have been ignorant of the ebbing and flowing of the sea, 

 which they must have witnessed in the Mediterranean ; but there it 

 is gentle, gradual, and scarcely perceptible, to what it is on the shore 

 of the vast Indian Ocean, and especially on the Bay of Cutch and 

 the Guzzurat coast, where, what is called the BORE comes rushing 

 on with a sudden and impetuous influx, rising many feet above the 

 surface of the sea, and bearing a most terrific appearance. The 

 great obstructions, also, accumulated in the course of ages at the 

 mouth of the Indus, and which at the present day are far more 

 considerable than in Alexander's time, must have greatly contributed 

 to the sudden swell of the waters; and these circumstances, well 

 considered, effectually vindicate the Macedonians from the censures 



