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May he commence the task under better auspices, and be provided 

 with ampler materials than it has fallen to my lot to enjoy! 



For the important purposes already intimated, viz. the permanent 

 security of his eastern conquests and the firm establishment of a 

 vigorous commerce on the Sinde, Alexander, having long determined 

 to open a communication with India by the way of the Persian 

 Gulph, continued Nearchus in his station of admiral of the fleet 

 appointed to explore that coast, with orders to meet himself and the 

 army in Mesopotamia. As the season was unfavourable for its imme- 

 diate sailing, and the Etesian winds, or, to speak in language more 

 intelligible to an English navigator of the Indian Seas, the monsoon, 

 that blows regularly six months, during winter, from the north-east 

 quarter, and six months, during summer, from the south-west, having 

 not yet shifted, the king set out nearly a month before the departure 

 of the fleet, in order to facilitate its progress by exploring the country 

 inland, reducing the savage inhabitants, digging wells, and pro- 

 curing such provisions as could be obtained in a sterile country for 

 its refreshment. It is the circumstance of his having failed in fully 

 accomplishing these purposes, from ignorance of the utter barrenness 

 of the country, that has prevented the real views of Alexander in 

 exploring maritime Gedrosia from being more distinctly visible, and 

 has been the occasion of branding with the character of insane te- 

 merity an expedition founded in consummate wisdom, and perse- 

 vered in with the kindest attention to the welfare of his comrades in 

 peril and in glory. 



The Oritee, a hardy independent tribe, if not absolutely of Indian 

 origin, yet using Indian customs and manners, who inhabited the 

 mountainous tract near the river Arabis, and known to the mo- 

 derns by the name of Belootches, were among those delinquent na- 

 tions who had neither sent ambassadors to the Macedonian camp nor 

 offers of surrender. Against these, as against all the other Indian 



