[ 332 ] 



his learned labours ; and to those pages, therefore, the curious reader 

 and geographical enquirer are referred. It is sufficient for me to add, 

 that, sailing up the Pasitigris, through a rich and populous country, 

 to a village situated about nine miles up that river, the fleet there 

 cast anchor, and waited for intelligence of the army's approach. 

 The interval was filled up with the celebration of sacrifices to the gods, 

 in gratitude for their protection during so hazardous a navigation, 

 and with the festive games usual on such joyful occasions. That 

 February, intelligence at length arriving, they again, for the last time, spread 



Before Christ, _ 1-1 



325. their sails, and proceeded triumphantly up the river to a bridge 

 newly built over the stream, for the passage of the army. There 

 they met with renovated transports of mutual joy ; new sacrifi- 

 ces blazed to the gods ; new games, of unparalleled magnificence, 

 were instituted, at which Alexander solemnly placed, with his own 

 hands, on the head of Nearchus, a crown of the purest gold, while 

 before him were again borne triumphal garlands, and his path was 

 once more strewed with the loveliest flowers that grow in the gardens 

 of Asia*. 



The subsequent events that took place, till the untimely period of 

 the decease of Alexander, in less than two years after, are entirely 

 unconnected with this history ; and, were they not so, could not be 

 detailed in it, for want of room. From this splendid scene, therefore, 

 of festive triumph, of unbounded exultation for Asia subjugated and 

 the Ocean explored, we must reluctantly turn the deploring eye to 

 the dark chamber of death, and view this great prince, the conqueror 

 of the East, in the full career of unrivalled glory, expiring at his 

 palace in Babylon, the victim of continued and frantic intem- 

 perance, in the thirty-third year of his age, in the thirteenth of his 



* Arriani Hist. Ind. cap. 42. 



