566 Note on the Passes into Hindoostan [No. 126. 



cut him off from retreat into Kashghur. He had fomented another in- 

 surrection at Herat, and sent 2,000 horse to support it, while Alexander 

 was making the Huzara passage, prior to wintering in the Kabool 

 valley ; but this was defeated by the garrison left in the new city, 

 aided by a detachment sent back, without requiring Alexander's 

 presence. Bessus therefore on the passage of the Hindoo Koosh being 

 effected, retired at once to the mountains of Sogdiana, Nautaka, sup- 

 posed to be Karshee or Nukhshab, being the position he took up to 

 watch the further course of events. Alexander took Bulkh and all the 

 country south of the Oxus, and established six stations according to 

 Quintus Curtius to guard and command the passes of the mountains. 

 He then crossed the Oxus on skins, at a point where the river was 

 rapid and deep, and had a sandy bottom, which is the character of all 

 the fords about Bulkh. Bessus was betrayed and given up before 

 Alexander reached his position at Karshee, and thereupon Alexander 

 followed up his success by seizing Markanda, (Samarkund), and he 

 thence continued his march, meeting with no serious opposition, to the 

 Sir or Jaxartes, called by Arrian the Eastern Tanais. He crossed this 

 river to punish the Scythian cavalry, who had inflicted on him some 

 loss as they retired before him through Sogdiana. Alexander fought on 

 the other side of the Sir a sharp cavalry action, in which he was 

 wounded severely by an arrow in the leg, his fibula or smaller leg bone 

 being broken. He gained the victory, however, and dislodged the 

 enemy from a mountain supposed to be that opposite to Khojund, 

 with a loss stated at 20,000 men. 



Alexander remained sometime on the Jaxartes, and commenced 

 building a city or fort near Khojund. He at the same time summoned 

 all the tribes to a general convention to be held at Zariaspe, (Huza- 

 rasp on the Oxus,) in the coming winter; but while he was so occu- 

 pied in advance, the nomade tribes of the Kizil-koom desert and 

 Lower Jaxartes, rose on the garrisons he had left in his rear, and 

 under Spitamenes, an active and energetic partisan, besieged Markanda. 

 Alexander on the first news of the insurrection retraced his steps 

 towards Markanda, reducing all the cities on his way without difficulty 

 until he came to Cyropolis, which is probably Kesh, or Shuhur 

 Subz, where Persian tradition fixes the birth of the great Cyrus. 

 This siege proved difficult, for the city is described as large and 



