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



has not been ascertained, though, as ivy grew there, it must have been 

 high in the mountains. 



Crossing the Indus by this bridge, Alexander went with Taxiles 

 to Taxila, the capital of the latter, which probably was near the pre- 

 sent Tatta, about one march from the river. Thence he prosecuted 

 his march to the Hydaspes, now the Jihlum, on the other side of 

 which Porus was encamped with a large Indian army. To aid the 

 passage, Alexander sent back to the Indus for some of the boats or 

 rafts he had built, and causing them to be brought over by land, 

 amused Porus for some days by marching up and down with great 

 parade, as if he was about immediately to force a passage. 



Arrian tells us this occurred in the rains when the river was much 

 swollen, and that Alexander was thinking of waiting for the cold season 

 when the waters would subside. After some days, however, finding a 

 favorable rock to conceal his preparations, he launched his boats and 

 effected a passage at a place where there were several alluvial islands. 

 Porus was then defeated and made prisoner. Arrian specifically tells 

 us, that this battle was fought in the month Munychion, which is the last 

 but two of the Greek year, beginning in July. April and May would 

 therefore be the time of the year indicated, but this is not reconcilable 

 with the fact of the rains having set in to swell the stream. The date 

 assigned by Dr. Vincent and all later commentators, is August 327, 

 b. c. which, supposing Alexander to have crossed the Hindoo Koosh 

 on the first opening of the passage at the end of March, or in the 

 beginning of April, gives evidence of a celerity of movement, and 

 rapidity of conquest to excite our wonder. 



After the defeat of Porus, Alexander captured Sangala on the Hy- 

 draotes, supposed to be near Lahore, and then marched to the Sutlej 

 at a spot below its junction with the Hyphasis (Beas) where historians 

 say, he built pillars or altars to mark the limit of his conquests. Apol- 

 lonius Tyaneus is made by Philostratus to say, that he saw them in the 

 first century of the Christian sera, and that a king, Phraotes, of Greek 

 race, and who conversed freely with him in Greek, was then reigning in 

 the Punjab, and master of the country as far west as the Kabool valley. 

 These altars however, though sought for with much avidity, have 

 never yet been found by modern travellers. The remonstrances of the 

 Macedonian troops, and their refusal to march further, created the im- 



