30 i Alexander's exploits on the Western Banks of the Indus. [April, 



Art. III. — Collection of Facts which may be useful for the comprehen- 

 sion of Alexander the Great's exploits on the Western Banks of 

 the Indus (with map). 



By M. A. Court, Ancien Eleve de V Ecole Militaire de Saint Cyr. 

 (Translated for the Journal of the Asiatic Society from the French Original M.S.) 



The military achievements of Alexander in the regions which lie be- 

 tween the Indus and the Cophenes form one of the most brilliant episodes 

 of his history. 



Those regions at present are known by the name of Yousoufzeis, 

 Kooner, Suwat, Dhyr, Bajore, and Moumends. More northward lies 

 KafTristan, which occupies the southern and northern sides of the gigan- 

 tic snow-topped chain of mountains which bounds this country to the 

 north, and is but an extension of the Himalayas, and to the west 

 reaches Hindo-Koosh at the Khound, an enormous ridge, the tops of 

 which are flat, and almost perpetually covered with snow, a circumstance 

 which renders it observable at a great distance : there are likewise 

 visible the banks of the Indus, from which it is about eighty koss 

 distant. 



Those regions are bounded on the east by the Indus, on the south by 

 the river of Cabul, which is no other but the Cophes or Cophenes of 

 the Greeks, placed by Arrian at the eastern extremity of Paropamis, 

 and the source of which Pliny collocates in the north western part 

 of this mountainous province, assigning its course eastward, and sta- 

 ting that after its confluence with the Choes near Nyssa, it falls into 

 the Indus to the south west of Taxila below Ambolima (probably Amb) — 

 data that perfectly combine with the Cabul river, which I have des- 

 cribed in my journey through Affghanistan. This name Cophes, by 

 which it was known to the historiographers of antiquity, seems to have 

 been given it by the Greeks, who may have derived it from Cophenes 

 who perhaps then governed the country it washes in the name of his 

 father Artabazus, whom Alexander had appointed prefect of Bactria. 

 This is at least what induced Arrian to adopt the above opinion, who re- 

 lates that Alexander was accompanied, on his arrival at the banks of the 

 Tndus, by Cophes and Assagetes, virapyoi or sub-rulers of the pro- 

 vince situated to the west of that river. Or perhaps it is the name 

 which it originally bore, and from a corruption of which the Mahometans 

 formed the word Kaffristan. 



This vast extent of mountainous country is very little known to Eu- 

 ropeans. The geographical details which Quintus Curtius gives of it 

 are too succinct, and it is a matter of much regret, that the veracious 



