1848.] deputed to the Tibetan Frontier. 103 



stone," a huge isolated block of granite on the top of the hill about 50 

 feet in height, on which a Rani of former times is said to have seated 

 herself daily. 



2. Rani-gat corresponds in all essential particulars with the descrip- 

 tions of Aornus as given by Arrian, Strabo, and Diodorus, excepting in 

 its elevation, the height of Rani-gat above the plain not being more 

 than 1000 feet; which is however a very great elevation for so large a 

 fortress. Bat as the breadths of all the rivers of the Punjab recorded 

 by Arrian are at least four times too much, I do not think that the dif- 

 ference of height is of much importance ; more particularly as we know 

 that Arrian' s height must have been greatly exaggerated, otherwise 

 Aornus would have been covered with snow at the time of Alexander's 

 siege, a fact which is not mentioned by a single ancient author. Mr. 

 Williams, the latest historian of Alexander, estimates Arrian's 20 stadia 

 at three quarters of a mile, which is about the slant height of Rani-gat, 



3. The points of agreement between the two places are the follow- 

 ing : — Rani-gat is an isolated inaccessible hill, with only one road cut 

 in the rock leading to the top, although there are certainly two, if not 

 more, rather difficult pathways, which indeed was the case with Aor- 

 nus. It has also a detached peak as high as the place itself; and the 

 intervening hollow from 50 to 150 feet in depth, corresponds to the ra- 

 vine across which Alexander built his rampart. It was supplied with 

 water by three wells cut in the rock, and by a tank in the ravine enclos- 

 ed between two dykes, from which the constant permeation would have 

 formed a small rill, similar to the trickling streams which now percolate 

 from the tanks of Kalinjar and Gwalior. Lastly, its situation answers 

 admirably to all the data, which have been handed down to us regard- 

 ing Aornus. It stands between the Swat river and the Indus, and not 

 far from the latter stream. To the north-west, about 20 miles distant, 

 are the large and important villages of Bazar and Rustam, adjoining 

 each other, and which now form the entrepot of all the trade between 

 the Swat valley and the Yusufzai plain. This entrepot is, I have little 

 doubt, the Bazaria of Alexander's historians, which submitted to him 

 on his march eastwards, after the conquest of the Swat valley. As the 

 Bazarians at his approach abandoned their city and took refuge in Aor- 

 nus, the relative positions of Bazar and Rani-gat suit exactly all the 

 conditions required for the ancient localities. 



