250 On the Sites of Nikaia and Boukephalon. [No. 3. 



Sootlej, a river so much larger and more important, the barrier be- 

 tween two empires, should escape his notice. The difficulty is scarce- 

 ly cleared by taking Alexander to Hurri ke pultun, whither he might 

 have been attracted by the fame of Hercules, who gives it name, and 

 whose exploits it was his ambition to surpass : for it was his system 

 to build, not merely to overthrow : to establish his empire in every 

 conquered province ere proceeding in advance : and the rich and 

 important Jullundur Doaba would never have escaped his notice, being 

 in fact the gem of the Punjaub. Neither is it likely that with the 

 choice between the long desert tract by the Hurri ke pultun and the 

 comparatively fertile country of the Jullundur and Loodiana route, 

 with an army discouraged by the prospect of fresh toils and privations, 

 Alexander should deliberately select the less inviting road. 



It is therefore my belief that Alexander's progress was arrested at 

 the Phullore ferry. The rocks recorded by Curtius were unknown 

 or forgotten by Arrian. Curtius's history, though evidently compiled 

 from authentic sources, wants symmetry of parts, a defect which is 

 apt to mark a compilation from several different authors, and to which 

 his ignorance of geography and of tactics afforded him no check. 



It seems to me the less of two great difficulties to assume that 

 Alexander meeting with ready submission in the Jullundur Doaba 

 and no check or difficulty at the passage of the Beyass, both were 

 passed over with little notice in the lost histories of Ptolemy and his 

 contemporaries ; and that subsequent historians knowing that the 

 Punjaub derived its name from its five rivers, and counting the Indus 

 as one of them, were perplexed by the occurrence of a sixth and drop- 

 ped altogether that which was most slightly indicated, in the belief 

 that it was a mere torrent or an arm of the fifth river. 



is explained because Arrian calls the river there by the name of Hyphasis. In this 

 case be may have found it sufficient to detach a division of his army to take pos- 

 session of the Jullundur Doaba. The name, however, Phugla seems to refer to 

 Phuglore or Phullore, and the difficulty of procuring material for the construc- 

 tion of the altars would have been tenfold at the Hurri ke pultun. 



I can no where find in Strabo any mention of the R. Hysudrus. Pliny makes 

 it 168 miles from the Hyphasis, and the distance between the Hydaspes and 

 Hyphasis 3,900 or 4,900. In fact Pliny writes not Geography, but Romance. 



