4 
HINDOOSTAN, 
He continued his route eaftward to the fea, till, altering 
his courfe to the weft, he at length arrived at that place 
where the Phoenicians had formerly opened their naviga¬ 
tion round the continent of Africa. After Scylax had 
made his report of thefe difcoveries to the Perfian mo¬ 
narch, we are told that Darius fubdued the Indians, whom 
he laid under an annual tribute, and thus became mafter 
of that fea. The northern inhabitants of India, he fays, 
refembled the Badtrians in their manners, and were more 
valiant than the reft; but thofe who refided far to the fouth- 
ward were as dark in their complexion as the Ethiopians, 
killed no animals, but lived on rice and fruits, and flightly 
clothed themfelves with cotton. By the expedition of 
Alexander, the Greeks acquired a more competent know¬ 
ledge of Hindooftan ; an expedition, which, according to 
forne writers, was undertaken by the Macedonian hero, 
after he had conquered Perfia, to enforce the tribute which 
had been laid on India by Darius, but refufed to his vic¬ 
torious fucceftor. For the particulars of this expedition, 
the fubmiftion of Taxiles, the celebrated victory over Po- 
rus the Indian king, and the lubfequent events to the 
death of Alexander, we mult refer the reader to the article 
Greece, vol.viii. p.944-949. 
The ingenious Dr. Robertfon, and feveral other able 
writers, are inclined to believe the voyage of Scylax, and 
the conquefts of Darius in India, as rather fuppofttitious ; 
no wonder then they deign not to notice the imaginary 
invafion of India by the famous Semiramis, queen of Al- 
fyria, or by Sefoftris, king of Egypt, who lived many ages 
before the fiege of Troy; or of the eftablifnment in India 
of the fhepherd-kings, the Aurita of the Delta in Lower 
Egypt: concerning all which fee under the names of 
Semiramis, and Sesostris ; and all'o the article Egypt, 
vol.vi. p. 369, 370. Thofe writers offer many reafons for 
confidering the expedition of Alexander as the JirJl ferious 
invafion which the aborigines of Hindooftan ever expe¬ 
rienced. Be this as it may, it is pretty certain that the 
Grecian fhips conftituted" the firft hoftile fleet that ever 
navigated the Indian .feas. To maintain, therefore, the 
fovereignty of thofe feas, as well as to fecure the footing 
he had gained in India, Alexander erefted his two cities 
on the banks of the Hydafpes, and a third, Nictea, on the 
Acefines3 which being both navigable rivers, enabled him 
to keep open a communication with Hindooftan, not only 
by land, out by fea. With a ftmilar view he furveyed 
in perfon, as already noticed under the article Greece, 
the courfe of the Euphrates and Tigris, and gave direc¬ 
tions to remove the cataradls or dams, which the ancient 
kings of Perfia, induced by a peculiar precept of their re¬ 
ligion, which enjoined them to guard with the utmoft 
■care againft defiling any of the elements, had conftrufted 
near the mouths of thefe rivers, in order to (hut out their 
lubjects from any accefs to the ocean. By opening the 
navigation in this manner, Alexander propofed, that the 
valuable commodities of India fhouid be conveyed from 
the Perfian Gulf into the interior parts of his Afiatic 
dominions; while, by the Arabian Guif, they fnould 
be carried to Alexandria, and from thence diftributed to 
the reft of the world. On this early and moft important 
commercial plan, and its probable confequences to civi¬ 
lized ibciety, Dr. Robertfon, in his “ Historical Difquifi- 
tion concerning Ancient India,” has the following able 
and judicious remarks: 
“ Grand and extenfive as thefe fchemes were, the pre¬ 
cautions employed, and the arrangements made for carry¬ 
ing them into execution, were fo various and fo proper, 
that Alexander had good reafon to entertain fanguine 
hopes of their proving fuccefsful. At the time when the 
mutinous fpirit of his foldiers obliged him to relinquifh 
his operations in India, he was not quite thirty years of 
age. At this enterprifing period of life, a prince of a 
fpirit fo active, perfevering, and indefatigable, muft have 
foon found means to refume a favourite meafure, on which 
he had been long intent. If he had lived to invade India 
a fecond time, he would not, as formerly, have been obliged 
to force his way through hoftile and unexplored regions, 
oppofed at eveiy ftep by nations and tribes whofe names 
had never reached Greece. All Afia, from the fhores of 
the Ionian fea to the banks of the Hyphafis, would then 
have been fubjeft to his dominion; and through that im- 
menfe ftretch of country he had eftablifhed fuch a chain 
of cities, or fortified ftations, that his armies might have 
continued their march with fafety, and have found a re¬ 
gular fucceffion of magazines provided for their fubfift- 
ence. Nor would it have been difficult for him to bring 
into the field forces fufficient to have achieved the entire 
conqueft of a country fo populous and extenfive as India. 
Having armed and difciplined his fubjefts in the Eaft like 
Europeans, they would have been ambitious to imitate 
and to equal their inftruftors; and Alexander might have 
drawn recruits, not from his fcanty domains in Macedo¬ 
nia and Greece, but from the vaft regions of Afia, which, 
in every age, has covered the earth, and aftonifhed man¬ 
kind, with its numerous armies. When at the head of 
fuch a formidable power he had reached the confines of 
India, he might have entered it under circumftances very 
different from thofe in his firft expedition. He had fecured 
a firm footing there, partly by means of the garrifons which 
he left in the three cities which he had built and fortified, 
and partly by his alliance with Taxiles and Porus. Thefe 
two Indian princes, won by Alexander’s humanity and 
beneficence, which, as they were virtues feldom difplayed 
in the ancient mode of carrying on war, excited of courie 
a higher degree of admiration and gratitude, had conti¬ 
nued fteady in their attachment to the Macedonians. Re¬ 
inforced by their troops, and guided by their information, 
as well as by the experience which he had acquired in his 
former campaigns, Alexander muft have made rapid pro- 
grefs in a country, where every invader, from his time to 
the prefent age, has proved fuccefsful. 
“ But this, and all his other fplendid fchemes, were ter¬ 
minated at once by his untimely death. In confequence 
of that, however, events took place, which illuftrate and 
confirm the juftnefs of the preceding fpeculations, by evi¬ 
dence the moft ftriking and latisfaftory. When that great 
empire, which the fuperior genius of Alexander had kept 
united and in fubjeftion, no longer felt his fuperintending 
controul, it broke into pieces, and its various provinces 
were feized by his principal officers, and parcelled out 
amongft themfelves. From ambition, emulation, and per- 
fonal animofity, they foon turned their arms againft one 
another; and as feveral of the leaders were equally emi¬ 
nent for political abilities and for military (kill, the con- 
teft w'as maintained long, and carried on with Angular 
viciffitudes of fortune.”—For thefe interefting events, fee 
the article Greece, vol.viii. p.949-954. 
Seleucus, to whom the empire of Syria was allotted, and 
which then extended to the ffiores of the Indus, difpatched 
Megafthenes to Sandrocottus, king of the Prafii, as his 
ambaffador. This ancient Greek hiftorian had accompa¬ 
nied Alexander in his expedition into India, and had re¬ 
fided for feveral years at Palibothra, the capital of the 
Prafii. To gratify the curiofity of his countrymen, Me¬ 
gafthenes publiffied an account of India3 from which 
Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, and Arrian, gleaned their ac¬ 
counts of that country. His geographical deferiptions are 
found to be Angularly accurate ; and he railes magnificent 
ideas of the Indian people and power. He relates that he 
had anr.audience of Sandrocottus, in a place where he W'as 
encamped with four, hundred thoufimd men. The power 
and opulence of the Prafii, according to him, w'as anala- 
gous to what might be conjectured to have been the ftate 
of the greater kingdoms in modern Hindooftan, before the 
eftablifhment of the Mohammedan dominion in India. 
The Syrians did not long enjoy their poffeffions in India 
under Seleucus ; for the Bactrian kings, who were alio 
fucceffors of Alexander, foon recovered pofleffion of the 
diftrict near the mouth of the Indus, which he had fub¬ 
dued. Emboldened by fuccefs, they penetrated far into 
the interior of the countiy 3 and fome of them affirmed 
