The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c25.163

v1.c25.163

Before Alexander came to Pattala, the great European host which had invaded India had begun to break up. From the country of Musicanus about a third of the infantry, portions of the other arms, and all the elephants which had been acquired in India, were put under Craterus, to march home by way of Kandahār and Seistān. With the remainder Alexander continued his course down stream. It was about the middle of July 325¹ when the Europeans reached Pattala. They found everything deserted. The fugitive population however was overtaken by Alexander's emissaries and persuaded for the most part to return. Pattala, commanding the two outlets of the Indus to the ocean, was another place for which Alexander forecast a great commercial future, and new walls were soon rising round its citadel under Hephaestion's direction. Pithon the satrap had been left higher up stream to draft the European soldiers who were to form the nucleus of the population in the new cities of his province, and to stamp out any embers of revolt which might be still smouldering. Alexander himself with the handiest ships set off to explore the western arm of the river. It was only after some more or less unfortunate attempts at navigation on their own account that the Europeans discovered some natives of the deserted country, who steered the vessels down to the ocean. It was probably at a point near the medieval Dēbal² that this branch of the river then reached it. There the tide was a new and alarming phenomenon to men who knew only the Mediterranean. On two little islands, one in the mouth of the river and one lying outside in the Indian Ocean, the Yavana king made offerings to the gods who had been prescribed to him by the Egyptian oracle of Amun in the African desert. Then he sailed a little way into the open sea, and shed into the Indian Ocean the blood of bulls sacrificed to the Greek god Poseidon.