The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c12.24

c12.24

In order to gratify his own curiosity, and to give some of his best troops a pleasant holiday, he paid a visit to the mountain, probably that now known as the Koh-i-Mōr, accompanied by an adequate escort of the companion cavalry and foot guards. The chants and dances of the natives, the ancestors of the Kāfirs of the present day, bore sufficient resemblance to the Bacchanalian rites of Hellas to justify the claims made by the Nysaeans, and to encourage the soldiers in their belief that, although far from home, they had at last found a people who shared their religion and might be regarded as kinsmen. Alexander humoured the convenient delusion and allowed his troops to enjoy, with the help of their native friends, a ten days’ revel in the jungles. The Nysaeans, on their part, showed their gratitude for the clemency which they had experienced by contributing a contingent of three hundred horsemen, who remained with Alexander throughout the whole period of his advance and were not sent home until October, 326 B. C., when he was about to start on his voyage down the rivers to the sea.²