The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c16.67

c16.67

His plans were conceived upon a comprehensive scale. Nearchos, the admiral who had successfully commanded the flotilla during the ten months’ voyage from Jihlam to the sea, was instructed to bring the fleet round the coast into the Persian Gulf as far as the mouth of the Euphrates, and to record careful observations of the strange lands and seas which he should visit. Alexander himself proposed to conduct the army back to Persia through the wilds of the country then called Gedrosia, and now known as Makrān, hitherto untrodden save by the legendary hosts of Semiramis and Cyrus, whom he desired to surpass. The king, who was independent of the winds, started on his march about the beginning of October, 325 B. C. Nearchos, being obliged to watch for the change of the monsoon, did not leave his anchorage in the river until two or three weeks later.¹