Volume 2

The history of Hindostan; its arts, and its sciences, as connected with the history of the other great empires of Asia ... / By the author of Indian antiquities [T. Maurice].

  • Thomas Maurice
Date:
1795-1798[-1799]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The history of Hindostan; its arts, and its sciences, as connected with the history of the other great empires of Asia ... / By the author of Indian antiquities [T. Maurice]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    347/372 (page 685)
    [ G85 . ] their habitations and the cultivation of their lands; promising them liberty unrestrained and property uninjured. .On this many of them returned; but, when Hephaestion was shortly after dispatched to erect a fort In the city, and other detachments were sent into the country to dig wells and render the barren tract habitable, the perfidious Pattalans fell furiously upon them, and wounded and killed many: they were, however, finally defeated with great slaughter, and driven back to their deserts. Alexander, determined in his views in reo-ard to Pattala, on receiving this Intelligence, reinforced those de- tachments, and gave orders for the immediate construction of a spacious harbour and a naval arsenal, at the point at which the Indus divides itself into two great branches, and rolls in two impetuous currents into the ocean. He came also himself on shoie, and in person assiduously superintended the carrying on of works of the highest importance to his future projects. After staying some time on shore, and taking an accurate survey of the country and the coast, Alexander re-embarked with the same number of forces as lie had usually tal^:en on board; and, being resolved to sail out of the mouth of the Indus into the ocean, he ordered Leonnatus, with a thousand horse and about eight thousand infantry, to march quite through the Delta, with a view more fully to explore it, and after- ^ wards join the fleet on the opposite side. He then selected the stoutest and best sailing vessels of the fleet, and descended down the right channel; but, not being able to procure a native pilot, and a violent storm arising on the following day, fiom their ignoiance o t lat channel, it received great damage, some vessels being dashe against each other, and others driven violently on the bank. Asie teiing bay being fortunately found near at hand, the injuiy done t ' ^ xvas soon repairc.l, and Pattalan pilots being at length, thongb with great difficulty, obtained, owing to the terror their Grecian i.sitan s inspired, the voyage 'was continued down to a point i ■ where it expands two hundred stadia in breadth (twelve miles) near the month: and here a new and unexpected calamity bclel the ,