National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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Overland to India : vol.2 |
XLIX
ALEXANDER'S MARCH 201
through southern Baluchistan to India without hindrance, obtaining water and provisions all the way. And he is not alone in this opinion, for St. John confirms his assertion. " In the early part of his march through Balûchistan Alexander must, I think, have been deceived by his
1 guides, who seem to have kept him exactly at that dis-
tance from the coast where there is least water. Had he followed the Kej valley, the natural road from the Indus to western Balûchistån, he would have found abundant
I water." 1
Why did he choose this, the worst of all the roads to
s and from India, instead of effecting his retreat through the
s northern pass, afterwards tried so successfully by Timur in
I the year 1398, Sultan Baber in 1505 and 1525, and Nadir
t Shah in 1738, when those monarchs conquered India ? He
was not in ignorance of better routes, and he had himself
t tried a safe way on this march to India. His campaign was
I no boyish Macedonian exploit, a marriage feast with a
i drinking-match to the sound of drums and cymbals. He
ii went wildly and recklessly to work more than once, but he
g had a great object in view. He wished to do all in his
power to knit together the vast areas of his new empire.
g Therefore he had to open a sea route between the
Euphrates and the Indus. Therefore Nearchus must be sent with the fleet along the coast. And the latter accom-
t plished his mission with such exactness that though the
coast-line has changed in some places since then, mariners
1 of the present day can identify from his logbook most
ti of the places where he anchored.2 With the vessels of
Il those days it was impossible to sail at a long distance
ii from the coast, for provisions and water for several
I months could not be carried. Nearchus was, therefore,
I dependent on the coast. His fleet consisted, according to
r Droysen, of wo vessels. His voyage had to be supported
it by the army on land, which supplied him with victuals and
P water.
Therefore Alexander was obliged to skirt the coast at
b any cost. Droysen says : " He did not abandon his great
y~ i | 1 Eastern Persia, vol. i. p. 75. 2 Markham's History of Persia, p. 412. |
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