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Sec. ii]   FROM BARDSIR TO GULÂSHGIRD   177

salmi. Howbeit he lost his whole company except seven persons who escaped along with him.'' In the absence of any definite local indication it is not possible to identify `Conosalmi', certain previously suggested locations having been based purely on conjectured similarity of modern names.8 The distance of five days' journey indicated for the plain by the text would permit of the village of `Conosalmi' to be looked for anywhere up to the `Robbers' river-bed', and even for some distance beyond; for apart from the gorge between Shdhdurmah and Guldshgird the whole of the ground traversed by the route is open and easy. The name `Rûdkhaneh-i-duzdi' is, however, significant and shows that it is this portion of the route which has for a long time past been particularly exposed to bandit attacks.

There is another question of historical topography, and one of distinct interest by its classical associations, which calls for brief mention here. It concerns the locality where the meeting of Alexander and Nearchos after the latter's hazardous voyage with the fleet from the mouth of the Indus to `Appo3eia, i.e. Old Hormuz, may be supposed to have taken place. On the strength of a statement in Arrian's narrative which puts the distance from the port where the fleet had anchored to Alexander's camp at five marches,9 the position of the latter has been sought for at or near Guldshgird.l° But the oasis of Kahnû, a place of equal if not greater importance, and certainly on Alexander's most likely line of march from Gedrosia, might also come into consideration on the ground of distance. No definite conclusion seems possible, especially as the dramatic treatment of some details in Arrian's story must raise doubts, and Diodoros's account of the reunion altogether differs.11 The question is obviously bound up with that as to the route followed by Alexander on his march from Gedrosia towards Persis. Hence it seems more appropriate to reserve its discussion for a separate paper in which I hope to deal with the subject of Alexander's operations in Gedrosia as a whole and their immediate sequence.

SECTION III—THROUGH RLJDAN TO OLD HORMUZ

Neither at Gulâshgird, where cultivation seemed confined to luxuriant groves of date-palms with groups of mat-huts scattered among them, nor on the march which, on November 25th, took us down by the barren banks of the Rûd-i-shirin

7 A very curious portion of this account relating to a great exploit of Nogodar, the leader of those Mongol freebooters, has been discussed in my paper, `Marco Polo's account of a Mongol inroad into Kashmir', Geogr. Journal, Aug. 1919.

8 Cf. Yule, loc. cit. i. p. 99; for attempts to identify 'Conosalmi', ibid. i. p. 106, note 6.

9 See Indikê, xxxiii. 7.

1Ô Cf. Tomaschek, Zur historischen Topographie von Persien, p. 46; Herzfeld, 'Pasargadae', in Klio, 1908, p. 20.

11 For some judicious observations on Arrian's story cf. Chantraine, Arrien, L'Inde (Budé edition), p. 71, note 1.

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