National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

this oldest of historically attested routes across the outer Salt Range affords as
regards the location of Alexander's camp on the Hydaspes and the place of
his crossing the river. The Skeleton Map 1 shows that the road from the
pass and fort of Nandana descends first to the pleasant village of Bāghānwāla
with its abundant orchards, and thence, if continued south-south-west across the
gently sloping alluvial plain below, brings us after about 9 miles to the large
village of Haranpur close to the bank of the river. It is just here that the river,
flowing in a single channel within a well-defined bed about half a mile wide,
offers a very convenient crossing-place, now marked by the bridge of the Sind-
sāgar line of the North-Western Railway. On the opposite side of the river, at
a distance of about 5 miles, lies the old town of Miānī, once a place of distinct
importance.

Now, if we go from Haranpur up the river, but at some distance from it, along
the main road towards Jhēlum town, we come, at a distance of about 17 miles,
to the small town of Jalālpur (Fig. 3) occupying a position that corresponds
in a very striking fashion to Arrian's and Curtius's description of Alexander's
crossing-place. Jalālpur, counting some three thousand inhabitants, is built on
rising ground at the foot of a great projecting spur of the Salt Range. Close
behind the town this rises in the hill of Mangal Dēv to a triangulated height of
1,833 feet, or a little over 1,100 feet above the river bed. Immediately to the
east of the town there lies the wide winding mouth of the Kandar Kas (Fig. 4),
a torrent bed with sandy bottom descending from the spur and joining the river.
On the east it is overlooked by steep heights marking the point where the face
of that spur turns from a west-south-west direction to north-west. Within less
than a mile of the town there passes a northern branch of the Jhēlum, carrying
much water at the time of the summer floods and known as the Halkiwānī Nālā.
Jalālpur lies at the south-western corner of that projecting spur of the Salt Range
which, as mentioned before, is washed at its foot by the river for a distance
of about 8 miles between Dilāwar and Jalālpur. Nowhere else along its course
after debouching from the mountains does the Jhēlum touch ground which could
possibly be described as a headland or promontory (ἄκρα).

The spur all along falls off very steeply towards the river and is broken by
many deep-cut ravines. Only at the mouth of the latter is there room for scanty
fields cultivated by three small hamlets. The road to Jhēlum town, which used
to run along the very foot of the spur and is still marked in Survey maps down to
1921, has been so badly broken in places by recent floods that for the sake of motor
traffic it had to be re-alined with no small trouble across the difficult ridges and
ravines farther up. From the appearance of the cliffs above the river it is clear
that its course in historical times must have always set against the foot of the spur.