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

boats and rafts would carry Alexander's troops to the junction of that channel
with another more southerly river branch. Then on being rowed across the
united river course they would be able to land on what might well appear
to them as the mainland on the river's left bank. In reality it proved another
island 'and that a great one . . . separated from the mainland by a branch of the
river in which the water was shallow'. Arrian's account brings vividly before
us the unexpected obstacle presented by the swollen condition of this channel,
and how this most critical phase of the bold enterprise was met by Alexander's
unflinching determination and the pluck of his hard-tried Macedonians.¹²

An experience of our own helped curiously enough to illustrate this episode.
We crossed the present main bed of the river due south from the present lower
end of the Admāna island, where the Halkiwānī joins it. Apart from large pools,
we found the main bed dry at that season up to where after about three-
quarters of a mile a shallow stream, about 250 yards wide and nowhere more
than 2 feet deep, had to be forded. Then, continuing for nearly a mile in the
same direction, over ground which had all the appearance of mainland, having
in part been taken up recently for a 'Reserved Forest' area, we came unex-
pectedly upon a small channel with flowing water, only some 50 yards wide.
Quite shallow at the time, it was declared to be unfordable during the time
of the summer floods, as proved by a small ferry-boat kept on its bank. It
had obviously formed since the last survey was made in this area more than
twenty years before. Beyond it we soon reached the edge of the fertile tract
now irrigated by the Lower Jhēlum Canal near the village of Nūrpur.

It is on the absolutely open and flat ground stretching to the south of the left
bank of the river towards Malakwāl and Miānī that we must assume the battle
with Poros to have been fought. But neither available records nor the examina-
tion of the ground made on November 26th and 27th supply evidence that would
make it possible to determine the exact position of the battle-field. We have
no definite indication as to the distance between the place where Alexander
reached the mainland and the position where Poros's army was encountered.
But Plutarch in his Life of Alexander (Chap. LX) mentions that Alexander after
crossing it had ridden forward about 20 stadia (about 2½ miles) in advance of
the infantry by the time he fell in with a small Indian force of horsemen and
chariots sent out against him.

Two points, however, deserve to be noted. One is the perfect openness of
this ground allowing ample room for the extensive line in which Poros mar-
shalled his army. The other is that room was left between its left wing and the