From Pole to Pole: A Book for Young People — Sec 6 From Persia to India (1906)

TEBBES TO SEISTAN

Now we can return to Tebbes and continue our journey to India.

The camels are laden, we mount, the bells ring again, and our caravan travels through the desert for days and weeks towards the south-east.

At length we come to the shore of a large lake called the Hamun, which lies on the frontier between Persia and Afghanistan.

The Amu-darya forms the boundary between Bukhara and Afghanistan, the northern half of which is occupied by the Hindu-kush mountains.

The name means "slaughterer of Hindus," because Hindus who venture up among the mountains after the heat of India have every prospect of being frozen to death in the eternal snow.

Large quantities of winter snow are melted in spring, and then rivers and streams pour through the valleys to collect on the plains of southern Afghanistan into a large river called the Hilmend, which flows into the Hamun.

As there are no proper boats or ferries on the lake, we had here to take farewell of the camels who had served us so faithfully and had carried us and our belongings through such long stretches of desert.

We were sorry to part with them, but there was nothing for it but to sell them to the only dealer who would take them off our hands.

Reeds and rushes grow in abundance along the flat shores of the Hamun, but no trees.

The natives build their huts of reeds, and also a curious kind of boat.

Handfuls of dry, yellow reeds of last year's growth are tied together into cigar-shaped bundles, and then a number of such bundles are bound together into a torpedo-like vessel several yards long.

When laden this reed boat floats barely four inches above the water, but it can never be filled and made to sink by the waves.

It is true that the bundles of reeds might be loosened and torn apart by a high sea, but the natives take good care not to go out in bad weather.

It took fourteen of these reed boats to accommodate our party and its belongings.

A half-naked Persian stood at the stern of each boat and pushed the vessel along by means of a long pole, for the lake though twelve miles broad is only five or six feet deep.

A fresh breeze skimmed the surface when we came out of the reeds into the open lake, and it was very refreshing after weeks of the dry oppressive heat of the desert.

[Illustration: MAP SHOWING JOURNEY FROM TEHERAN TO BALUCHISTAN (pp. 46-54 and 72-81).

] After crossing the Hamun we had not more than a couple of hours' ride to the capital of Seistan, Nasretabad.

Five months before us another guest had arrived, the plague; and just at the time the black angel of death was going about in search of victims.

He took the peasant from the plough and the shepherd from his flock; and the fisherman, who in the morning had gone cheerily to set his nets in the waters of the Hamun, in the evening lay groaning in his hut with a burning fever.

Asia is the birth-place of the ruling peoples, the Aryans, and of the yellow race; it is the cradle of the great religions, Buddhism, Christianity, and Mohammedanism; and it is also the breeding-place of fearful epidemic diseases which from time to time sweep over mankind like devastating waves.

Among these is the "Black Death," the plague which in the year 1350 carried off twenty-five millions of the people of Europe.

Men thought that it was a divine punishment.

Some repented and did penance; others gave themselves up to drunkenness and other excesses.

They had then no notion of the deadly bacteria, and of the serum which renders the blood immune from their attacks.

In 1894 a similar wave swept from China through Hong Kong to India, where three millions of human beings died in a few years.

I remember a small house in the poor quarter of Bombay which I visited in 1902. The authorities had given orders that when any one died of the plague a red cross should be painted beside the doorpost of the house.

And this small house alone had forty crosses.

And now in 1906 the plague had reached Seistan.

From the roof of the house where I lived with some English officers, we could see the unfortunate people carrying out their dear ones to the grave.

We could see them wash the bodies in a pool outside the walls, and then resume their sad procession.

The population of the small town seemed in danger of extermination, and at length the people fled in hundreds.

An English doctor and his assistant wished to help them by means of serum injections, but the Mohammedan clergy, out of hatred of the Europeans, made the people believe that it was the Christians who had let loose the disease over the country.

Deluded and excited, the natives gathered together and made an attack on the British Consulate, but were repulsed.

Then they went back to their huts to die helplessly.

They tried as far as possible to keep the cases of death secret and carried out the corpses at night.

Soon the deaths were so frequent that it was impossible to dig proper graves.

Those, therefore, who thought of the hyænas and jackals, digged their own graves beforehand.

Processions round the mosque of the town were instituted, with black flags and a sacrificial goat at the head, and the mercy of Allah was implored.

But Allah did not hear, and infection was spread among the people who flocked together to the processions.

Under the microscope the deadly microbes appear only as quite small elongated dots, though they are magnified twelve hundred times.

They live in the blood of rats, whose parasites communicate the infection to human beings.

It is therefore most important to exterminate all rats when an outbreak of plague occurs.

The disease is terribly infectious.

In a house where the angel of death descends and carries off a victim, all the inmates die one after another.

Stupidly blind, the natives did not understand what was good for them, and could not be induced to burn infected clothes and the whole contents of a plague-stricken house.

They would not part with their worldly goods and preferred to perish with them.

In one house dwelt a poor carpenter with his wife, two half-grown sons and a daughter.

For two days the father had been oppressed by a feeling of weakness, and then, his body burning with fever, he lay raving in a corner on the floor of stamped earth.

He was indifferent to everything and wished only to be left in peace.

If his wife threw a rug over him he groaned, for the lymph glands, which swell up in large tumours, are exceedingly painful.

In a couple of days the microbes penetrate from the tumour into the blood and the unfortunate man dies of blood poisoning.

The vermin under the man's clothes leave the body as soon as the blood ceases to flow.

Then is the danger greatest for the survivors who stand mourning round the deathbed, for the vermin seek circulating blood and carry infection from the corpse with them.

It is useless to warn the natives of the danger, for they do not believe a word of it--and so die in their turn.

A BALUCHI RAID

We were glad to leave a country where the plague had taken up its abode and to hasten away to the desert tracts of Baluchistan, which still separated us from India.

My old servants had taken their departure, and a new retinue, all Baluchis, accompanied me.

We rode _jambas_, or swift-footed dromedaries, which for generations have been trained for speed.

Their legs are long and thin, but strong, with large foot pads which strike the hard ground with a heavy tapping sound as they run.

They carry their heads high and move more quickly than the majestic caravan camels; but when they run they lower their heads below the level of the hump and keep it always horizontal.

Two men ride on each _jambas_, and therefore the saddle has two hollows and two pairs of stirrups.

A peg is thrust through the cartilage of the nose and to its ends a thin cord is attached.

By pulling this to one side or the other the dromedary may be turned in any direction.

My courser had a swinging gait but did not jolt; and I sat comfortably and firmly in the saddle as we left mile after mile behind.

It is not more than thirty or forty years ago since the Baluchis used to make raids into Persian territory, and although much better order is maintained now that the country is under British administration, an escort is still necessary--I had six men mounted on dromedaries and armed with modern rifles.

This is how a raid is conducted.

One evening Shah Sevar, or the "Riding King," the warlike chieftain of a tribe in western Baluchistan, sits smoking a pipe by the camp fire in front of his black tent, which is supported by tamarisk boughs (Plate VII.

).

The tale-teller has just finished a story, when two white-clad men with white turbans on their heads emerge from the darkness of the night.

They tie up their dromedaries, humbly salute Shah Sevar, who invites them to sit down and help themselves to tea from an iron pot.

Other men come up to the fire.

All carry long guns, spears, swords, and daggers.

Some lead two or three dromedaries each.

Fourteen men are now gathered round the fire.

There is a marked silence in the assembly, and Shah Sevar looks serious.

At length he asks, "Is everything ready?"

"Yes," is the reply from all sides.

"Are the powder and shot horns filled?"

"Yes."

"And the provisions packed in their bags?"

"Yes--dates, sour cheese, and bread for eight days."

"I told you the day before yesterday that this time we shall strike at Bam.

Bam is a populous town.

If we are discovered too early the fight may be hot.

We must steal through the desert like jackals.

The distance is three hundred miles, four days' journey."

Again Shah Sevar stares into the fire for a while and then asks, "Are the _jambas_ in good condition?"

"Yes."

"And ten spare dromedaries for the booty?"

"Yes."

[Illustration: PLATE VII.

A BALUCHI NOMAD TENT.

] Then he rises and all the others follow his example.

Their wild, bold faces glow coppery-red in the light of the fire.

They consider petty thieving a base occupation, but raiding and pillaging an honourable sport, and boast of the number of slaves they have captured in their day.

"Mount," commands the chieftain in a subdued voice.

Muskets are thrown over the shoulder and rattle against the hanging powder-horn and the leather bag for bullets, flint, steel, and tinder.

Daggers are thrust into belts, and the men mount without examining the saddle-girths and bridles, for all has been carefully made ready beforehand.

The spear is secured in front of the saddle.

"In the name of Allah," calls out Shah Sevar, and the party rides off through the night at a steady pace.

The path they follow is well known and the stars serve as guides.

Day breaks, the sun rises, and the shadows of the dromedaries point towards Bam over the hard yellow sand where not a shrub grows.

Not a word has been spoken during the night, but when the first seventy miles have been traversed the chief says, "We will rest a while at the Spring of White Water."

On arriving at the spring they refill their water-skins and let the dromedaries drink.

Then they go up into the neighbouring hills and wait till the hot hours of the day are over.

They never encamp at the springs, for there they are likely to meet with other people.

At dusk they are in the saddle again.

They ride harder than during the first night and travel till they come to a salt spring.

The third night the dromedaries begin to breathe more heavily, and when the sun rises flecks of white froth hang from their trembling lips.

They are not tired but only a little winded, and they press on through clouds of dust without their riders having to urge them.

Now the party leaves behind it the last desert path, which is only once in a while used by a caravan, and beyond it is a perfect wilderness of hardened salt-impregnated mud.

Nothing living can be seen, not even a stray raven or vulture which might warn the people in Bam of their danger.

Without rest the robber band pushes on all day, as silent as the desert, the only sounds being the long-drawn breathing of the dromedaries and the rasping sound of their foot-pads on the ground.

When the reflection of the evening sky lies in purple shades over the desert, they have only ten or twelve miles more to go.

Shah Sevar pulls up his dromedary and orders a halt in muffled tones, as though he feared that his voice might be heard in Bam.

With a hissing noise the riders make their animals kneel and lie down, and then they spring out of the saddle, and tie the end of the cord round the dromedaries' forelegs to prevent the animals from getting up and making a noise and thus spoiling the plan.

All are tired out and stretch themselves on the ground.

Some sleep, others are kept awake by excitement, while four riders go scouting in different directions.

Bam itself cannot be seen, but the hill is visible at the foot of which the town stands.

The men long for night and the cover of darkness.

The day has been calm and hot, but now the evening is cool and the shadows dense.

A faint breeze comes from the north, and Shah Sevar smiles.

If the wind were from the east, he would be obliged to make a detour in order not to rouse the dogs of the town.

It is now nine o'clock and in an hour the people of Bam will be asleep.

The men have finished their meal, and have wrapped up the remainder of the dates, cheese, and bread in their bundles and tied them upon the dromedaries.

"Shall we empty the waterskins so as to make the loads lighter for the attack?"

asks a Baluchi.

"No," answers Shah Sevar; "keep all the water that is left, for we may not be able to fill the skins in the town before our retreat."

"It is time," he says; "have your weapons ready."

They mount again and ride slowly towards the town.

"As soon as anything suspicious occurs I shall quicken my pace and you must follow.

You three with the baggage camels keep in the rear."

The robbers gaze in front like eagles on their prey, and the outlines of the hill gradually rise higher above the western horizon.

Now only three miles remain, and their sight, sharpened by an outdoor life, distinguishes the gardens of Bam.

They draw near.

The bark of a dog is heard, another joins in--all the dogs of the town are barking; they have winded the dromedaries.

"Come on," shouts the chief.

With encouraging cries the dromedaries are urged forward; their heads almost touch the ground; they race along while froth and dust fly about them.

The dogs bark furiously and some of them have already come out to meet the dromedaries.

Now the wild chase reaches the entrance to the town.

Cries of despair are heard as the inhabitants are wakened; and women and wailing children escape towards the hill.

The time is too short for any organised defence.

There is no one to take the command.

The unfortunate inhabitants run over one another like scared chickens and the riders are upon them.

Shah Sevar sits erect on his dromedary and leads the assault.

Some jump down and seize three men, twelve women, and six children, who are hastily bound and put in charge of two Baluchis, while others quickly search some houses close at hand.

They come out again with two youths who have made a useless resistance, a couple of sacks of grain, some household goods, and all the silver they could find.

"How many slaves?"

roars Shah Sevar.

"Twenty-three," is answered from several directions.

"That is enough; pack up."

The slaves and the stolen goods are bound fast on dromedaries.

"Quick, quick," shouts the chief.

"Back the way we came."

In the hurry and confusion some of the animals get entangled in one another's ropes.

"Back!

Back!"

The chieftain's practised eye has detected a party of armed men coming up.

Three shots are heard in the darkness, and Shah Sevar falls backwards out of the saddle, while his dromedary starts and flies off into the desert.

The rider's left foot is caught fast in the stirrup and his head drags in the dust.

A bullet has entered his forehead, but the blood is staunched by the dust of the road.

His foot slips out of the stirrup, and the "Riding King" lies dead as a stone outside Bam.

Another robber is severely wounded and is cut to pieces by the townsmen.

Bam has waked up.

The entangled dromedaries with their burdens of slaves and goods are captured, but the rest of the party, twelve riders with ten baggage camels, have vanished in the darkness, pursued by some infuriated dogs.

Sixteen of the inhabitants of the town are missing.

The whole thing has taken place in half an hour.

Bam sleeps no more this night.

Now the dromedaries are urged on to the uttermost; they have double loads to carry, but they travel as quickly as they came.

The kidnapped children cease to cry, and fall asleep with weariness and the violent swaying motion.

The party rides all night and all the next day without stopping, and the robbers often look round to see if they are pursued.

They rest for the first time at the salt spring, posting a look-out on an adjacent mound.

They eat and drink without losing a minute, and get ready for the rest of the ride.

The captives are paralysed with fright;

the young women are half choked with weeping, and a little lad in a tattered shirt goes about crying vainly for his mother.

The eyes of the captives are blindfolded with white bandages that they may not notice the way they are travelling and try later to escape back to Bam.

Then the headlong ride is resumed, and after eight days the troop of riders is back at home with their booty, but without their chief.

Innumerable raids of this kind have scourged eastern Persia, and in the same way Turkomans have devastated Khorasan in the north-east.

On the eastern frontier it is the Kurds who are the robbers.

In this disturbed frontier region there is not a town without its small primitive mud fort or outlook tower.

SCORPIONS

On running dromedaries we now ride on eastwards through northern Baluchistan.

Dry, burnt-up desert tracts, scantily clothed with thistles and shrubs, moving dunes of fine yellow sand, low hill ridges disintegrated by alternate heat and cold--such is the country where a few nomads wander about with their flocks, and the stranger often wonders how the animals find a living.

In certain valleys, however, there is pasture and also water, and sometimes belts of thriving tamarisks are passed, and bushes of saxaul with green leafy branches, hard wood, and roots which penetrate down to the moisture beneath the surface.

The great caravan road we are following is, however, exceedingly desolate.

Only at the stations is water to be found, and even that is brackish; but the worst trial is the heat, which now, at the end of April, becomes more oppressive every day.

The temperature rises nearly up to 105-1/2° in the shade, and to ride full in the face of the sun is like thrusting one's head into a blazing furnace.

When there is a wind we are all right, and the sand whirls like yellow ghosts over the heated ground.

But when the air is calm the outlines of the hills seem to quiver in the heat, and the barrel of a gun which has been out in the sun blisters the hands on being touched.

In the height of the summer the Baluchis wrap strips of felt round their stirrup-irons to protect the dromedaries from burns on the flanks.

This region is one of the hottest in the world.

The sun stands so high at mid-day that the shadows of the dromedaries disappear beneath them.

You long for sunset, when the shadows lengthen out and the worst of the heat is over.

It is not really cool even at night, when, moreover, you are plagued with whole swarms of gnats.

Baluchistan and Persia abound with scorpions, which are indeed to be found in all the hot regions of the five continents.

About two hundred species have been distinguished.

Some are quite small, others six inches long.

Some are dark-brown, others reddish, and others again straw-yellow, as in Baluchistan.

The body consists of a head and thorax without joints, and a hinder part of seven articulated rings, besides six tail rings.

The last ring, the thirteenth, contains two poison glands and is furnished with a sting as fine as a needle.

The poison is a fluid clear as water.

Scorpions live in rotten tree-trunks, under stones, on walls, and as they like warmth they often enter houses and huts, and creep into clothes and beds.

The scorpion leaves his dark den at night and sets out on the hunt.

He holds his tail turned up over his back, in order to keep his sting from injury and to be ready at once for attack or defence.

When he meets with a desirable victim, such as a large spider, he darts quickly forward, seizes it with his claws, which are like those of crabs, raises it above his head in order to examine it with his eyes, which are turned upwards, and gives it the death-stroke with his sting.

Then he sucks up the softer parts and grinds the harder between his jaws.

The young ones, which are active as soon as they are born, are like the old ones from the first day, but are light-coloured and soft.

They crawl about their mother's back and legs and do not leave her body for some time.

When that happens the mother dies, having meanwhile wasted away.

The sting of large scorpions is dangerous even to human beings.

Cases have been known of a man dying in great agony twelve hours after being stung.

Others get cramp, fever, and pains before they begin to recover.

A man who has often been stung becomes at last insensible to the poison.

Many a time I have found scorpions in Asiatic huts, in my tent, on my bed, and under my boxes, but I have never been stung by one.

On the other hand, it has been the fate of many of my servants, and they told me that it was difficult to find out where the scorpion had stung them, for their bodies sweated and burned equally intensely all over.

In Eastern Turkestan it is the practice to catch the scorpion which has stung a man and crush him into a paste, which is laid over the puncture made by the sting.

But whether this is a real cure I do not know.

THE INDUS

After travelling 1500 miles on camels and dromedaries, the whistle of an engine sounds like the sweetest music to the ear.

At Nushki (see map, p. 132), the furthermost station of the Indian railway, I took leave of my Baluchi servants, stepped into a train, and was carried past the garrison town of Quetta south-eastwards to the Indus.

Here we find that one branch of the railway follows the river closely on its western bank to Karachi, one of the principal seaports of British India.

Our train, however, carries us northwards along the eastern bank to Rawalpindi, an important military station near the borders of Kashmir.

[Illustration: MAP OF NORTHERN INDIA, SHOWING RIVERS AND MOUNTAIN RANGES.

] In the large roomy compartment it is as warm as it was lately in Baluchistan, or nearly 107°.

To shade the railway carriages from the burning sun overhead, they are provided with a kind of wooden cover with flaps falling down half over the windows.

The glass is not white, as in European carriage windows, but dark blue or green, otherwise the reflexion of the sunlight from the ground would be too dazzling.

On either side two windows have, instead of glass, a lattice of root fibres which are kept wet automatically night and day.

Outside the window is a ventilator, which, set in action by the motion of the train, forces a rapid current of air through the wet network of fibres.

Thereby the air is cooled some eighteen or twenty degrees, and it is pleasant to sit partly undressed in the draught.

Look a moment at the map.

South of the Himalayas the Indian peninsula forms an inverted triangle, the apex of which juts out into the Indian Ocean like a tooth, but the northern part, at the base, is broad.

Here flow the three large rivers of India, the Indus, the Ganges, and the Bramaputra.

The last mentioned waters the plains of Assam at the eastern angle of the triangle.

On the banks of the Ganges stands a swarm of famous large towns, some of which we shall visit when we return from Tibet.

The Ganges and Bramaputra have a delta in common, through which their waters pass by innumerable arms out into the Bay of Bengal.

At the western angle of the triangle the Indus streams down to the Arabian Sea.

The sources of the Indus and Bramaputra lie close to each other, up in Tibet, and the Himalayas are set like an immense jewel between the glistening silver threads of the two rivers.

On the west the Indus cuts through a valley as much as 10,000 feet deep, and on the east the Bramaputra makes its way down to the lowlands through a deep-cut cleft not less wild and awesome.

The Indus has several tributaries.

In foaming waterfalls and roaring rapids they rush down from the mountains to meet their lord.

The largest of them is called the Sutlej, and the lowlands through which it flows are called the Punjab, a Persian word signifying "five waters."

The Indus has thirteen mouths scattered along 150 miles of coast, and the whole river is 2000 miles long, or somewhat longer than the Danube.

In the month of July, 325 years before the birth of Christ, Aristotle's pupil, Alexander, King of Macedonia, floated down the Indus with a fleet of newly built ships and reached Pattala, where the arms of the delta diverge.

He found the town deserted, for the inhabitants had fled inland, so he sent light troops after them to tell them that they might return in peace to their homes.

A fortress was erected at the town, and several wharves on the river bank.

He turned over great schemes in his mind.

Had he not at twenty years of age taken over the government of the little country of Macedonia, and subdued the people of Thrace, Illyria, and Greece?

Had he not led his troops over the Hellespont, defeated the Persians, and conquered the countries of Asia Minor, Lycia, Cappadocia, and Phrygia, where with a blow of his sword he had severed the Gordian knot, a token of supremacy over Asia?

At Issus, on the rectangular bay facing Cyprus, he had inflicted a crushing defeat on the great King of Persia, Darius Codomannus, who with the united forces of his kingdom had come to meet him.

At Damascus he captured all the Persian war funds, and afterwards took the famous commercial towns of the Phoenicians, Tyre and Sidon.

Palestine fell, and Jerusalem with the holy places.

On the coast of Egypt he founded Alexandria, which now, after a lapse of 2240 years, is still a flourishing city.

He marched through the Libyan desert to the oasis of Zeus Ammon, where the priests, after the old Pharaonic custom, consecrated him "Son of Ammon."

He passed eastwards into Asia, crossed the Euphrates, defeated Darius again at the Tigris, and reduced proud Babylon and Shushan, where 150 years previously King Ahasuerus, who reigned "from India even unto Ethiopia over an hundred and seven and twenty provinces," made a feast for his lords and "shewed the riches of his glorious kingdom and the honour of his excellent majesty."

Then he advanced to Persepolis and set on fire the palace of the Great King to show that the old empire had passed away.

Pursuing Darius through Ispahan and Hamadan, he afterwards turned aside into Bactria, the present Russian Central Asia, and marched northwards to the Syr-darya and the land of the Scythians.

Thence, with an army of more than a hundred thousand men, he proceeded southwards and conquered the Punjab and subdued all the people living west of the Indus.

Now he had come to Pattala, and he thought of the victories he had gained and the countries he had annexed.

He had appointed everywhere Greeks and Macedonians to rule in conjunction with the native princes and satraps.

[10] The great empire must be knit together into a solid unity, and Babylon was to be its capital.

Only in the west there was still an enormous gap to be conquered, the desert through which we have lately wandered on the way from Teheran through Tebbes and Seistan and Baluchistan.

In order to reduce the people living here he despatched a part of his host by a northerly route through Seistan to north Persia.

He himself led forty thousand men along the coast.

Twelve thousand men were to sail and row the newly-built ships along the coast of the Arabian Sea, through the Straits of Hormuz, and along the northern coast of the Persian Gulf to the mouth of the Euphrates.

No Greek had ever navigated this sea before, and with the vessels of the period the enterprise was a most dangerous one, as absolutely nothing was known about the coast to be followed.

But it was necessary, for Alexander wished to secure for himself the command of the sea route between the mouths of the Euphrates and Indus, so as to connect the western and eastern parts of his kingdom.

It was to supply the fleet with provisions and water that he chose for himself the dangerous desert route along the coast.

Of the 40,000 men who accompanied him on this march, no less than 30,000 died of thirst!

The high admiral, Nearchus of Crete, performed his task with brilliant success.

His voyage was one of the most remarkable ever achieved on the oceans of the globe.

The chart he compiled is so exact that it may be used at the present day, though the coast has since then undergone changes in some places and has been further silted up with sand and made shallower.

Alexander would not let his fleet start on its adventurous voyage before he was himself convinced of the navigability of the Indus and had acquainted himself with the aspect of the great ocean.

Accordingly he sailed down the western arm of the Indus with the swiftest vessels of the fleet--thirty-oared boats, and small triremes, or vessels whereon the 150 naked oarsmen sat on three tiers of benches above one another with oars of different lengths projecting through port-holes in the hull.

The vessels were protected by troops which followed them on the bank.

In the midst of summer, when the river is at its highest level and overflows the banks for miles, it is no pleasure excursion to steer ungainly boats between banks of sand and silt without pilots.

On the second day a strong southerly storm arose, and the dangerous waves in the whirlpools of the current capsized many vessels and damaged others.

Alexander made for the bank to look for fishermen who might act as pilots, and under their guidance he continued his voyage.

The river became wider and wider, and the fresh salt breeze from the ocean became ever more perceptible; but the wind increased, for the south-west monsoon was at its height.

The grey turbid water rose in higher billows and made rowing difficult, for the oars either did not touch the water or dipped too deeply into it.

It was the flood tide running up from the sea which impeded their progress, but the ebb and flow of the sea was new to them.

Eventually Alexander sought the shelter of a creek, and the vessels were dragged ashore.

Then came the ebb, and the water fell as though it were sucked out into the sea.

The boats were left high and dry, and many of them sank deep in the mud.

Astonished and bewildered, Alexander and his men could get neither forward nor backward.

They had just made preparations to get the ships afloat, when the tide returned and lifted them.

Now they went farther down-stream and came in contact with the raging surf of the monsoon, which advances in light-green foam-crowned waves far into the mouth and changes the colour of the river water.

The collision of the Indus current with the rising tide fills the fairway with whirlpools and eddies, which are exceedingly dangerous even for the best of vessels of the present day.

Several ships were lost, some being thrown up on the banks, while others dashed together and went to pieces.

After they had taken note of the regular rise and fall of the tide, they could avoid danger, and the fleet arrived safely at an island where shelter could be obtained by the shore and where fresh water was abundant.

From here the foaming, roaring surf at the very mouth of the Indus could be seen, and above the rolling breakers appeared the level horizon of the ocean.

With the best of the vessels Alexander went out to ascertain whether the surf could be passed through without danger and the open sea be reached.

The trial proved successful, and another island was found, begirt on all sides by open sea.

The ships then returned in the dusk to the larger island, where a solemn sacrifice was made to Ammon to celebrate the first sight of the sea and of the margin of the inhabited world towards the south.

Next day Alexander rowed right out to sea to convince himself that no more land existed, and when he had advanced so far that nothing but sky and rolling billows could be seen from the uppermost benches of the triremes, he offered sacrifices to Poseidon, the god of the sea, to the Nereids, and to the silver-footed sea-goddess Thetis, the mother of Achilles, father of his race.

And he besought the favour of all the gods in the great enterprise which had brought him to the mouth of the Indus, and their protection for his fleet on its dangerous voyage to the Euphrates; and when his prayer was ended he cast a golden goblet into the sea.

[Illustration: PLATE VIII.

SRINAGAR AND THE JHELUM RIVER.

] Alexander died at Babylon at the age of thirty-three.