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Alexanderin Sind,325 B.C.
chariots hurried out by Porus stuck in the muddy margin ofthe river. In the engagement which followed, the elephants,of the Indian prince refused to face the Greeks, and, wheelinground, trampled his own army under foot. His son fell earlyin the onset; Porus himself fled wounded; but, on tenderinghis submission, he was confirmed in his kingdom, and becamethe conqueror’s trusted friend. Alexander built two memorialcities on the scene of his victory,—Bucephala on the westbank, near the modern Jai.alpur, named after his belovedcharger, Bucephalus , slain in the battle; and Nikaia, thepresent Mono, on the east side of the river.
Alexander advanced south-east through the kingdom of theyounger Porus to Amritsar , and, after a sharp bend backwardto the west, to fight the Kathaei at Sangala, he reached theBeas (Hyphasis ). Here, at a spot not far from the modernbattle-field of Sobraon, he halted his victorious standards. 1He had resolved to march to the Ganges ; but his troops wereworn out by the heats of the Punjab summer, and their spirits-broken by the hurricanes of the south-west monsoon. Thenative tribes had already risen in his rear, and the Conquerorof the World was forced to turn back, before he had crossedeven the frontier Province of India. The Sutlej , the easternDistricts of the Punjab, and the mighty Jumna , still lay betweenhim and the Ganges . A single defeat might have been fatal tohis army; if the battle on the Jehlam had gone against him,,not a Greek would probably have reached the Afghan sideof the passes. Yielding at length to the clamour of his men,he led them back from the Beas to the Jehlam. He thereembarked 8000 of his troops in boats previously prepared, andfloated them down the river ; the remainder marched in twodivisions along the banks.
The country was hostile, and the Greeks held only theland on which they encamped. At Multan , then as now thecapital of the Southern Punjab , Alexander had to fight a pitched'battle with the Malli, and was severely wounded in taking thecity. His enraged troops put every soul within it to the sword.Farther down, near the confluence of the five rivers of thePunjab , he made a long halt, built a town,—Alexandria, themodern Uchh,—and received the submission of the neighbour-ing States. A Greek garrison and Satrap , whom he here leftbehind, laid the foundation of a more lasting influence. Having
1 The change in the course of the Sutlej has altered its old positionrelative to the Beas at this point. The best small map of Alexander’s routeis No. v. in General Cunningham’s Anc. Geog. of India , p. 104, ed. 1871.