ALEXANDER THE GREAT EXPLORES INDIA
Still greater light was shed on the size of the world by Alexander
the Great on his famous expedition to India, by which he almost doubled
the area of the world known to the people of his time. It was just
sixty years after Xenophon had made his way right across Asia to the
shores of the Black Sea when Alexander resolved to break, if possible,
the power of the Persians.
The great Persian Empire extended from the shores of the Mediterranean
right away to the east, far beyond the knowledge of the Greeks. Indeed,
their knowledge of the interior of Asia was very imperfect, and
Alexander's expedition was rather that of an explorer than of a
conqueror. How he overthrew the Persians and subdued an area as large
as Europe in the space of twelve years reads like a romance rather
than fact, and it is not for us to tell the story in detail. Rather
let us take up the story, after Alexander has fought and conquered
the Persians twice, besieged Tyre, taken the Phoenician fleet,
occupied Egypt, marched across the desert and crossed the Euphrates,
passed over the plain and followed the Tigris to near Nineveh, where
he crossed that river too, fought another famous battle over the
Persians, which decided the fate of King and Monarchy and opened to
him the capitals of Babylon and Susa, wherein the immense treasures
of the Persian Empire were stored. King of all Asia, he sat on the
throne of the Persian kings under a golden canopy in the palace of
Persepolis.
So far the whole expedition was over country known, if imperfectly,
to the Greeks. Now we have to follow the conquering hero more closely
as he leads us into an unknown land away to the east, known as "the
farthest region of the inhabited world towards the east, beyond which
lies the endless sandy desert void of inhabitants." And all the while
the great land of India lay beyond, and beyond again was China, and
away far over the ocean sea lay America--and they knew it not.
Alexander was a young man yet, only twenty-six. It was four years since
he had left Europe, and in that short time he had done wonders. He
had conquered the whole western half of the Persian Empire. Now he
resolutely turned his face to the unknown east and started forth on
an expedition of exploration.
Following the main highway from Media, which to-day leads from Teheran,
capital of modern Persia, into the land of the Turkomans and the borders
of Russia, he found himself between the great salt desert and the
mountains, which to-day mark the frontier of Persia. Suddenly, to his
great surprise, the Caspian Sea came into sight. It seemed about the
same size as the Black Sea, and he concluded it was connected with
the Sea of Azof, though the men of his day were certain enough that
it was the most northern of four great gulfs connected with the outer
ocean which flowed round the world.
Onwards towards the east he marched with his great army. To conciliate
the tribes through which he passed, he adopted Persian dress. This
annoyed his Greek countrymen, but, "as they admired his other virtues,
they thought he might be suffered to please himself a little and enjoy
his vanity."
Arrived at the modern boundary between Persia, Afghanistan, and Russia,
he and his men pushed on across Afghanistan, by the caravan route that
had long existed from the shores of the Caspian, by modern Herat,
Kandahar,[1] which still bears the conqueror's name, and Kabul to
India. Their way lay through deep snow, deeper than they had ever seen
before; and by the time they had reached the mountains of Kabul it
was midwinter.
[Footnote 1: Kandahar = Alexandria in a modern form.]
Between Alexander and India still lay the lofty range of the Hindu
Koosh or Indian Caucasus. But before going south toward India, he
turned northwards to explore the unknown country which lay about the
river Oxus. They found the Oxus, a mighty stream, swollen with melting
snows. There were no boats and no wood to build them, so Alexander
pioneered his men across in "life-preservers" made out of their
leather tent coverings and stuffed with straw. This river impressed
the Greeks even more than the Euphrates and Tigris, as it impressed
many an explorer and poet since these early days. Let us recall Matthew
Arnold's famous description of the Oxus, now seen for the first time
by the Greeks.
"But the majestic river floated on,
Out of the mist and hum of that low land,
Into the frosty starlight, and there moved
* * * * *
Brimming, and bright, and large; then sands begin
To hem his watery march and dam his streams,
And split his currents; that for many a league
The shorn and parcell'd Oxus strains along
Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles--
Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had,
In his high mountain-cradle in Pamere,
A foil'd circuitous wanderer--till at last
The long'd for dash of waves is heard, and wide
His luminous home of waters opens, bright
And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bathed stars
Emerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea."
Here in this valley the Greeks met more determined opposition than
they had yet encountered since entering Asia, and over two years were
occupied in reducing this single district (now Bokhara and Turkestan)
to submission, though it was only some three hundred and fifty miles
square, and in one single year Alexander had conquered a kingdom over
one thousand miles in width.
It was not till the spring of 327 B.C. that he was ready to cross the
Hindu Koosh and begin the great expedition into India. The night before
the start Alexander discovered that his troops were now so heavily
laden with spoils that they were quite unfit for the long march. So
in the early morning, when they were all ready to start, he suddenly
set fire to his own baggage, and, giving orders that all his men were
to do the same, the army started for the passes of the lofty mountain
range. And--
"... as a troop of pedlars from Kabul
Cross underneath the Indian Caucasus,
That vast sky neighbouring mountain of milk snow;
Crossing so high, that, as they mount, they pass
Long flocks of travelling birds dead on the snow,
Choked by the air, and scarce can they themselves
Slake their parch'd throats with sugar'd mulberries--
In single file they move, and stop their breath,
For fear they should dislodge the o'erhanging snows."
The banks of the river of Kabul were reached at last. Sending part
of the army by the now famous Kyber Pass toward the Indus, Alexander
himself undertook to subdue the mountain tribes and get control of
the Chitral passes. The shepherds of this region opposed him
vigorously, but swiftly and pitilessly the King of Asia sacked their
peaceful homes, and city after city fell to him as he advanced towards
the boundaries of Kashmir.
At last the valley of the Indus was reached. A bridge of boats was
hastily thrown over, and Alexander and his army passed to the other
side.
Porus, the ruler of the country between the Indus and the river Hydaspes
(Jehlam), sent presents of welcome to the invader, including three
thousand animals for sacrifice, ten thousand sheep, thirty elephants,
two hundred talents of silver, and seven hundred horsemen. The new
king was also greeted with presents of ivory and precious stones. Even
from far Kashmir came greetings to Alexander, whose fame was spreading
rapidly. He now entered the Punjab, the "Land of the Five Rivers."
But on the other side of the river Hydaspes a different reception
awaited him.
There the king (Porus) had assembled a sturdy, well-disciplined troop
to dispute the passage of the river, which still separated the new
King of Asia from his territory. But under cover of a mighty
thunderstorm Alexander contrived to cross, though the river was
rushing down yellow and fierce after the rains. Secretly the Greeks
put together their thirty-oared galleys hidden in a wood, and utterly
surprised Porus by landing on the other side. In their strange
wanderings the Greeks had fought under varying conditions, but they
had never faced elephants before. Nevertheless, they brilliantly
repulsed an onslaught of these animals, who slowly retreated, "facing
the foe, like ships backing water, and merely uttering a shrill, piping
sound." Despite the elephants the old story was repeated, civilised
arms triumphed over barbarians, and the army of Porus was annihilated,
his chariots shattered, and thirty-three thousand men slain.
The kingdom beyond the Hydaspes was now Alexander's. Ordering a great
fleet of rafts and boats to be built for his proposed voyage to the
mouth of the Indus, he pushed on to complete the conquest of the Five
Stream Land, or the Punjab--the last province of the great Persian
Empire. This was India--all that was known at this time. The India
of the Ganges valley was beyond the knowledge of the Western world--the
Ganges itself unknown to the Persians. And Alexander saw no reason
to change his mind.
"The great sea surrounds the whole earth," he stoutly maintained.
But when he reached the eastern limit of the Punjab and heard that
beyond lay a fertile land "where the inhabitants were skilled in
agriculture, where there were elephants in yet greater abundance and
men were superior in stature and courage," the world stretched out
before him in an unexpected direction, and he longed to explore farther,
to conquer new and utterly unknown worlds!
But at last his men struck. They were weary, some were wounded, some
were ill; seventy days of incessant rain had taken the heart out of
them.
"I am not ignorant, soldiers," said Alexander to the hesitating troops,
"that during the last few days the natives of this country have been
spreading all sorts of rumours to work upon your fears. The Persians
in this way sought to terrify you with the gates of Cilicia, with the
plains of Mesopotamia, with the Tigris and Euphrates, and yet this
river you crossed by a ford and that by means of a bridge. By my troth,
we had long ago fled from Asia could fables have been able to scare
us. We are not standing on the threshold of our enterprise, but at
the very close. We have already reached the sunrise and the ocean,
and unless your sloth and cowardice prevent, we shall thence return
in triumph to our native land, having conquered the earth to its
remotest bounds. I beseech you that ye desert not your king just at
the very moment when he is approaching the limits of the inhabited
world."
But the soldiers, "with their heads bent earthwards," stood in silence.
It was not that they _would_ not follow him beyond the sunset; they
_could_ not. Their tears began to flow, sobs reached the ears of
Alexander, his anger turned to pity, and he wept with his men.
"Oh, sir," at last cried one of his men, "we have done and suffered
up to the full measure of the capacity of mortal nature. We have
traversed seas and lands, and know them better than do the inhabitants
themselves. We are standing now almost on the earth's utmost verge,
and yet you are preparing to go in quest of an India unknown even to
the Indians themselves. You would fain root out, from their hidden
recesses and dens, a race of men that herd with snakes and wild beasts,
so that you may traverse as a conqueror more regions than the sun
surveys. But while your courage will be ever growing, our vigour is
fast waning to its end. See how bloodless be our bodies, pierced with
how many wounds and gashed with how many scars! Our weapons are blunt,
our armour worn out! We have been driven to assume the Persian dress!
Which of us has a horse? We have conquered all the world, but are
ourselves destitute of all things."
The conqueror was at last conquered. The order to turn back was
reluctantly given by the disappointed king and leader. It was received
with shouts of joy from the mixed multitudes of his followers, and
the expedition faced for home. Back they marched through the new lands
where no less than two thousand cities had owned his sway, till they
came to the banks of the river where the ships were building. Two
thousand boats were ready, including eighty thirty-oared galleys.
It was now September 326 B.C.
Nearchus from Crete was made Admiral of the new fleet, which at dawn
one October morning pushed out upon the river Hydaspes and set sail
downstream towards the unknown sea, Alexander standing proudly on the
prow of the royal galley. The trumpets rang out, the oars moved, and
the strange argosy, "such as had never been seen before in these parts,"
made its way down the unknown river to the unknown sea. Natives swarmed
to the banks of the river to wonder at the strange sight, marvelling
specially to see horses as passengers on board! The greater part of
the army followed the ships on land, marching along the shores. At
last the waters of the Hydaspes mingled with those of the Indus, and
onwards down this great river floated the Persian fleet. Alexander
had no pilots, no local knowledge of the country, but with his
"unquenchable ambition to see the ocean and reach the boundaries of
the world," he sailed on, "ignorant of everything on the way they had
to pass." In vain they asked the natives assembled on the banks how
far distant was the sea; they had never heard of the sea! At last they
found a tide mixing its salt waters with the fresh. Soon a flood-tide
burst upon them, forcing back the current of the river, and scattering
the fleet. The sailors of the tideless Mediterranean knew nothing of
the rise and fall of tides. They were in a state of panic and
consternation. Some tried to push off their ships with long poles,
others tried to row against the incoming tide; prows were dashed
against poops, oars were broken, sterns were bumped, until at last
the sea had flowed over all the level land near the river mouth.
Suddenly a new danger appeared! The tide turned and the sea began to
recede. Further misfortunes now befell the ships. Many were left high
and dry; most of them were damaged in some way or another. Alexander
sent horsemen to the seashore with instructions to watch for the return
of the tide and to ride back in haste so that the fleet might be
prepared.
Thus they got safely out to sea on the next high tide.
Alexander's explorations were now at an end. Leaving Nearchus to
explore the seacoast at the mouth of the Indus, he left the spot near
where the town of Hyderabad now stands, and turned his face toward
the home he was never to reach. We must not linger over his terrible
coast journey through the scorching desert of Beluchistan the billows
of sand, the glare of the barren sea, the awful thirst, the long hungry
marches of forty miles a day under the burning Eastern sun.
[Illustration: A SKETCH-MAP OF ALEXANDER'S CHIEF EXPLORATORY MARCHES
FROM ATHENS TO HYDERABAD AND GAZA. The dotted line shows the course
of Nearchus' voyage down the river Indus, along the northern shores
of the Indian Ocean, and up the Persian Gulf to Babylonia.]
Our story is one of discovery, and we must turn to Nearchus, Admiral
of the fleet, left behind at the mouth of the Indus to explore the
coast to the Persian Gulf, where he was to meet Alexander if possible.
Shortly after the fleet had emerged from the mouth of the Indus a
violent south-west monsoon began to blow and Nearchus was obliged to
seek shelter in a harbour, which he called the port of Alexander, but
which to-day is known as Karachi, the most western seaport of India.
The waters of the Indian Ocean were quite unknown to the Greeks, and
they could only coast along in sight of land, anchoring at different
points for the men to land and get water and food. Past the wild barren
shores of Beluchistan they made their way; the natives subsisted on
fish entirely even as they do to-day--even their huts being made of
fish bones and their bread of pounded fish.
They had but one adventure in their five months' cruise to the Persian
Gulf, but we have a graphic account of how the terrified Greeks met
a shoal of whales and how they frightened the whales away. Here is
the story. One day towards daybreak they suddenly saw water spouting
up from the sea, as if being violently carried upwards by whirlwinds.
The sailors, feeling very frightened, asked their native guides what
it meant. The natives replied that it was caused by whales blowing
the water up into the air. At this explanation the Greek sailors were
panic-stricken and dropped the oars from their hands. Nearchus saw
that something must be done at once. So he bade the men draw up their
ships in line as if for battle and row forward side by side towards
the whales, shouting and splashing with their oars. At a given signal
they duly advanced, and when they came near the sea-monsters they
shouted with all their might and blew their trumpets and made all
possible noise with their oars. On hearing which, says the old story,
"the whales took fright and plunged into the depths, but not long after
came to the surface again close to the sterns of the vessels and once
more spouted great jets of water. Then the sailors shouted aloud at
their happy and unlooked-for escape," and Nearchus was cheered as the
saviour of the fleet. It is not uncommon to-day for steamers bound
from Aden to Bombay to encounter what is called a "school of whales"
similar to those which alarmed the fleet of Nearchus in the year 323
B.C.
The expedition was completely successful and Nearchus pioneered his
fleet to the mouth of the Euphrates.
But the death of Alexander the Great and the confusion that followed
set back the advance of geographical discovery in this direction for
some time.
[Illustration: ALEXANDRIA IN PIZZIGANI'S MAP, FOURTEENTH CENTURY. The
river with the buildings on its bank is the Nile.]
Alexandria--one of the many towns founded by Alexander--had become
the world centre of the learned from Europe, Asia, and Africa. Its
position was unrivalled. Situated at the mouth of the Nile, it
commanded the Mediterranean Sea, while by means of the Red Sea it held
easy communication with India and Arabia. When Egypt had come under
the sway of Alexander, he had made one of his generals ruler over that
country, and men of intellect collected there to study and to write.
A library was started, and a Greek, Eratosthenes, held the post of
librarian at Alexandria for forty years, namely, from 240-196 B.C.
During this period he made a collection of all the travels and books
of earth description--the first the world had ever known--and stored
them in the Great Library of which he must have felt so justly proud.
But Eratosthenes did more than this. He was the originator of
Scientific Geography. He realised that no maps could be properly laid
down till something was known of the size and shape of the earth.
By this time all men of science had ceased to believe that the world
was flat; they thought of it as a perfect round, but fixed at the centre
in space. Many had guessed at the size of the earth. Some said it was
forty thousand miles round, but Eratosthenes was not content with
guessing. He studied the length of the shadow thrown by the sun at
Alexandria and compared it with that thrown by the sun at Syene, near
the first cataract of the Nile, some five hundred miles distant, and,
as he thought, in the same longitude. The differences in the length
of these two shadows he calculated would represent one-fiftieth of
the circumference of the earth which would accordingly be twenty-five
thousand miles. There was no one to tell him whether he had calculated
right or wrong, but we know to-day that he was wonderfully right. But
he must know more. He must find out how much of this earth was habitable.
To the north and south of the known countries men declared it was too
hot or too cold to live. So he decided that from north to south, that
is, from the land of Thule to the land of Punt (Somaliland), the
habitable earth stretched for some three thousand eight hundred miles,
while from east to west--that is, from the Pillars of Hercules (Straits
of Gibraltar) to India--would be some eight thousand miles. All the
rest was ocean. Ignoring the division of the world into three
continents, he divided it into two, north and south, divided by the
Mediterranean and by a long range of mountains intersecting the whole
of Asia.
Then the famous librarian drew a map of the world for his library at
Alexandria, but it has perished with all the rest of the valuable
treasure collected in this once celebrated city. We know that he must
have made a great many mistakes in drawing a map of his little island
world which measured eight thousand miles by three thousand eight
hundred miles. It must have been quaintly arranged. The Caspian Sea
was connected with a Northern Ocean, the Danube sent a tributary to
the Adriatic, there was no Bay of Biscay, the British Isles lay in
the wrong direction, Africa was not half its right size, the Ganges
flowed into the Eastern Ocean, Ceylon was a huge island stretching
east and west, while across the whole of Asia a mountain chain stretched
in one long unbroken line. And yet, with all his errors, he was nearer
the truth than men three centuries later.