Note 540 — Chapter XCIV · MILITARY OPERATIONS AND CONQUESTS OF ALEXANDER, AFTER HIS WINTER-QUARTERS IN PERSIS, DOWN TO HIS DEATH AT BABYLON.

These operations are described in Arrian, v. 9. v. 19 (we may remark that Ptolemy and Aristobulus, though both present, differed on many points, v. 14); Curtius, viii. 13, 14; Diodor. xvii. 87, 88. According to Plutarch (Alex. 60), Alexander dwelt much upon the battle in his own letters.

There are two principal points—Jelum and Julalpoor—where high roads from the Indus now cross the Hydaspes. Each of these points have been assigned by different writers, as the probable scene of the crossing of the river by Alexander. Of the two Jelum (rather higher up the river than Julalpoor) seems the more probable. Burnes points out that near Jelum the river is divided into five or six channels with islands (Travels, vol. ii. ch. 2. p. 50, 2nd ed.). Captain Abbott (in the Journal of the Asiatic Society, Calcutta, Dec. 1848) has given an interesting memoir on the features and course of the Hydaspes a little above Jelum, comparing them with the particulars stated by Arrian, and showing highly plausible reasons in support of this hypothesis—that the crossing took place near Jelum.

Diodorus mentions a halt of thirty days, after the victory (xvii. 89), which seems not probable. Both he and Curtius allude to numerous serpents, by which the army was annoyed between the Akesines and the Hydraotes (Curtius, ix. 1, 11).