Note 143 — Chapter I · —Alexander mistakes the Indus for the upper Nile—Prepares to sail down stream to the sea

v. Strabo (XV. i. 29). Between the Hydaspês and Akesinês ... is the forest in the neighbourhood of the Emodoi mountains, in which Alexander cut down a large quantity of fir, pine, cedar, and a variety of other trees fit for shipbuilding, and brought the timber down the Hydaspês. With this he constructed a fleet on the Hydaspês near the cities which he built on each side of the river where he had crossed it and conquered Pôros. “The timber,” says Sir A. Burnes, “of which the boats of the Panjâb are constructed is chiefly floated down by the Hydaspês from the Indian Caucasus, which most satisfactorily explains the selection of its banks by Alexander in preference to the other rivers.” Bunbury, citing this passage, adds: “The navigation of the Indus itself for a considerable part of its course below Attock is so dangerous on account of rapids as to render it wholly unsuitable for the descent of a flotilla such as that of Alexander.”