[ 4

INDIA

the indus, the Kabul, and two or. three of the rivers of
the Punjab assumed their right positions, and were traced
to their correct conclusions. Although Alexander believed
 that the Indus was identical with the Nile whilst
he was yet engaged in military operations on its upper
reaches, the subsequent exploration of that river to its
mouth, and, above all, the admirably conducted voyage
of his chief sea captain, Nearkhos, from the Indus to the
head of the Persian Gulf, furnished the world with
geographical records of sufficient accuracy to enable
modern geographers not only to trace step by step the
progress of the army and of the fleet back to Persia, but
even to estimate the nature of those changes in riverain
and coast topography which have taken place during the
last twenty-two centuries. Alexander never penetrated
into the southern peninsula area. He turned at the
Beas (Hyphasis), a river of the Punjab, and thenceforward
set his face westwards towards Persia, where he died.
But he left behind him a troublesome heritage of Indian
frontier which eventually fell to the administration of one
of his generals, Seleukos Nikator, the founder of the
Syrian monarchy. Then for the first time, a little light
was thrown into the dark corners of peninsular geography
by the ambassador Megasthenes, who was deputed to the
court of the great king Chandra Gupta (the Sandrakottos
of the Greeks) at Palimbothra (the modern Patna) on the
Ganges. The Greek settlements in the Punjab and Kabul
valleys were ceded to the Indian monarch about twentyfive
 years after Alexander's departure from India, but the
Greek language is said to have held its own in those
regions for more than seven hundred years subsequently—
until, indeed, the Muhammadan conquests stamped it out
of existence. Nevertheless the Greek adaptation of place
names is even now to be found recognisable under
modern dialectic forms about the regions where the
Indus issues from the mountains. Until the time of
Megasthenes but two classes of Indians were known to
the Greeks—the mountaineers of the Caucasus, and the
Gsh-eaters of Makran—sufficient indication of the very