what purpose has Alexander come all the way hither?” However, Taxiles persuaded Kalanus to visit Alexander.  His real name was Sphines:  but as in the Indian tongue he saluted all he met with the word ‘Kale,’ the Greeks named him Kalanus.  This man is said to have shown to Alexander a figure representing his empire, in the following manner.  He flung on the ground a dry, shrunken hide, and then trod upon the outside of it, but when he trod it down in one place, it rose up in all the others.  He walked all round the edge of it, and showed that this kept taking place until at length he stepped into the middle, and so made it all lie flat.  This image was intended to signify that Alexander ought to keep his strength concentrated in the middle of his empire, and not wander about on distant journeys.

LXVI.  Alexander’s voyage down the Indus and its tributaries, to the sea-coast, took seven months.  On reaching the ocean he sailed to an island which he himself called Skillustis, but which was generally known as Psiltukis.  Here he landed and sacrificed to the gods, after which he explored the sea and the coast as far as he could reach.  Having done this, he turned back, after praying to the gods that no conqueror might ever transcend this, the extreme limit of his conquests.  He ordered his fleet to follow the line of the coast, keeping India on their right hand:  and he gave Nearchus the supreme command, with Onesikritus as chief pilot.  He, himself, marched through the country of the Oreitae, where he endured terrible sufferings from scarcity of provisions, and lost so many men that he scarcely brought back home from India the fourth part of his army, which originally amounted to a hundred and twenty thousand foot, and fifteen thousand horse.  Most of the men perished from sickness, bad food, and the excessive heat of the sun, and many from sheer hunger, as they had to march through an uncultivated region, inhabited only by a few miserable savages, with a stunted breed of cattle whose flesh had acquired a rank and disagreeable taste through their habit of feeding on sea-fish.

After a terrible march of sixty days, the army passed through this desert region, and reached Gedrosia, where the men at once received abundant supplies of food, which were furnished by the chiefs of the provinces which they entered.

LXVII.  After he had refreshed his troops here for a little, Alexander led them in a joyous revel for seven days through Karmania.[426] He, himself, feasted continually, night and day, with his companions, who sat at table with him upon a lofty stage drawn by eight horses, so that all men could see them.  After the king’s equipage followed numberless other waggons, some with hangings of purple and embroidered work, and others with canopies of green boughs, which were constantly renewed, containing the rest of Alexander’s friends and officers, all crowned with flowers and drinking wine.  There was not a shield, a helmet,