CHAP. tinue unal 1 and an extensive district of that vast country was surveyed with greater accuracy than could period con- have been expected from the short time that he tered. remained there. From the accounts of the campaign written by three of his principal officers we learn, that at that early period India was divided into regular monarchies of considerable extent. They describe with accuracy the climate, soil, and productions of the country. Their descriptions of the inhabitants, with their manners, customs, and even dress, correspond minutely with what we now observe, though at the distance of more than two thousand years. Extent of Alexander's projects. His death. 15. When Alexander invaded India, he had something more in view than a transient campaign. It was his object to annex that extensive and opulent region to his empire; and though the refractory spirit of his army compelled him, at that time, to suspend the prosecution of his design, he was far from relinquishing it. Having established a medium of communication with the interior of Hindoostan, he proposed to convey the valuable commodities of that country down the Indus, then to transmit them from the Persian Gulf into the interior parts of his Asiatic dominions; while by the Arabian Gulf they were to be carried to Alexandria, and thence distributed to the rest of the world. 16. Grand and extensive as these schemes were, the precautions taken against disappointment, and the arrangements made for carrying them into effect, were so various, and so judicious, that Alexander had reason to entertain sanguine hopes of their proving successful. But his race was run. A premature death put 1 Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, Aristobulus, and Nearchus. an end to all his ambitious calculations. He 66 17. Not long after Alexander's death, his vast empire was divided between his four principal officers, but not without many severe contests in the partition. Macedon and Greece were given to Cassander: Thrace, with several provinces of lower Asia, fell to the share of Lysimachus: Egypt was the portion of Ptolemy, afterwards surnamed Soter: and upper Asia became the dominion of Seleucus. Accordingly it devolved on the latter two, Ptolemy and Seleucus, to carry into effect Alexander's intention regarding the commerce with India; and they both showed themselves willing and com 'The devout reader of the Bible, and the attentive observer of the ways of God with men, will not hesitate to subscribe to this sentiment. The removal of Alexander, and the immediate division of his empire, were in exact accordance with the prophecies of these events delivered more than two hundred years before they occurred. (Dan. vii. 6; viii. 8.) CHAP. I. Seleucus, king of Sy scheme of India, which is ultimately abandoned by his suc cessors. petent to prosecute the undertaking which he had so ably planned and commenced. 18. Seleucus, king of Syria, possessed much ria, pursues of the ambitious spirit of his master, as well as Alexander's the eastern division of his conquests. He, like conquest in all the officers formed under Alexander, entertained such high notions of the advantages to be derived from a commercial intercourse with India, as induced him to march into that country to secure them. We have no particular account of his expedition. All we know is, that his pretext for undertaking it was some hostile demonstrations, real or imagined, on the part of Sandracottus, king of the Prasii; against whom he carried on a successful war, advancing considerably beyond the utmost boundary of Alexander's progress eastward. Compelled to return for the defence of his dominions against Antigonus, he concluded a treaty of peace with Sandracottus, and sent a confidential officer, Megasthenes, to cultivate a friendly intercourse with that prince. The Prasii over whom he reigned were a powerful nation on the banks of the Ganges. Megasthenes executed his commission with fidelity, resided in the capital of the Prasii many years, and was probably the first European who beheld the river Ganges. The position of Palibothra is, with great probability, supposed to be the same with that of the modern city of Allahabad, at the confluence of the two great rivers, Jumna and Ganges. Alexander did not advance further than the spot where the modern city of Lahore is situated. The Prasii were the descendants of Pooru of Poorag, visited by Megasthenes, ambassador of Seleucus, and the principal city of the Yadus, ere it sent forth the four branches from Satwati.'-Annals and Antiquities of Rajast'han, by Lt. Col. JAMES TOD, Vol. I., p. 39. Megasthenes, who was an officer in his army, became thoroughly acquainted with all that was hitherto known of India: he was, therefore, well qualified to describe, for the information of his countrymen, the nature and importance of the regions he had traversed. Though he was too fond of the marvellous, yet his accounts are considered, on the whole, worthy of credit. From his writings the ancients seem to have derived almost all their knowledge of the interior of India; and from comparing the three most ample accounts of those regions extant, by Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, and Arrian, they appear manifestly, from their near resemblance, to be a transcript of the words of Megasthenes. His embassy to Sandracottus, and another of Daimachus to his son and successor, Allitrochidas, are the last transactions of the Syrian monarchs with India of which we have any account. Nor can we either fix with accuracy the time, or describe the manner, in which their possessions in India were wrested from them. It is probable that they were obliged to abandon that country soon after the death of Seleucus, which happened forty-two years after the decease of Alexander. The petty kings of Bactria continued to carry on military operations in India with considerable success. Their country was separated from India by the mountainous range whence both the Indus and the Oxus flow and recovering possession of the district near the mouth of the Indus which Alexander had subdued, they penetrated far into the interior of the country. They held peaceable possession of their conquest, until, about one hundred and twenty-six years before the Christian era, a powerful horde of Tartars wrested it from them. Driven by necessity C B. C 323. B. C. 126. СНАР. I. Ptolemy Soter, king of Egypt, prosecutes his commer with success. emporium of from their native seat on the confines of China, and obliged to move towards the West by the pressure of a more numerous body that rolled on behind them, they passed the Jaxartes, and pouring in upon Bactria, like an irresistible torrent, overwhelmed that kingdom, and put an end to the dominion of the Greeks there, after it had been established near one hundred and thirty years. 19. Our attention is next turned to Ptolemy Soter, king of Egypt, whose exertions to carry into effect Alexander's commercial schemes, cial designs proved more successful than those of his Alexandria cotemporary, Seleucus, in prosecuting their becomes the master's designs of conquest in the East. Under the world. Ptolemy's auspices and vigilance, Egypt_soon became the seat of an intercourse with India that promised to be successful and permanent; and it is not without admiration that we observe how soon and how regularly the commerce with the East came to be carried on by that very channel, in which the sagacity of Alexander destined it to flow. Ptolemy, when established in the empire of Egypt, fixed the seat of his government in Alexandria; and the celebrity of its mart, and the immunities which the king granted to traders of all nations, soon attracted vast numbers of foreigners, and induced them to take up their abode in that capital. Ptolemy was one of Alexander's most confidential officers, and he knew that his masters' chief object in founding Alexandria was to secure the advantages arising from the commerce with India. The king of Egypt showed that he was able to appreciate this design, and knew how to render the advantages of his situation available for its accomplishment. Alexandria, commanding the commerce with |