Alexander : a history of the origin and growth of the art of war from ...

SCANT INFORMATION. 587Indus to the sea. For this purpose he ordered a number ofvessels to be got ready, many of them thirty-oared galleys,and others with one and a half banks of oars ; flat-bottomed,deckless boats for horses, and others suitable for the men,artillery, and baggage. The Phoenicians, Cyprians, Cariansand Egyptians, multitudes of whom were in the ranks, furnishedplenty of shipwrights and crews.A fact which throws into high relief the extraordinary energyand enterprise of Alexander is the unreliability of theinformation he was able to procure about these distant countries,in despite of which he continued to push forward.When he saw crocodiles in the Indus, and the lotus beangrowing on the banks of the Acesines, he imagined and forsome time believed that he had discovered the sources ofNile, where alone he had seen or heard of these animals andplants. Among all his suite of wise men, there was none tocorrect this error, and it was not tillthesome time later that heascertained the existence of the Persian Gulf, southern Arabia,and the Red Sea.Herodotus tells us that the vessels of Nechaus, in the seventhcentury b. c, left the Red Sea and made inthree yearsa circuit of Libya ; also that about 512 B. C. the vessels ofDarius, son of Hystaspes, under pilotage of the Carian Scylax,floated down the Indus, sailed west, and reached the Red Sea.But this information was of the crudest.not impressed itself on Alexander's mind.What it meant hadCoenus at this time died, and was buried with as greatpomp as the circumstances allowed.It is said, however, thatAlexander had not forgotten his taking up the cause of thesoldiers at the Hyphasis. This scarcely accords with Alexander'scharacter, which, though passionate, did not longharbor unkindness, and the splendid services of Coenus, soworthily capped at the Hydaspes, must still have dwelt in hisrecollection.