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260
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(NOVEMBER, 1905.
Taxila and Jalalpur. The march may have been by both lines, while the leader himself climbed the conspicuous peak of Jogi Tilla to consult the oracle which had already warned Porus to make terms with his cousin, the son of Jove 28 Snpposing that Darapur, Jalalpar, and Pind Dâdan Khan were strongly held by Sopeithes, the king of the Salt Range, the line of the Grand Trunk Road, occupied, in the interest of both parties, by the faithless Abisares, may have furnished the only available line of advance. But whether Porus was merely the Raja of a petty state, or a king "greater than Sandrocottus," he must have been in some sense warden of the marches, in command of an army drawn from the greater part of the upper Pañjâb, and depending for his communications and supplies upon the country now known as the "Bår," south of the Grand Trunk Road. After deciding on general grounds that the camp of Porus must have been in the open country somewhere opposite to Jalalpur, it seems hardly worth while to compare the two possible battlefields from the indications of the Greek historians. Abbott examined the ground in the neighbourhood of Jihlam, and Canningham that at Jalalpur, and both were satisfied that they had found a field for mancurre and battle which would satisfy the conditions of Arrian's graphic description. Neither of them, perhaps, made sufficient allowance for the changes which a great river produces in the lapse of ages, particularly if swollen by periodical rains and the snows of Himalaya. Bearing in mind the general rule that a river has been over every part of the valley through which it flows, and that one inch of erosion or deposit will amount to more than 60 yards in 2,000 years, we must recognise that the river which separated Porus and Alexander in 326 B. C. was not in all respects similar to that upon which Sher Singh and Gough manreuvred in 1849 A. D. When the Jihlam leaves the Himalaya on its right bank it continues to wash the hard limestone débris of the Rohtas range, "its waters gushing over a bed of white quartz boulders," as described by Abbott, but the Pabbi hills on the left bank belong to the Siwâlik range, which edges the Himalaya from the Jihlan to Assam. These deposits, consisting of soft sandstone, clay, and conglomerates, afford a weak barrier to a powerful river, and, in consequence, although the high right bank of the Jihlam may be regarded as comparatively a fixed boundary, the islands and channels in the bed of the stream cannot be the same for long periods of historical time. From this it follows that even if Abbott and Cunningham bave both made out a good case for Alexander's night march, conditions of crossing the river must be so changed that no identification of localities is possible. There are still wooded islands above Darapur, remnants of the Pabbi hills. Above Jiblam there is no wood except shrubs, and the alluvial islands are of a different character to those where the river passes through the Pabbi range. Any doubt upon this point might be set at rest by a competent geologist on the spot.
It may be remarked by the way that Abbott's evidence, so far as it goes, is strongly in favour of an early date for the battle. His survey was made in April under usual conditions. He speaks of the "crystal Hydaspes" which he forded upon his elephant. But he was strangely mistaken in supposing that at this time there was a greater depth of water than in the rainy season. His informants may have intended him to understand that when the river is at its highest from melted snow, that is, early in July, before a drop of monsoon rain has fallen, the water is a foot deeper" than it is on an average in August and September. For all I know this may be the case. Certainly, the rivers of the Pañjab are not so high in April as they are towards the end of May, when the boatbridges are dismantled, until the autumn.
The road, by wbich Cunningham supposes the night march to have been made, seems well suited for moving a large body of troops without the knowledge of a watchful enemy on the left bank of the river. It is screened by a range of lofty hills and is sufficiently remote from the river without being 50 far from it as to make the term "parallel” inexact,30 especially if the Jihlam has been pushed further away by the encroaching sands of the Banhår nullah. One advantage of this last hypothesis will be that we get the "notable bend" in the course of the river, of which Arrian speaks, at the
» Cunningham, Geogr. Ind. p. 165, quoting Plutarch.
Imperial Gazetteer, V. p. 409 and elsewhere. ** Il Cunningham cannot go to the river, the river must be bronght to Ounningham.
