And this also, most probably, was one reason for his careful survey of the
navigation of the Indus itself. When he returned to Susa, he surveyed the
course of the Tigris and Euphrates. The navigation near the mouths of those
rivers was obstructed by cataracts, occasioned by walls built across them
by the ancient monarchs of Persia, in order to prevent their subjects from
defiling themselves by sailing on the ocean[4]: these obstructions he gave
directions to be removed. Had he lived, therefore, the commodites of India
would have been conveyed from the Persian Gulf into the interior provinces
of his Asiatic dominions, and to Alexandria by the Arabian Gulf.
To conclude in the words of Dr. Vincent: "The Macedonians obtained a
knowledge both of the Indus and the Ganges: they heard that the seat of
empire was, where it always has been, on the Ganges or Indus: they acquired
intelligence of all the grand and leading features of Indian manners,
policy, and religion [and he might have added, accurate information
respecting the geography of the western parts of that country]: they
discovered all this by penetrating through countries, where, possibly, no
Greek had previously set his foot; and they explored the passage by sea
which first opened the commercial intercourse with India to the Greeks and
Romans, through the medium of Egypt and the Red Sea, and finally to the
Europeans, by the Cape of Good Hope.
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