At last he was obliged to
give up all attempts of relieving Nearchus; and after struggling 60 days
with want of water,--during which period, if he himself had not, at the
head of a few horse, pushed on to the coast, and there obtained a supply,
by opening the sands, his whole army must have perished,--he with great
difficulty reached the capital of this desert country. Nearchus, thus left
to himself, was indebted to the natives for the means of discovering water,
by opening the sands, as the king had done; but to the Greeks, who regarded
the want of bread as famine, even when its place was supplied by meat, the
fish the natives offered them was no relief.
We have already remarked, that the real character of Alexander will be much
elevated in the opinion of men of humanity and philosophers, if the
particulars we possess of his endeavours to improve the condition of those
he conquered, and to advance the interests of science, scanty and imperfect
as they are, were more attentively considered, and had not been neglected
and overlooked in the glare of his military achievements. His march through
the deserts of Gadrosia has been ascribed solely to vanity; but this
imputation will be removed, and must give way to a more worthy impression
of his motives on this occasion, when it is stated, that it was part of the
great design which he had formed of opening a communication between his
European dominions and India by sea; and that as the accomplishment of this
design mainly depended on the success of the expedition committed to
Nearchus, it was a paramount object with him to assist the fleet, which he
thrice attempted, even in the midst of his own distress in the deserts.
Pages:
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130