Page:History of India Vol 9.djvu/43

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DISTRICTS TRAVERSED BY ALEXANDER
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became jealous, and observed that it seemed as if Alexander had found none on whom he could confer favours before he passed the Indus. Some writers say that this country is larger than Egypt.

BRIDGE OF BOATS ON THE INDUS.

Above this country among the mountains is the territory of Abisaros (Abhisara), who, as the ambassadors that came from him reported, kept two serpents, one of eighty, and the other, according to Onesikritos, of one hundred and forty cubits in length. This writer may as well be called the master fabulist as the master pilot of Alexander. For all those who accompanied Alexander preferred the marvellous to the true, but this writer seems to have surpassed all in his description of prodigies. Some things, however, he relates which are probable and worthy of record, and will not be passed over in silence even by one who does not

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