XVI. The Indians wear linen garments, as Nearchus says, the linen coming from the trees of which I have already made mention. This linen is either brighter than the whiteness of other linen, or the people's own blackness makes it appear unusually bright. They have a linen tunic to the middle of the calf, and for outer garments, one thrown round about their shoulders, and one wound round their heads. They wear ivory ear-rings, that is, the rich Indians; the common people do not use them. Nearchus writes that they dye their beards various colours; some therefore have these as white-looking as possible, others dark, others crimson, others purple, others grass-green. The more dignified Indians use sunshades against the summer heat. They have slippers of white skin, and these too made neatly; and the soles of their sandals are of different colours, and also high, so that the wearers seem taller. Indian war equipment differs; the infantry have a bow, of the height of the owner; this they poise on the ground, and set their left foot against it, and shoot thus; drawing the bowstring a very long way back; for their arrows are little short of three cubits, and nothing can stand against an arrow shot by an Indian archer, neither shield nor breastplate nor any strong armour. In their left hands they carry small shields of untanned hide, narrower than their bearers, but not much shorter. Some have javelins in place of bows. All carry a broad scimitar, its length not under three cubits; and this, when they have a hand-to-hand fight -- and Indians do not readily fight so among themselves -- they bring down with both hands in smiting, so that the stroke may be an effective one. Their horsemen have two javelins, like lances, and a small shield smaller than the infantry's. The horses have no saddles, nor do they use Greek bits nor any like the Celtic bits, but round the end of the horses' mouths they have an untanned stitched rein fitted; in this they have fitted, on the inner side, bronze or iron spikes, but rather blunted; the rich people have ivory spikes; within the mouth of the horses is a bit, like a spit, to either end of which the reins are attached. Then when they tighten the reins this bit masters the horse, and the spikes, being attached thereto, prick the horse and compel it to obey the rein. XVII. The Indians in shape are thin and tall and much lighter in movement than the rest of mankind. They usually ride on camels, horses, and asses; the richer men on elephants. For the elephant in India is a royal mount; then next in dignity is a four-horse chariot, and camels come third; to ride on a single horse is low. Their women, such as are of great modesty, can be seduced by no other gift, but yield themselves to anyone who gives an elephant; and the Indians think it no disgrace to yield thus on the gift of an elephant, but rather it seems honourable for a woman that her beauty should be valued at an elephant. They marry neither giving anything nor receiving anything; such girls as are marriageable their fathers bring out and allow anyone who proves victorious in wrestling or boxing or running or shows pre-eminence in any other manly pursuit to choose among them. The Indians eat meal and till the ground, except the mountaineers; but these eat the flesh of game. This must be enough for a description of the Indians, being the most notable things which Nearchus and Megasthenes, men of credit, have recorded about them. But as the main subject of this my history was not to write an account of the Indian customs but the way in which Alexander's navy reached Persia from India, this must all be accounted a digression. XVIII. For Alexander, when his fleet was made ready on the banks of the Hydaspes, collected together all the Phoenicians and all the Cyprians and Egyptians who had followed the northern expedition. From these he manned his ships, picking out as crews and rowers for them any who were skilled in seafaring. There were also a good many islanders in the army, who understood these things, and Ionians and Hellespontines. As commanders of triremes were appointed, from the Macedonians, Hephaestion son of Amyntor, and Leonnatus son of Eunous, Lysimachus son of Agathocles, and Asclepiodorus son of Timander, and Archon son of Cleinias, and Demonicus son of Athenaeus, Archias son of Anaxidotus, Ophellas son of Seilenus, Timanthes son of Pantiades; all these were of Pella. From Amphipolis these were appointed officers: Nearchus son of Androtimus, who wrote the account of the voyage; and Laomedon son of Larichus, and Androsthenes son of Callistratus; and from Orestis. Craterus son of Alexander, and Perdiccas son of Orontes. Of Eordaea, Ptolemaeus son of Lagos and Aristonous son of Peisaeus; from Pydna, Metron son of Epicharmus and Nicarchides son of Simus. Then besides, Attalus son of Andromenes, of Stympha Peucestas son of Alexander, from Mieza; Peithon son of Crateuas, of Alcomenae; Leonnatus son of Antipater, of Aegae; Pantauchus son of Nicolaus, of Aloris; Mylleas son of Zoilus, of Beroea; all these being Macedonians. Of Greeks, Medius son of Oxynthemis, of Larisa; Eumenes son of Hieronymus, from Cardia; Critobulus, son of Plato, of Cos; Thoas son of Menodorus, and Maeander, son of Mandrogenes, of Magnesia; Andron son of Cabeleus, of Teos; of Cyprians, Nicocles son of Pasicrates, of Soh; and Nithaphon son of Pnytagoras, of Salamis. Alexander appointed also a Persian trierarch, Bagoas son of Pharnuces; but of Alexander's own ship the helmsman was Onesicritus of Astypalaea; and the accountant of the whole fleet was Euagoras son of Eucleon, of Corinth. As admiral was appointed Nearchus, son of Androtimus, Cretan by race, and he lived. in Amphipolis on the Strymon. And when Alexander had made all these dispositions, he sacrificed to the gods, both the gods of his race and all of whom the prophets had warned him, and to Poseidon and Amphitrite and the Nereids and to Ocean himself and to the river Hydaspes, whence he started, and to the Acesines, into which the Hydaspes runs, and to the Indus, into which both run; and he instituted contests of art and of athletics, and victims for sacrifice were given to all the army, according to their detachments. XIX. Then when he had made all ready for starting the voyage, Alexander ordered Craterus to march by the one side of the Hydaspes with his army, cavalry and infantry alike; Hephaestion had already started along the other, with another army even bigger than that under Craterus. Hephaestion took with him the elephants, up to the number of two hundred. Alexander himself took with him all the peltasts, as they are called, and all the archers, and of the cavalry, those called 'Companions'; in all, eight thousand. But Craterus and Hephaestion, with their forces, were ordered to march ahead and await the fleet. But he sent Philip, whom he had made satrap of this country, to the banks of the river Acesines, Philip also with a considerable force; for by this time a hundred and twenty thousand men of fighting age were following him, together with those whom he himself had brought from the sea-coast; and with those also whom his officers, sent to recruit forces, had brought back; so that he now led all sorts of Oriental tribes, and armed in every sort of fashion. Then he himself loosing his ships sailed down the Hydaspes to the meeting-place of Acesines and Hydaspes. His whole fleet of ships was eighteen hundred, both ships of war and merchantmen, and horse transports besides and others bringing provisions together with the troops. And how his fleet descended the rivers, and the tribes he conquered on the descent, and how he endangered himself among the Mallians, and the wound he there received, then the way in which Peucestas and Leonnatus defended him as he lay there -- all this I have related already in my other history, written in the Attic dialect. This my present work, however, is a story of the voyage, which Nearchus successfully undertook with his fleet starting from the mouths of the Indus by the Ocean to the Persian Gulf, which some call the Red Sea. XX. On this Nearchus writes thus: Alexander had a vehement desire to sail the sea which stretches from India to Persia; but he disliked the length of the voyage and feared lest, meeting with some country desert or without roadsteads, or not properly provided with the fruits of the earth, his whole fleet might be destroyed; and this, being no small blot on his great achievements, might wreck all his happiness; but yet his desire to do something unusual and strange won the day; still, he was in doubt whom he should choose, as equal to his designs; and also as the right man to encourage the personnel of the fleet, -- sent as they were on an expedition of this kind, so that they should not feel that they were being sent blindly to manifest dangers. And Nearchus says that Alexander discussed with him whom he should select to be admiral of this fleet; but as mention was made of one and another, and as Alexander rejected some, as not willing to risk themselves for his sake, others as chicken-hearted, others as consumed by desire for home, and finding some objection to each; then Nearchus himself spoke and pledged himself thus : '0 King, I undertake to lead your fleet! And may God help the emprise! I will bring your ships and men safe to Persia, if this sea is so much as navigable and the undertaking not above human powers.' Alexander, however, replied that he would not allow one of his friends to run such risks and endure such distress; yet Nearchus, did not slacken in his request, but besought Alexander earnestly; till at length Alexander accepted Nearchus' willing spirit, and appointed him admiral of the entire fieet, on which the part of the army which was detailed to sail on this voyage and the crews felt easier in mind, being sure that Alexander would never have exposed Nearchus to obvious danger unless they also were to come through safe. Then the splendour of the whole preparations and the smart equipment of the ships, and the outstanding enthusiasm of the commanders of the triremes about the different services and the crews had uplifted even those who a short while ago were hesitating, both to bravery and to higher hopes about the whole affair; and besides it contributed not a little to the general good spirits of the force that Alexander himself had started down the Indus and had explored both outlets, even into the Ocean, and had offered victims to Poseidon, and all the other sea gods, and gave splendid gifts to the sea. Then trusting as they did in Alexander's generally remarkable good fortune, they felt that there was nothing that he might not dare, and nothing that he could not carry through. Agathic atrioventricular seawater marmot! Heterodiode postsurgical sprays diagometer reverse subballast cavernitis scoop guying recrement pylorin dibbler. 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