the Kama, and arrived through the Kokra at Tcberdyn, feated in
Lat. 60° 115' North, in thofe early times a mighty emporium.
From thence the feveral eaftern articles o f commerce were dif-
perfed over all the arBic regions. The Nortmans and the Sue-
ons, people of the Baltic, had great intercourfe with them
through the Neva, and Ladoga, another vaft emporium, feated
on the lake of the fame name. As a proof of the antiquity
o f its commerce, coins of Greece and Rome, of Syria and Arabia,
have been found in the antient burying places, evidences that
the people o f the eaft and of the weft had met there to fupply
their feveral wants; even at Tcberdyn, coins of the Arabian
Caliphs have been difcovered. Notwithftanding the immenfe
wealth o f both Tcberdyn and Ladoga, fcarcely a trace is to be
leen o f thofe great emporia. The commerce o f the firft extended
even within the arSlic circle. The Beormas, the people
o f the old Permia, afcended the Petzora with their furs, exchanged
them for the produits o f the torrid zones, and falling
down that northern river difperfed them over all their
chilly regions.
THE MARCH OF ALEXANDER TO THE P AN JA B .
I i n t r o d u c e again the Paropamifan Alexandria. No place
could be fixed on with greater judgment whether as a place
■d’ armes, or an emporium o f the mighty empire he defigned,
from which he could form the vaft commerce he meditated ;
-for in his lucid intervals, a more able monarch never exifted.
As from a head quarter, from hence he directed his expedition
¡to BaSlra mA Sogdiana, the modern countries of Balk, Bucharia,
and
and Samarcand. Having fulfilled the objedts of his march he
returned, -and from this place fet forth on his great defign,.the
conqueft of India. I will attend his march acrofs the country
to the banks of the Indus.
T he conqueror took a north-eaftern courfe, and paifed by
the tradt of the modern towns of Killaut, Tazee, Meerout, Jom-
rood, and Gundermouk. He crofted feveral rivers in his way,
finch as the Cophenes, or Cow river, or Nagaz, and the Choe,
which falls into the Guraus, or modern Kameb. On the upper
part of the Cophenes, which is called Dilen, flood Ghizni, once
the capital of a mighty empire o f the fame name, which confided
of the tradt lying between the Indus and Partbia, to the
fouth of the Oxus, and part o f the antient Babl'ria. The city is
now a heap of .ruins, and fcarcely mentioned in hiftory. Its
emperor Mabmood I. furnamed Ghizni, firft invaded India in the
year 1000; his firft conquefts extends only- to Moultan. He in
1024 conquered the kingdom of Guzerat; at that time all Hin-
doojian was inhabited by the aborigines. With true Mahometan
zeal he exercifed aH forts o f barbarities againft the Hindoos', and
in order i f poflible to exterminate their religion, levelled with
the ground their favorite Pagoda Sumnaut, and every other
objedt of their worihip. The Gbiznian empire continued 207
years. Mahomed began his reign in 977, and it became, extindt
in 1x84.
T he city o f Attack ftands oppofite to the jundtion o f the
Kameb with the Indus. In the diftridt o f Bijore, not remote
from hence, flood the Aornos Petra, an inacceflible mountain,
towering into a conical form, with a caftle on its fummit, which
gave fo: much trouble to Alexander, and. which he took merely
by
G h i z n i .
A o r n o s P e t r a .