O f f s p r i n g o f
t h e M a c e d o n
i a n s .
T a x i l a ,
by an uneXpefted panic of the garrifon.; M. D'Anville fup-
pofes it to have been the modern Rinas, fituated in about
Lat. 38° North. Our. countryman, the gallant Captain John
Jones, in 1773, mattered by open ftorm' Dellamcotta, a fort
equally ftrong,, and feated in a manner equally lingular amidft
the Bout.an mountains.
A m i d s t the favage mountains o f Sywad and Bijore, inhabits
a tribe who affert, that they are defcended from fome o f the followers
o f Alexander the Great, who were left behind when he
patted through the country : poffibly the garrifon o f Alexandria,
and of the other garrifons he left behind, might alio contribute
to this mixt fpecies o f population. The tribe o f Sultani af-
fumes the honor o f being the defcendants o f a daughter of that
conqueror, who came from Cabul, and poffeffed this country;
and to this day carry with them their pedigree *. They call
their great anceflor Sultan Secunder Zulkerman, which Mr.
Renneli p. 163, obferves, ihould be printed ZulKernine, or the
two-borned. This is certainly a moft remarkable allufion to the
prophecy o f Ifaiab viii. 8, in which Alexander the Great is foretold
under the .defcription o f the Goat, with this difference only,
that they double the numberof the horn, with which he had
deftroyed the power o f the Perjians and the Medes f .
Taxila flood on, or near the fpot, where the city Attock now
ftands. Here Alexander crofled the Indus on a bridge of boats,
which his favorite HepbeSion had fome time before been fent
to prepare. In 1398 the famous Tirhur Beg, or Tamerlane,
paffed this river on one :of the fame kind. In our days Kouli
* Abul Fseul, ii. 194. t See-Fiollin’s Antrent Hiihwi. 21.1.
Khan
Khan \who may complete the fanguinary triumvirate) crofled
the Indus at Attock in the fame manner. This, by reafon of the
great rapidity of the ftream in all other parts, was fixed on as
the moft convenient place, which long after induced the emperor
Akbar to build the caftle of Attock for its defence againft
limilar invafions.
O p p o s i t e to Attock flood a very antient city, the Nilaube
of Ptolemy. This place is mentioned by two of the oriental hrf-
torians, quoted by Major Rennel, p. 95, under the name of Ni-
lab, by which the river Indus itfelf was generally known by the
old writers
Alexander, after fucceding in his paffage, got clear of the
mountains, and arrived in the rich plains of Panjab, or the Five
Rivers, each immortalized by being a great fcene of aftion o f the
Macedonian hero. The Hydafpes, the modern Bebut, or Chelum;
the Acejines or Jenaub, or Cbeenaub, and the Hydraotes, or modern
Rauvee-, all which, after a long courfe, unite in one channel,
which retains the name of Cbeenaub, and after the junition,
paffes through the country o f the Oxydraca, beneath the north
fide of Moultan, and at the diftance of about twenty miles from
that city, falls into the Indus about two hundred miles below
Attock, in magnitude equal to the Indus itfelf.
On the banks of the Hydraotes flood the city o f the Malli,
who with the Oxydraca, after a mofl gallant refiftance, made
fubmiflion to Alexander. In the fame neighborhood flood (the
fite now unknown) Sangala, inhabited by the Cathai o i Arrian,
ii- 357; 364, Exped. Alex, and the Catberi of Diodorus Siculus f.
* Plin. lib. v. c. 28. Arrian, Exped. Alex. i. 319.
f Lib. xvii. c. 10.
Voi,. I. D They
P a n j a b .
M a l l i .