* Plin.Nat. Hift. lib. vi. c. 23. t Arrian, i. p. p. 413 , 414. Exped. Alex.
order
order to refit his fleet; which, being acccompliihed, he failed
down into the ocean. The dangers which might occur in an
unknown fea, and. the prefling inftances made by his friends,
induced him to return. He landed his forces, and took the
rout towards Gedrojia, and at length arrived at the city o f Babylon,
with the remains of his faithful army, reduced by the toil-
fbme march, by famine, peftilence, and every calamity which
his phrenetic ambition had involved it in.
H e had committed the care of his fleet to Nearcbus,‘a man of
firft rate abilities, who engaged to conduit it through the ocean
to the Perjian Gulph and the Euphrates. He performed his
engagement, .after many difficulties. When he had arrived at
Harmozia, the modern Ormus, he heard that his mailer was
pot remote. He landed, with a few o f his companions, and in
five days reached the army, but fo fqualid and miferable in their
afpeCt, that Alexander, ihocked at their appearance, took Near-
chus afide, and afked, Whether he had not loft his fleet? On
being affured of its fafety, he gave way to the moft unbounded
joy, and crowned both him and Leonnatus with golden
crowns; Nearchus for having preferved the fleet, Leonnatus
for a viitory obtained over the Oritce; and the whole army
faluted the former with flowers and garlands fcattered over their
celebrated admiral ¡fc
I must not quit the hiftorical part of the Indus, without Srmiramis.
mention of the expedition undertaken by the heroine Semiramis,
many ages before that of Alexander. Certainly hiftorians mull
* Arrian,'i. 577, 589. Exped. Alex.
E 2 greatly