Journal of the Society of Arts : Volume XLIX, No. 2527 [‎690v] (6/36)

JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY OF ARTS.
[April 26 , iqoi.
418
Several rather complicated problems in
connection with that historic retreat have been
unriddled in the course of surveying Makran,
and much that it has been very difficult to re
concile to the general reputation for truthfulness
of Arrian’s history only requires a little patient
examination into the inevitable physical
changes of conformation which the north
western coast of India has undergone during
twenty-two centuries to become explicable on
fairly reasonable grounds.
We need not trouble ourselves now about
the ethnographical features of Makran and
Southern Baluchistan, though probably no
corner of Asia presents such a focus of interest
to the ethnographer as does this meeting place
of almost all the representative races of the
world. Aryan, Semitic, Dravidian or Turanian,
Ethiopian and Negro, types of them all may
here be found in close juxtaposition, and here
be studied individually. These countries were
well enough known to the Greeks. Herodotus
writes of them 150 years before Alexander’s
time, including them in the 14 th and 17 th
Satrapies of the Persian Empire, and he men
tions tribes by name whose descendants may
be traced under almost their old designations
even to this very day. Alexander led Greeks
into India, but Greeks had been at the gates
of India before him; and those who have
studied the manner of his entrance into the
country have good grounds for conjecture that
he selected an apparently haphazard route
because it carried him to the north of the Hindu
Kush and across the Kaoshan pass, within
reach of Kyrenian settlements in Bactria.
But whilst we need not trouble ourselves
with more than Arrian tells us of the people
occupying the line of Alexander’s retreat to
Persia, we must give a little attention to the
general configuration of the country, and to
such changes in land and coast construction
as we have been able to trace by the ordinary
processes of surveying, without claiming any
specially scientific basis of examination.
The difficulty of restoring to the map of
India an outline of the ancient geography of
Sind and the Indus delta is one which has
baffled many generations of scholars. The
vagaries of the river Indus, even within the
limits of historic record, once flowing in a
channel to the Rann of Katch, with a possible
branch to the Bay of Cambay ; at another time
cutting its way under the frontier hills far to
the west of Jacobabad; anon splitting the
limestone ridges at Sukkur, with the very prob
able assistance of an earthquake, and taking
to itself a new channel altogether ; circling the
walls of a great city like Hyderabad at one
time, and then suddenly leaving it stranded
and dry—changes such as these render this-
river, even before the delta is reached, a hope
less feature for reference with regard to the
position of places said once to have been near
its banks. Within the limits of the delta the
confusion of hydrography becomes even more
confounded, and until we possess a trustworthy
map ofthe Indus riverain districts which will in
clude some at least of the old delta channels, we
must remain in the dark as to the real position
of those branches of the river which Alexander
explored from Patala, and of the shape and
nature of those islands which were then accu
mulating to form the future delta. I shall
follow General Haig’s pamphlet in this part of
my subject, believing him to have had the best
opportunities for observing, as he has also the
highest reputation for accuracy in recording;
his observations.
But when we pass beyond the limits of the
plains of Sind and the Indus delta, westward,
so long as we travel inland, there is not the
same difficulty in deciphering ancient geog
raphy. From Alexander’s days till now the
“everlasting hills” have preserved their
general conformation. Within these hills can
we but identify certain obligatory points andi
the beginnings of a route, we can easily follow
that route along recognised lines which have
never shifted. We can trace Alexander’s path
with certainty if we can but identify some few
landmarks here and there. Itmustbe remem
bered that the Greek army which retreated
from India did not all follow Alexander. The
heavy baggage and the elephants, under the
command of Krateros, followed an inland route-
from Sind to Kirman, about which we are told
very little indeed. Another division of the
Greek army under Nearkhos was conveyed on.
ships by the coast line to Persia and the
Tigris, and about this voyage we are told much
more than about Alexander’s own movements.
In spite, however, of the meagreness of infor
mation concerning the route taken by Krateros
we can infer a great deal on the negative evi
dence that it was impossible for him to move
heavy baggage or elephants except along
certain lines : and again, in spite of the almost
minute details with which we are favoured by
Arrian about the ever-memorable voyage of
Nearkhos, we find very great difficulty in
identifying the exact ports, harbours, and
coasting stations which he visited, on account
of the shifting configuration of the coast line-