'Travels in Beloochistan and Sinde; accompanied by a geographical and historical account of those countries, with a map.' [‎264] (306/476)

264
SUMMARY REMARKS.
in which his troops were thinned by the accumulated hardships of
thirst, famine, and latigue. This march was incontestably to the
southward ot the Brahooick chain, and had the Greek historians
been even less explicit, the nature ol the country alone must have
decided any question that might have arisen on this point *
Craterus, who was charged with the guidance of the heavy bag
gage and invalid soldiers, by Arachosia and Drangiana, as certainly
marched far to the northward; for those provinces are included
within the modern ones of Kandahar and Seistan, no part of either
of which lie even in a parallel of latitude with Beloochistan. We
may beside unequivocally conclude, that as that General was pur
posely detached to shun the deserts of Gedrosia (Mukran), he would
not shape his progress through a region in which all the obstacles
expeiienced by the divisions headed by the King in person, would
ha\ e been augmented, by the labour of forcing a passage among in
accessible cliffs and deep defiles.
Posterior to the Greek invasion, and the partition of that vast em
pire, on the demise of Alexander, we meet with no further mention
of these countries, unless in the unconnected and fabulous legends
i elated of the Guebres 01 ancient Persians, for a lapse of above nine
centuries and a half. The Hindoo emperors of India were obliged
to pay tribute to, and acknowledge the supremacy of, the monarchs
of the successive dynasties of the Seleucidae, Arsacidae, and Sassan-
ides, who sat on the throne of Persia, within that round of time;
so that the communication between the two nations, must have been
defined and frequent, but being carried on either by sea or the
northern route of Khorasan, it threw no light on the intermediate
* Had Alexander come to the Poorally river in the rainy season, he would in all like
lihood have found it unfordable. My Diary of the 30th January, will demonstrate this
fact, and had he once entered the Province of Jhalawan, the most southern exit his army
would have found, had been the road from Khozdar, in latitude 27° 54' north, to Punie^oor
Vide Map. J D *