1 HISTORY OF THE SIKHS. 21
2 both the Beas and Sutlej, and reached the Jumnah.
3 In Quintus Curtjus, the river which Alexander
4 Wished to cross is stated to have been eleven days’
5 march from the Ganges; it is described not only
6 as a broad liver, but rendered still more difficult
7 to ford, by the rocks which lie about and beneath
8 the stream. These remarks certainly do not apply
9 to the Beas of the present day, and we are led to
10 the belief that the union of the Beas and Sutlej,
11 which is named the Ghana, was the river at which
12 Alexander made a halt of two days, and at length
13 abandoned the further prosecution of his conquests
14 from the unwillingness, or rather the inability of
15 his troops to follow him, to oppose the Gangaridae
16 and Pharrasii, who were said to inhabit the further
17 bank of the Ganges. No mention is made of the
18 Jumnah, though it is hardly to be supposed that
19 Perm could have been ignorant of its existence, or
20 would have concealed it, since both he and
21 Phegelas appear to have been anxious to impress
22 on the mind of the conqueror, the great and in¬
23 surmountable dangers he would have to encounter
24 before he reached the Ganges. If Alexander
25 really crossed the Sutlej before encountering
26 Porus, and arrived at the Jumnah, then the ac¬
27 count of the distance between it and the Ganges
28 is perfectly reconcilable to the relative situations
29 of these two great rivers. We are inclined,
30 however, to the belief, that Alexander never
31 crossed the Beas, or Sutlej; hut for the reasons
32 already stated, the term Hyphasis appears to have