Page:History of India Vol 9.djvu/29

EARLY INVASIONS OF INDIA 5 Skythian overran Asia as far as Egypt; but not one of these persons proceeded as far as India, and Semi- ramis died before her intended enterprise was under- taken. The Persians had sent for a body of mercenary troops, the Hydrakes, 1 from India, but they did not lead an army into that country, and only approached it when Cyrus was marching against the Massagetai.' Strabo then gives an account of the storming of the fortress of Nysa and of Aornos, as described in the second volume of this series (pp. 35 - 45), and adds some remarks on the geographical boundaries of India, after which he turns to the subject of the rivers of Hindu- stan. ' The whole of India is watered by rivers, some of which empty themselves into the two largest, the Indus and the Ganges; others discharge themselves into the sea by their own mouths. But all of them have their sources in the Caucasus. At their commencement their course is toward the south; some of them continue to flow in the same direction, particularly those which unite with the Indus; others turn to the east, as the Ganges. This, the largest of the Indian rivers, descends from the mountainous country, and when it reaches the plains, turns to the east, then flowing past Palibothra, 2 a very large city, it proceeds onward to the sea in that quarter, and discharges its waters by a single mouth. The Indus falls into the Southern Sea, and empties itself by two mouths, encompassing the 1 The Oxydrakai, an autonomous tribe of the Panjab, are meant. 2 Pataliputra, the modern Patna; see above, vol. ii, p. 110.