134 ALEXANDER'S EASTERN EXPEDITION. [CHAP.
In the following spring (329 B.C.), as soon as the season was
sufficiently far advanced, Alexander crossed the
Invasion of / . ,
Bactria, Paropamisus—an operation which occupied seven-
329 B'c* teen days—into Bactria, and at once marched to
the capital of the province, Bactra (Balkh), which he occupied.
The general features of that region are accurately described by
Curtius, who speaks of it as in most parts a sandy desert, but
interspersed with districts of great fertility1. They
(jThoCun)XUS next Cached the Oxus, with which river the Greeks
now for the first time became acquainted, and it
seems to have made a greater impression upon them than either
the Tigris or the Euphrates2. This river—now the Jihoun or
Amu Daria—which rises away to the east in a glacier among the
mountains of the Pamir3, at the present time finds its way, like
the Jaxartes, into the sea of Aral: by the ancients,
course.ncient however, who were unacquainted with the existence
of that piece of water, they were both believed to
reach the Caspian. In the case of the Oxus there is every reason
to believe that such was the case in the time of Alexander; and
this would account for the statement of Strabo and Pliny—quot-
ing from independent sources—that a regular trade-route existed
from India to Europe by way of this river and of the Caspian
and Euxine Seas4. After crossing the Oxus, the conqueror
1 Curt, 7. 4. 26—30.
2 Arrian, 3. 29. i; 6 8£ *J2£os ftci t^v At roO fipous rod Kavicdtrov, fort 8t
Trorajuwv /^ytorros rQv fr rj} 'A<rf0, torous ye flfy xal 'AX^favflpos Kal ol &v *AXe-
&v8pt$ MjKQw, v\fy rQv 'IvSQv irorafj,Qv. Strabo, xx. 7. 3; '
ft K&1 iifryurrov airoQalvei rbv *0£o? rQv iupaij,frw &$' ^auroO Kari T^V '
v\ty TUV 'IvfaKw. Mr Curzon (Russia in Central Asiat p. 145) compares the
Oxus to the Nile. " I was strangely reminded by the appearance [i.e. the
brown hue] of this great river, by the formation of its bed,*by the structure of
its banks, and by the scenery and life which they displayed, of many a land-
scape on the Nile in Upper Egypt. There is the same fringe of intensely
fertile soil along its shores, with the same crouching clay-built villages, and
even a Bokharan counterpart to the sakkiyeh and shadoof, for raising and dis-
tributing the life-giving waters of the stream."
* See Mr Curzon's paper, "The Pamirs and the Source of the Oxus" in the
Geographical Journal for July, 1896, pp. 44 foil.
* Strabo, 11. 7. 3; <f>v)<rl to ['ApwrrAjSouXoy] Kal effirXow efreu (*ai oCros Kal
'Eparofffl&ijs irapa UarpOKMovs Xa^tbv) Kal woXXA rCsif '