VII.] MARCH TO THE INDUS. 137
327 B.C. was already far advanced, before he was at liberty to cross
once more the Hindu Kush and commence his Marchto
projected invasion of India. After halting for some the Indus,
time on the farther side of that range at Alex- 3*7
andria ad Caucasum, he marched onwards to the banks of the
Cophen or River of Cabul. There he divided his army into two
portions, one of which he sent forward under the command of
Hephaestion and Perdiccas along the course of that river in the
direction of the Indus—a route which at one point would conduct
them through the famous Khyber pass. They thus reached the
district called Peucelaotis, which lay near the confluence of those
two streams, and proceeded to construct a bridge across the
Indus, to be in readiness for the arrival of their leader. As the
position of the bridge was at a little distance below the confluence,
it would seem to have been close to the modern Atak, where
the narrowness of the stream has in all ages provided a convenient
passage. Alexander himself with the remainder of the forces
undertook the more arduous task of reducing to submission the
tribes which occupied the mountains from which flow the northern
tributaries of the River of Cabul—the districts of Kafiristan and
Chitral. The former of these is a country of such repellent
wildness that there is no record of any modern explorer having
entered it, until it was visited by Mr (now Sir G. S.) Robertson
in 1889*; the latter, Chitral, which has become famous since
that time in connexion with his name and the campaign of 1895,
lies to the north-east of it, and is hardly less rugged. It was in
this part that the famous siege and capture of the rock fortress of
Aomos took place—one of the most difficult exploits of these
campaigns. At last he rejoined on the banks of the Indus the
forces that had preceded him, and reposed his weary troops for
thirty days, in preparation for the operations of the ensuing year.
Advancing from the Indus, Alexander now entered the Punjab
or 'Land of the Five Rivers/ as the country is campaign in
called that is traversed by the great tributaries of the Punjab,
the Indus, which rise in the Himalaya and flow in
a south-westerly direction to join it—the Hydaspes (Jhdum), the
1 See his account in the Geographical Journal hi 1894, vol. 4, pp. 193 foil.