In the city were traders from Persia and Syria, envoys from unheard-of kingdoms to the east and south, professors of Brachmanic theology lecturing their disciples, naked holy men, snake charmers and jugglers, and thousands of tall Indians with dyed beards. The town, like the older cities of Hellas, seems to have grown up in no particular order. The houses are placed at random and crowded together, making the streets extremely narrow and crooked. The houses are all made of brown mud brick, unadorned and graceless on the outside, though I am told that some have handsome interiors.
My first business was to seek out Philippos son of Machatas, Alexander's viceroy of Taxasila. I found him, a fat jolly-looking man, in a wing of King Ombis' palace, sitting over a table littered with muster rolls and bills of account, with a brace of Indian clerks to help him. For want of papyrus he used the local writing material made from palm fronds.
"So you propose to take this elephant west to Hellas, Hipparch?" he said. "Hermes attend us! That is a man-sized task. You must call upon my brother Harpalos, the treasurer. He will be overjoyed to see you, overjoyed."
"I shall probably have to wait upon the king's treasurer in any case," said I, "to replenish my funds. Where shall I find him—in Babylon?"
"He writes me that he spends most of the year in his new palace in Tarsos, where the principal mint now is. He only comes to Babylon for a few months each winter. So, if you reach Tarsos before the beginning of Poseidon, you will probably find him there. Give him my love."
"I will indeed convey your compliments, General," I said.
Philippos said: "He should entertain you in style." He winked at me. "If the treasurer of the empire cannot live well, who can? Let me give you a hint for dealing with my brother. If you desire to get favors from him, give him something lively in the female line. Harpalos has never been a physically strong man, and the only athletics he indulges in are of the horizontal kind. But he makes up for his other shortcomings by his prowess in these."
I arranged with the viceroy to draw on the government's local stores of fodder, as Eumenes had authorized. I also obtained the name of a trustworthy caster of omens for the next stage of our journey. As we parted, Philippos urged again:
"Be sure to call upon Harpalos for any help you need. I will write him that you are on your way."
Back at camp, I had finished dinner and was beginning the first of my reports to the king, when Thyestes said: "I ken the best whore in the city, Leon. Come along and you'll have a gallop to remember while crossing the deadly Persian deserts."
Pyrron said: "I'm for some Indian colleagues this evening. Why don't you Come and listen to Indian philosophy?"
I wavered between the offers. I was young and healthy and had not mounted a woman for a month. Having no taste for carnal intercourse with men, I was finding my lusts bothersome in spite of the resolve I made after Hyovis' death, to live chastely like an Indian ascetic. As they say, though you drive Nature out with a spear, she will return.
On the other hand, I should like to have spent the evening with Pyrron. While I doubted if any foreigners like these Indians had much to say worth listening to, it might be worth a trial if Pyrron thought so.
In the end I declined both offers on the ground that I had to finish my letter to the king, thus salving my conscience and at the same lime avoiding offense to either of my companions. Some would have neglected to send any reports to Alexander at all. But I was sure that the king, if he failed to hear from me, would send an order by the Persian post dismissing me and giving Thyestes or Vardanas the command. This bent, to run myself to death in trying to forestall every contingency, has cost me much pleasure in life but has probably saved me from some disasters too.
Next morning we struck camp early, for, as we say in Thessalia, the morn favors the traveler on his road. It was then I found Pyrron, Vardanas, and Kanadas missing. I rushed back to Taxasila. First I tried to question the guard at the gate, but he and I had no speech in common. It was the same with the others I met until I came upon an early rising Persian merchant. With his help, I got directions to a sacred grove on the western side of the city, where lived the Indian philosophers.
Here I found a dozen naked Indians pottering about with a morning meal, whilst my missing officers lay propped against the roots of trees, wrapped in their cloaks and snoring.
I shook them awake. Pyrron, when he had rubbed the sleep from his eyes, laughed at my wrath.
"These are the rhamanai whom Oneskritos and I interviewed last spring," he said. "We brought them some rice and barley and sat up conversing almost until dawn. Vardanas and Kanadas translated. I must expound their hypotheses of metempsychosis and divine justice—"
"We're on the king's business," I said. "Come along, and next time vanish not like that. For aught I knew you might have been murdered."
"I'm sorry, old fellow. You should have accompanied us."
I was sorry, too, though I would not then have admitted it. I have become sorrier since, for I have never been to India again. As Herakleitos said, one cannot step twice into the same stream.
In India food for the elephant was no problem. The rains had covered the bare brown plain with new grass and herbs, on which the animal grazed whenever we stopped.
We rode along a narrow river of brown mud between seas of grass on either side. Now and then we passed Indians afoot or riding asses and camels. Often the carts got stuck. When this befell, I boggled not at plunging into the mud to heave on the wheels with the rest. As my father always said, example is better than precept.
At least once a day a Persian postman galloped past. They leaned over their horses' necks, their faces half hidden by their headcloths, and swerved off the road just far enough to miss us. The first day out of Taxasila, a heavy downpour had halted our column when a postman flew past. A clod of mud from his hooves struck me fairly in the face.
I wiped off the mud and shouted after the courier: "Zeus cover your arse with boils!" By then he was out of sight behind the curtain of rain, and he would not have understood me anyway. I said to Pyrron:
"Does nought stop these lads?"
"Don't you know their motto?" he said. " 'Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night shall stay us in the swift completion of the course assigned to us.' This Persian postal system is a wonderful invention; I don't see how any large empire could function without it."
I made him repeat the motto, and Vardanas confirmed it. We made a joke of it in the hipparchia. Every time a postman passed us, we all roared out in chorus: "Neither snow, nor rain ..." and so on.
We crossed the Indus without mishap on a raft which some local Indians ran as a ferry. As we advanced into Gandaria, we entered higher and drier country. The daily downpours faded away to clear blue skies, and the mosquitoes that had assailed us in myriads were left behind. We had to begin scouting for food for the elephant. Aias ate a greater weight of food than all the human beings in the party together. He consumed over two hundred Babylonian pounds of hay and vegetables every day. I began to feel sorry for Aristoteles.
We found Peukala, the capital of Gandaria under the Persians, still half ruined from its sack by Hephaistion's division. Sangaios, an Indian whom Alexander had made governor of the town, was rebuilding it little by little. He found enough hay to feed Aias for several days and recommended a guide to see us to Kaboura. This was a Paktyan trader named Kavis, who covered most of Gandaria on his trading trips and knew the dialects. Sangaios said:
"This man is half Persian, so you can probably trust him."