"See soft sand!" he cried. "Good for sleeping."
"Do not camp in the stream bed," said Vardanas. "A sudden storm might send a torrent down the bed and sweep us away."
"Stupid Persian!" said Niliras. "No rain this season!"
"I still think you had better camp out of the stream bed," said Vardanas. "Know you not the proverb: 'He who stops to tie his shoe in a dry river bed is lost'?"
As between a Persian gentleman and an all-abandoned Gandarian who boasted of his many murders, I chose the former's advice. Niliras sulked. Then he approached me, again demanding money. I became wroth.
"Get out!" I said. "I have given my answer. At the next word about pay, I will knock your teeth out."
"Then give me what you owe me now."
"Here." I handed him the two and a half oboloi I owed him for the day's work. I could have held back his pay till we reached Gazaka, but I was weary and wished to be rid of him.
Niliras snatched the coins, ran off a few paces, spat back at me, and shouted: "Ious take you, foreign dog! I fetch my tribe, kill you all and take treasure!"
He capered and shook his fists. I snatched a javelin and hurled it. The Gandarian avoided the cast by leaping aside. He ran after the dart, picked it up, and waved it.
"Now you lose spear too!" he screamed. "Stupid foreign slave, ia-ia-ia!" He ran up the hillside.
We all shouted. I ran after Niliras with my sword; some hurled javelins; a Daha got off a brace of arrows. But the Gandarian leapt up the rocks like a goat, bounding hither and yon so that all our shots missed. I chased him up the mountain but was soon halted by my pounding heart and puffing lungs. Niliras, now far above us, made an indecent parting gesture of defiance and vanished.
We kept a double guard at night thereafter but saw no more of Niliras.
The valley opened out into a broad plain, with little villages surrounded by crops. The post road to Gazaka was plain enough; we were in no danger of getting lost. The traffic, which had been light in the Kophen Valley, waxed thicker. Gandarian traders put their camels out to pasture in the spring and summer, and work them autumn and winter. They were now rounding up their beasts and making up their caravans.
Our difficulty was that, without a guide, we could not tell the villagers that we would pay for food and fodder. Hence the natives, seeing the glitter of our arms, feared that we should plunder them, as officials and soldiers everywhere are wont to do. The larger, walled towns slammed their gates and prepared for defense; whilst the people of the smaller, open hamlets fled to the hills, driving their little flocks before them.
Thus, when we found a village deserted, we helped ourselves to what food we could find, and I left a few small coins on the doorstep of the largest house for what we deemed fair payment. One day I found, after leaving such a village, that I had forgotten my knife in the square where we had eaten. I rode back and, on recovering my knife, discovered that the money I had left for the food had vanished. Someone in my party had taken it. After that I made sure of being the last to leave each village.
Another trouble was with shoes. As the stony roads had compelled us to wend afoot a deal of the time, so the walking had quickly worn through the soles of our thin riding shoes. As nobody in this part of the world makes a proper walking shoe, let alone an Iphikratean marching boot, my poor men had been reduced to patching their soles with any odd bits of leather, or wrapping their feet in rags. The horny-footed natives go barefoot in summer. In winter they wear a huge felt snow boot, which, as I found out by trial, is useless for a march like ours. And we had not stayed in Kaboura long enough to get ourselves decently shod.
To keep Aias from shrinking further, we cut more boughs from trees. I tried to spare fruit trees and trees near shrines but did not always succeed. In this arid land we often marched for hours without seeing a single tree.
The hills closed in again and the road ascended, until I found that exertion made me weak and dizzy. We crossed a broad saddle and started down the other side into the land of Arachotia. The Arachotian are smaller and darker than the Gandarians, but are much like them in their ways.
Nine days from Kaboura we reached Gazaka, a strong-walled city on a high, dusty tableland. Alexander renamed it Alexandreia Arachotion when he made it the new capital of Arachotia, but he named so many places "Alexandreia" or "Alexandropolis" that I think it will confuse my readers less if I use the native names, however uncouth they sound.
The main range of the Indian Caucasus, which runs north of the Kophen, bends around and sends a long branch southwestwards, west of Gazaka and Kaboura. The citadel of Gazaka is perched on the final hump of a spur of hills thrust out from this branch.
I asked for Menon, the viceroy of Arachotia, but learned that he was in Kandacha. Therefore I sought out the Greek commandant and got from him not only help, but also another guide. This was a pleasant-looking youth named Barmoukas. If a fair exterior be a silent recommendation, I thought, I should have less trouble with him. We also managed to buy a few pairs of wearable shoes.
When we set out from Gazaka, I took Barmoukas aside. "Some folk," I said, "think it clever to take on guide work at a pay agreed upon and then demand more as soon as they are out of sight of home.
Now, I have been all through this and will not abide it. The first word I hear of higher pay, you had better start running, for I shall be after you to beat you to a pulp."
"Yes, yes, I know," quoth he, all smiles. "Fear nought. I am soul of honor."
"So said your predecessor of himself. Mark well my words, fellow."
From Gazaka we wended south again along the bed of an intermittent stream. Albeit this stream was now dry, we could always strike water by digging into the stream bed. However, the heat waxed torrid as we descended from the heights of Gazaka until it became unbearable. We Hellenes went nude in the heat of the day, heedless of the shock to Asiatic modesty.
Now the stream we followed began to have water in it, so we took to the post road along the bank. Then we came to Lake Arachotis, fifty furlongs wide. On the west side of the lake stood a deserted city. One meets many such nameless ruins in Persia. Often they are the result of raids.
Whenever a nomadic tribe has a bad season, or simply gets bored with tending their flocks and crops, they plan a raid, as do the Aitolians in Hellas. They often travel vast distances in the course of such a raid. If they raided a nearby neighbor, there would be war; but, by raiding afar off, they hope to avoid retribution. The stronger Persian kings kept a curb on raiding, but under the weaker it always revived. At the time of my story there was much raiding and confusion in the empire, because many of Alexander's governors proved unworthy, and many evil folk supposed the king would march on eastward forever and never return to punish their crimes.
When the people of a Persian city have been wiped out or driven away by raiders, the city soon crumbles. The Persians, while vigorous builders, have little interest in keeping up a structure once built, and the winter rains soon eat away their mud-brick houses.
That night we slept in crumbling mud houses and next day followed the road into the valley of the east branch of the Arachotos River. Thence the road runs straight and clear for more than a thousand furlongs down this river.
Hitherto Barmoukas had guided us without complaint. Now, however, trouble arose. At the first camp after we had crossed the Arachotos, as I was inspecting the tents, I heard an uproar. I hastened to the edge of the river to find Barmoukas and Vardanas shouting and shaking fists, while the former held up his trousers with one hand.