Page:From Constantinople to the home of Omar Khayyam.djvu/249

 fact that it would have been madness on Alexander's part to take cavalry through this narrow and dangerous defile when he had the easy pass of Sar-Darrah equally at his command. A careful scrutiny of the Sialak in both directions, and on horseback as well as on foot, left no question in my mind on this point. As a tangible proof of the ease with which a troop of cavalry or infantry could be shut out or shut in, I may state that I found the western ingress totally barred by a few rocks that had been dislodged by a storm three or four months before 1 visited the Sialak. For these and other reasons we may feel assured that Alexander's march was made only through the Sar-Darrah Pass, which we had now reached.

It was easy to imagine the breathless haste with which the Greeks had charged across the plain we had been traversing, and under what an intense strain they approached the moun- tains now looming high before us and guarding the pass with giant arms. The scene visualized itself to me in metrical form ; and though the verses have no merit, I insert them because they convey an idea at least of how the scene struck me.

There was clatter of hoofs and rattle of arms,

As the host of the Greeks swept by ;
 * The sun was darkened,' the Persians say,


 * By the dust of the plain in the sky.' ^

With breathless haste, spur driven deep

And long lance grasped amain, His helm all loosed, at the head of his host,

Alexander dashed o'er the plain.

The pass lies before — the Caspian Gates,

The lock that Fate had set, As Thermopylae was, two centuries ere,

When Hellas and Persia met.

that it was the defile chosen by Alex- ^ A frequent image in Persian war

ander. Besides what I have stated poetry and prose, above against the view, I shall add other arguments in my monograph.

K

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