Page:History of India Vol 2.djvu/85

Rh. It purchased a contingent of five thousand men, and secured the fidelity of a most useful ally.

While Alexander was at Taxila, the hill chieftain of Abhisara, who really intended to join Poros in repelling the invader, sent envoys who professed to surrender to Alexander all that their master possessed. This mission was favourably received, and Alexander hoped that Poros would display complaisance equal to that of his ally. But a summons sent requiring him to do homage and pay tribute was met with the proud answer that he would indeed come to his frontier to meet the invader, but at the head of an army ready for battle.

Having stayed in his comfortable quarters at Taxila for sufficient time to rest his army, Alexander led his forces, now strengthened by the Taxilan contingent and a small number of elephants, eastward to meet Poros, who was known to be awaiting him on the farther bank of the Hydaspes (Jihlam) River. The march from Taxila to Jihlam on the Hydaspes, in a south-easterly direction, a distance of about a hundred or a hundred and ten miles, according to the route followed, brought the army over difficult ground and probably occupied a fortnight. The hot season was at its height, but to Alexander all seasons were equally fit for campaigning, and he led his soldiers on and on from conquest to conquest, regardless of the snows of the mountains and the scorching heat of the plains. He arrived at Jihlam early in May, and found the river already flooded by the melting of the snow on the hills.