Page:History of India Vol 2.djvu/90

62 sandy soil, well adapted for military movements even in the rainy season.

A stately force it was with which the Indian monarch moved forth to defend his country against the audacious invader from the west. Two hundred huge elephants, stationed at intervals of not less than a hundred feet from one another, and probably in eight ranks, formed the front in the centre. The chief



of Poros was on these monsters, who would, it was calculated, terrify the foreign soldiers and render the dreaded cavalry unmanageable. Behind the elephants stood a compact force of thirty thousand infantry with projections on the wings, and files of the infantry were pushed forward in the intervals between the elephants, so that the Indian army presented "very much the appearance of a city,—the elephants as they stood resembling its towers, and the men-at-arms