Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/195

 he would combine, by means of a river navigation to the eastern portion of his dominions, a maritime commerce with the richest portions of the interior of India.

On the arrival of the expedition at Pattala, in after days a place of great commercial importance for the maritime trade with the West, Alexander made arrangements for despatching Nearchus, with the largest and best portion of his fleet, to the Euphrates, he himself proceeding with the bulk of his army, by land, to Susa and Babylon. The importance of Nearchus' expedition cannot be too highly estimated, as on its success greatly depended the carrying out, with thorough efficiency, that widely extended system of commerce by sea, between India and Europe, Alexander obviously had in view, and of which the fleet, under the command of Nearchus, was to serve as the pioneer. The opening of the Indus, on the one hand, and the establishment of Alexandria in Egypt on the other, are evidences of a comprehensive scheme of commercial intercourse between all the leading points of the then known world. Alexander could scarcely have failed to perceive that the junction of the great ports of the East and of the West, with well selected stations, at proper intervals between them, would secure the stability of his vast empire; indeed, no other device could have provided for it so well, or could, at the same time, have enabled him to hold in his own hands by far the largest and most valuable trade known to the merchants of ancient times.

Although Nearchus in his journal enters into the most minute details of his voyage from the Indus to Susa on the Choaspes, it is remarkable that he has