But, before I do so, I shall draw the
attention of the reader to the army of Alexander, to which I have before
alluded.
Without entering into the causes which led to his extraordinary
conquests, predicted by Daniel as the means ordained of God to overthrow
the Persian empire, then under the government of Darius, certain it is
that he conquered the whole of those countries which extend from the
Hellespont to the Indus, when his career was arrested by his own
soldiers. Having overrun Syria, Egypt, Media, and Parthia, keeping his
course to the north-east, he not only passed the Oxus, and forced his
way to the Jaxartes, but, pressed by the Scythians from its opposite
shore, he crossed that river, and beat them in a decisive battle. From
the Jaxartes he returned in a southern direction towards the Indus, and
having suffered the greatest privations, and struggled with the most
alarming difficulties during the time that he was engaged in the
conquest of those mountainous districts, he at length reached Cabool,
making himself master of Afghanistan. Here he appears to have halted for
a considerable time, to refresh and re-equip his army, which, with the
addition of 30,000 recruits, amounted to 120,000 men.
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