Digression about India. The following are statements about the river Indus which are quite unquestionable, and therefore let me record them. The Indus is the largest of all the rivers in Asia and Europe, except the Ganges,637 which is also an Indian river. It takes its rise on this side mount Parapamisus, or Caucasus, and discharges its water into the Great Sea which lies near India in the direction of the south wind. It has two mouths, both of which outlets are full of shallow pools like the five outlets of the Ister (or Danube).638 It forms a Delta in the land of 271the Indians resembling that of Egypt639; and this is called Pattala in the Indian language. The Hydaspes, Acesines, Hydraotes, and Hyphasis are also Indian rivers,640 and far exceed the other rivers of Asia in size; but they are not only smaller but much smaller than the Indus, just as that river itself is smaller than the Ganges. Indeed Ctesias641 says (if any one thinks his evidence to be depended upon), that where the Indus is narrowest, its banks are forty stades apart; where it is broadest, 100 stades; and most of it is the mean between these breadths.642 This river Indus Alexander crossed at daybreak with his army into the country of the Indians; concerning whom, in this history I have described neither what laws they enjoy, nor what strange animals their land produces, nor how many and what sort of fish and water-monsters are produced by the Indus, Hydaspes, Ganges, or the other rivers of India. Nor have I described the ants which dig up the gold for them,643 nor the guardian griffins, nor any of the other tales that have been com............