I. HYDASPES.
[p. 477]
THIS is a river of India, which falls with an extraordinary swift stream into the Saronitic Syrtis. Chrysippe,
by the impulse of Venus, whom she had offended, fell in
love with her father Hydaspes, and not being able to curb
her preternatural desires, by the help of her nurse, in the
dead of the night got to his bed and received his caresses;
after which, the king proving unfortunate in his affairs, he
buried alive the old bawd that had betrayed him, and crucified his daughter. Nevertheless such was the excess of
his grief for the loss of Chrysippe, that he threw himself
into the river Indus, which was afterwards called by his
name Hydaspes.
Moreover in this river there grows a stone, which is
called lychnis, which resembles the color of oil, and is
very bright in appearance. And when they are searching
after it, which they do when the moon increases, the pipers
play all the while. Nor is it to be worn by any but the
richer sort. Also near that part of the river which is called
Pylae, there grows an herb which is very like a heliotrope,
with the juice of which the people anoint their skins to
prevent sunburning, and to secure them against the scorching of the excessive heat.
[p. 478]
The natives whenever they take their virgins tardy, nail
them to a wooden cross, and fling them into this river,
singing at the same time in their own language a hymn
to Venus. Every year also they bury a condemned old
woman near the top of the hill called Therogonos; at
which time an infinite multitude of creeping creatures
come down from the top of the hill, and devour the
insects that hover about the buried carcass. This Chrysermus relates in his History of India, though Archelaus
gives a more exact account of these things in his Treatise
of Rivers.
Near to this river lies the mountain Elephas, so called
upon this occasion. When Alexander the Macedonian
advanced with his army into India, and the natives were
resolved to withstand him with all their force, the elephant
upon which Porus, king of that region, was wont to ride,
being of a sudden stung with a gad-bee, ran up to the top
of the mountain of the sun, and there uttered these words
distinctly in human speech: ‘O king, my lord, descended
from the race of Gegasius, forbear to attempt any thing
against Alexander, for he is descended from Jupiter.’ And
having so said, he presently died. Which when Porus
understood, afraid of Alexander, he fell at his feet and
sued for peace. Which when he had obtained, he called
the mountain Elephas;—as Dercyllus testifies in his Third
Book of Mountains.
