[262] This place was Sangala, for which see [Note M].
[263] Caesar’s men were similarly alarmed on seeing for the first time the war chariots of the Britons: perturbatis nostris novitate pugnae (Bell. Gall. iv. 34). See also Livy, x. 28.
[264] Arrian mentions gaps between the waggons, but does not state that they were fastened together. Vegetius (De re Militari, iii. 10), however, observes: “All barbarians fasten their chariots together in a ring in the fashion of a camp, and thus keep themselves safe from surprise during the night.”
[265] “It is impossible to compare the numbers given by Curtius and Arrian, as neither gives the total of killed, and the details of the numbers who fell in the separate operations of the siege are not so stated as to admit of comparison” (Alex. in India, p. 130).
[266] The better form of the name is Sôphytes, which properly transliterates the Sanskrit original Saubhutu, but see [Biographical Appendix], s.v. Sôphytes.
[267] According to Strabo the inspection was made when the child was two months old. He notices that the practice of widow-burning was known here.
[268] “The Indians,” says Solinus (c. 55), “rub down the beryl into hexagonal forms in order to impart vigour to the dull tameness of the colour by the reflection from the angles. Of the beryl the varieties are manifold.” Pliny, from whom Solinus no doubt drew this information, states (xxxvii. 5) that beryls were seldom found elsewhere than in India, and that the Indians had discovered how to make counterfeit gems and especially beryls by staining crystal.
[269] See [Note Bb], Indian Dogs.
[270] The ordinary and correct reading is not Phegeus, as in the text from which I translate, but Phegelas, which transliterates the Sanskrit Bhagala. See [Biog. Appendix], s.v. Phegelas.
[271] A sandy desert stretches from the southern borders of the Panjâb almost to the Gulf of Kachh. The breadth of this desert from east to west is about 400 miles. In some places it is altogether uninhabited; in others villages and patches of cultivation are found thinly scattered. On the east it gradually gives way to the fertile parts of India.