Patala (Tatta), where he built a citadel and formed a port for his shipping.  He then proceeded, with part of his fleet, by the western branch of the river, to discover the ocean.  This he accomplished at great hazard, when he sacrificed to the gods (particularly to Neptune), and besought them not to suffer any mortal after him to exceed the bounds of his expedition.  He then returned to join the rest of his fleet and army at Patala, and to make arrangements for his march to Babylon.  He appointed Nearchus admiral of his fleet, and having given him orders to ascend the Persian Gulf to the Euphrates, he commenced his march through Beloochistan, leaving Nearchus to follow him as soon as the season would permit.  Alexander was more than sixty days in reaching the frontiers of Persia, during which time his army sufficed such dreadful privations from want of food, that the soldiers were obliged to eat their own war-horses, and from the sickness consequent upon such a state of distress, his army was reduced to less than one-half of the number which left Patala.  It is not necessary to follow him to Babylon, or to describe the voyage of Nearchus, who, having sailed up the Persian Gulf, united his forces to those of his royal master in the river Pasi-Tigris, near Susa.  Enough, however, may be learned from this history to convince us that if such an army could be conducted 2000 years ago from the Hellespont to the Jaxartes and Indus, the march from the southern shores of the Caspian Sea to Cabool would require comparatively but very slight exertion, if those who have the means should have the desire also to accomplish it.

I can say little of my own knowledge of the political causes which gave rise to the war, as I am unacquainted with the affairs of India and the motives which actuated its governors; but a brief outline may be collected from a book lately published by the Hon. Capt.  Osborne, military secretary to the Governor-General, to which I shall refer, after making some observations upon the countries through which the operations of the army were conducted, and particularly on the situation of Afghanistan, in reference to those persons who had before been, is well as those who were, its rulers, when Shah Shooja was restored by the British Government to its throne.  These observations I have chiefly collected from the valuable work of that enterprising officer Lieut.  Burnes, which he published after visiting those countries in 1831, 1832, and 1833.

The chief portion of the Bombay division of the army engaged in the operations to which these letters refer, landed at the Hujamree mouth of the Indus, and marching through Lower Sinde, by Tatta, ascended the Indus by its western bank.  On arriving in Upper Sinde, it was found that Shah Shooja with his contingent, as well as the Bengal division of the army, had crossed the Indus en route from that Presidency, and had advanced towards Afghanistan, and that the Bombay division was to follow them.  To effect this,