passage of the hydaspes.

such were the injunctions laid upon craterus. between the island and the great camp where alexander had left this general, he posted meleager, attalus, and gorgias, with the grecian mercenaries, cavalry and infantry, giving them instructions to cross in detachments, breaking up the army as soon as they saw the indians already involved in battle. he then picked the select body-guard called the companions, as well as the cavalry regiments of hephaestion, perdiccas, and demetrius, the cavalry from bactria, sogdiana, and scythia, and the daan horse-archers; and from the phalanx of infantry the shield-bearing guards, the brigades of clitus and coenus, with the archers and agrianians, and made a secret march, keeping far away from the bank of the river, 285in order not to be seen marching towards the island and headland, from which he had determined to cross. there the skins were filled in the night with the hay which had been procured long before, and they were tightly stitched up. in the night a furious storm of rain occurred, by which his preparations and attempt to cross were rendered still more unobserved, since the noise of the thunder and the storm drowned with its din the clatter of the weapons and the noise which arose from the orders given by the officers. most of the vessels, the thirty-oared galleys included with the rest, had been cut in pieces by his order and conveyed to this place, where they had been fixed together again679 and hidden in the wood. at the approach of daylight, both the wind and the rain calmed down; and the rest of the army went over opposite the island, the cavalry mounting upon the skins, and as many of the foot soldiers as the boats would receive getting into them. they went so secretly that they were not observed by the sentinels posted by porus, before they had already got beyond the island and were only a little way from the other bank.