We should be in some doubt at what particular point Alexander left the Hingol, but for the survival of names given in history as those of a people with whom he had to contend, viz. the Parikanoi, the Sagittæ, and the Sakæ, names not mentioned by Arrian. Now, Herodotus gives the Parikanoi and Asiatic Ethiopians as being the inhabitants of the seventeenth satrapy of the Persian Empire, and Bellew suggests that the Greek Parikanoi is a Greek transcript of the Persian form of Parikan, the plural of the Sanscrit Parvá-ka--or, in other words, the _Ba-rohi_--or men of the hills. However this may be, there is the bed of the stream called Parkan skirting the north of the Taloi range and leading westwards from the Hingol, and we need look no farther for the Parikanoi. In support of Bellew's theory it may be stated that it is not only in the heart of the Brahui country, but the Sajidi are still a tribe of Jalawan Brahuis, of which the chief family is called Sakæ, and that they occupy territory in Makran a little to the north of the Parkan. There is every reason why Alexander should have selected this route. It was his first chance of turning the Malan block, and it led most directly westwards with a trend towards the sea. But at the time of the year that he was pushing his way through this low valley flanked by the Taloi hills, which rose to a height of 2000 feet above him on his left, there would not be a drop of water to be had, and the surrounding wilderness of sandy hillocks and scanty grass-covered waste would afford his troops no supplies and no shelter from the fierce autumn heat. All the miseries of his retreat were concentrated into the distance (about 200 miles) between the Hingol and the coast.
The story of that march is well told by Arrian. It was here that occurred that gallant episode when Alexander proudly refused to drink the small amount of water that was offered him in a helmet, because his army was perishing with thirst. It must have been near the harbour of Pasni, once again almost on the line of the present telegraph, that Alexander emerged from the sand-storm with but four horsemen on to the sea-coast at last, and instantly set to work to dig wells for his perishing troops. Thenceforward Arrian tells us only that he marched for seven days along the coast till he reached the well-known highway to Karmania, when he turned inland, and his difficulties were at an end. Now, that well-known highway was almost better known then than it is now. He could only leave the coast near the Dasht River at Gwadur, and strike across into the valley of the Bahu, which would lead him through a country subsequently great in Arabic history, over the yet unsuspected sites of many famous cities, to Bampur, the capital of Gadrosia. From leaving the coast to Bampur the duration of his march with an exhausted force would be little less than a month. Working backward again from that same point (which may be regarded as an obligatory one in his route) the seven days' weary drag through the sand of the coast would carry him no farther than from the neighbourhood of Pasni, and that is why I have selected that point for the historic episode of his guiding his army by chance and emerging on to the shore unexpectedly, rather than the neighbourhood of the Basol River, to which the Parkan route should naturally have led him. He clearly lost his way, as Arrian says he did, or else the estimated number of marches is wrong. We are told by Arrian that he reached Pura, the capital of Gadrosia, on the sixtieth day after leaving the country of the Oritæ. This is a little indefinite, as he may be considered to have left the country of the Oritæ when he started to collect supplies from the northern district, and we do not know how long he was on this reconnaissance. Probably, however, the date of leaving the coast and striking inland up the Hingol River is the date referred to by Arrian, in which case we may estimate that he spent about twenty-four days negotiating the fearful country opened up to him on the Parkan route ere he touched the seashore again. This is by no means an exaggerated estimate if we consider the distance (something short of 200 miles) and the nature of his army. A half-armed mob, which included women and children, and of which the transport consisted of horses and mules and wooden carts dragged by men, cannot move with the facilities of a modern brigade. Nor would a modern brigade move along that line with the rapidity that has distinguished some of our late man[oe]uvres in South Africa. On the whole, I think the estimate a probable one, and it brings us to Bampur, the ancient capital of Gadrosia.