So far we have followed this Greek expedition into regions which are beyond the limits of modern Afghanistan, but the new geographical detail acquired during the most recent of our frontier campaigns enables new arguments to be adduced in favour of old theories (or the reverse), and this departure from the strict political boundaries of our subject leads us to regions which are at any rate historically and strategically connected with it. With Aornos, however, our excursion into Indian fields will terminate. Round about Aornos historical controversy has ebbed and flowed for nearly a century, and it is not my intention to add much to the literature which already concerns itself with that doubtful locality. I believe, however, that it will be some time yet before the last word is said about Aornos. Of all the positions assigned to that marvellous feat of arms performed by the Greek force, that which was advanced by the late General Sir James Abbott in 1854 is the most attractive--so attractive, indeed, that it is hard to surrender it. The discrepant accounts of the capture of the famous "rock" given by Arrian (from the accounts of Ptolemy, one of the chief actors in the scene), Curtius, Diodoros, and Strabo obviously deal with a mountain position of considerable extent, where was a flattish summit on which cavalry could act, and the base of it was washed by the Indus. All, however, write as if it were an isolated mountain with a definite circuit of, according to Arrian, 23 miles and a height of 6200 feet (according to Diodoros of 12 miles and over 9000 feet). The "rock" was situated near the city of Embolina, which we know to have been on the Indus and which is probably to be identified more or less with the modern town of Amb. The mountain was forest-covered, with good soil and water springs. It was precipitous towards the Indus, yet "not so steep but that 220 horse and war engines were taken up to the summit," all of which Sir James Abbott finds compatible with the hill Mahaban which is close to Amb, and answers all descriptions excepting that of isolation, for it is but a lofty spur of the dividing ridge between the Chumla, an affluent of the Buner River, and the lower Mada Khel hills, culminating in a peak overlooking the Indus from a height of 7320 feet. The geographical situation is precisely such as we should expect under the circumstances. The tribespeople driven from Bazira (assuming Bazira to be near Rustam) following the usual methods of the mountaineers of the Indian frontier, would retreat to higher and more inaccessible fastnesses in their rugged hills. There is but one way open from Rustam towards the Indus offering them the chance of safety from pursuit, and undoubtedly they followed that track. It leads up to the great divide north of them and then descends into the Chumla valley leading to that of Buner, and the hills which were to prove their salvation might well be those flanking the Chumla on the south, rising as they do to ever higher altitudes as they approach the Indus. This, in fact, is Mahaban. By all the rules of Native strategy in Northern India this is precisely the position which they would take up.