Budge_Ethiopic_Alexander

420 THE HISTORY OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT
number of elephants. And when Alexander saw
the elephants he was afraid lest his horses should
be gored by the tusks of the elephants, for they
had not been trained to fight with men mounted
on elephants. And Alexander ordered his men to
make elephants of brass, and he poured naphtha
into them—now he had made the elephants of
brass blown out hollow—and he set them on car-
riages, and at the time when the armies were
about to meet in battle they thrust lighted paper
through the holes of the elephants' bodies, so that
they might burn up the elephants of India. And
it came to pass that when the elephants of India
saw the elephants of Alexander they thought that
Alexander's they wcrc elephants like themselves, but when the
pharts. ""armies met in batde the flames of the naphtha
came forth from the elephants of brass and burnt
the elephants of India and the men who were
mounted on their backs, and those who were left
of the Indians fled.
Now the war between the Macedonians and the
Indians was prolonged until a great number of
Alexander's soldiers were destroyed, and [those
that remained] took counsel together to lay hold
of Alexander and to deliver [p. 248] him over to
the king of India. And when Alexander knew
this thing he sent a message to the king of India,
Alexander saylttg, "Behold, the war between us hath been
fight a d".!^^ "prolonged and many of our men have perished,
"let us now make a firm agreement together and
"let us two leave our armies behind us, and meet