gged country against the Persians themselves.
They now opposed the Greeks with all their might, and it took seven
days of continuous fighting to reach the valley which lay between them
and the high tableland of Armenia. They crossed the Tigris near its
source, and a little farther on they also crossed the Euphrates not
far from its source, so they were informed by the Armenians. They now
found themselves some five or six thousand feet above sea-level and
in the midst of a bitter Armenian winter. Snow fell heavily, covering
all tracks, and day after day a cold north-east wind, "whose bitter
blast was torture," increased their sufferings as they ploughed their
way on and on through such depths of snow as they had never seen before.

Many died of cold and hunger, many fell grievously sick, and others
suffered from snow-blindness and frostbite.

But Xenophon led his army on, making his notes of the country through
which they were toiling, measuring distances by the day's march, and
at last one day when the soldiers were climbing a steep mountain, a
cry, growing louder and more joyous every moment, rent the air--

"Thalassa! Thalassa! The sea! The sea!"

True enough, on the distant horizon, glittering in the sunlight, was
a narrow silver streak of sea--the Black Sea--the goal of all their
hopes. The long struggle of five months was over; they could sail home
now along the shores of the Black Sea. They had reached the coast near
the spot Colchis, where the Argonauts landed to win the Golden Fleece
long centuries before.

In a work known as the _Anabasis_, Xenophon wrote the adventures of
the Ten Thousand Greeks, and no geographical explorer ever recorded
his travels through unknown countries more faithfully than did the
Greek leader of twenty-three hundred years ago.

CHAPTER V

ALEXANDER THE GREAT EXPLORES INDIA

Still greater light was shed on the size of the world by Alexander
the Great on his famous expedition to India, by which he almost doubled
the area of the world known to the people of his time. It was just
sixty years after Xenophon had made his way right across Asia to the
shores of the Black Sea when Alexander resolved to break, if possible,
the power of the Persians.

The great Persian Empire extended from the shores of the Mediterranean
right away to the east, far beyond the knowledge of the Greeks. Indeed,
their knowledge of the interior of Asia was very imperfect, and
Alexander's expedition