Three days’ march, from the scene of action, brought Alexander to the Danube, where he found some armed ships which had been previously ordered to sail (probably with stores of provision) from Byzantium round by the Euxine and up the river. He first employed these ships in trying to land a body of troops on the island of Peukê; but his attempt was frustrated by the steep banks, the rapid stream, and the resolute front of the defenders on shore. To compensate for this disappointment, Alexander resolved to make a display of his strength by crossing the Danube and attacking the Getæ; tribes, chiefly horsemen armed with bows,[59] analogous to the Thracians in habits and language. They occupied the left bank of the river, from which their town was about four miles distant. The terror of the Macedonian successes had brought together a body of 4000 Getæ, visible from the opposite shore, to resist any crossing. Accordingly Alexander got together a quantity of the rude boats (hollowed out of a single trunk) employed for transport on the river, and caused the tent-skins of the army to be stuffed with hay in order to support rafts. He then put himself on shipboard during the night, and contrived to carry across the river a body of 4000 infantry, and 1500 cavalry; landing on a part of the bank where there was high standing wheat and no enemy’s post. The Getæ, intimidated not less by this successful passage than by the excellent array of Alexander’s army, hardly stayed to sustain a charge of cavalry, but hastened to abandon their poorly fortified town and retire father away from the river. Entering the town without resistance, he destroyed it, carried away such movables as he found, and then returned to the river without delay. Before he quitted the northern bank, he offered sacrifice to Zeus the Preserver—to Hêraklês—and to the god Ister (Danube) himself, whom he thanked for having shown himself not impassable.[60] On the very same day, he recrossed the river to his camp; after an empty demonstration of force, intended to prove that he could do what neither his father nor any Grecian army had ever yet done, and what every one deemed impossible—crossing the greatest of all known rivers without a bridge and in the face of an enemy.[61] [59] Strabo, vii. p. 303. [60] Arrian, i. 4, 2-7. [61] Neither the point where Alexander crossed the Danube,—nor the situation of the island called Peukê,—nor the identity of the river Lyginus—nor the part of Mount Hæmus which Alexander forced his way over—can be determined. The data given by Arrian are too brief and too meagre to make out with assurance any part of his march after he crossed the Nestus. The facts reported by the historian represent only a small portion of what Alexander really did in this expedition.