The name of this place, which in Sanskrit would appear as Mâśaka, has various forms in the classics—_Massaga_ as in our author here, _Massaka_ in his _Indika_, _Mazaga_ in Curtius, and _Masoga_ in Strabo, who says it was the capital of King Assakanos. The exact position of this important place has not yet been ascertained, but its name as that of an ancient site still remains in the country. The Emperor Baber states in his _Memoirs_ that at the distance of two rapid marches from the town of Bajore (the capital of the province of the same name), lying to the west of the river Pañjkoré, there was a town called Mashanagar on the river of Sévad (Swât). Rennell identified this name with the Massaga of Alexander’s historians, and no doubt correctly. M. Court, who has given interesting information about the country of the Yuzafzaïs, which he collected among the inhabitants of the plains, learned from them that at twenty-four miles from Bajore there exists a ruined site known under the double name of Maskhine and Massangar (Massanagar). In the grammar again of Pânini, who was a native of Gândhâra, in which the Assakan territory was comprised, the word Mâśakâvatî occurs, given as the name both of a river and a district. It may then fairly be presumed that Massaga was the capital of the Mâśakâvatî district, and that the impetuous stream which, as we learn from Curtius, ran between steep banks and made access to Massaga difficult on the east side, was the Mâśakâvatî of Pânini (_v._ Lassen, _Ind. Alt._ II. pp. 136-138; V. de Saint-Martin, _Étude_, pp. 35, 36; and Abbott, _Gradus ad Aornon_). Curtius (viii. 37, 38) describes with more minuteness than Arrian the nature of the engineering operations designed to make the attack against the walls practicable. He states that Assacanus, the king of the place, died before Alexander’s arrival, and not after the siege had begun, as Arrian relates. He adds that Assacanus was succeeded by his mother (wife?), whose name was Cleophis, and who, according to Justin, bore a son whose paternity was ascribed to Alexander. In reference to this statement Dr. Bellew remarks that at the present day several of the chiefs and ruling families in the neighbouring states of Chitral and Badakhshan boast a lineal descent from Alexander the Great. NOTE E.—BAZIRA