Arrian, on examining the accounts given by different writers of the visit to Nysa and Meros, concluded that they were for the most part apocryphal, and as he did not wish to mix up romance with history, reserved the subject for separate treatment. Abbott, who took it for granted that Arrian wished it to be understood that Alexander visited Nysa after the capture of the rock, looked for the site of that city nearer the Indus than the plain of Jalâlâbâd; and found one to suit the requirements in the neighbourhood of Mount Elum, called otherwise Râm Takht or “the throne of Râm.” This remarkable mountain, he says, rises like some mighty pagoda to the height of nine or ten thousand feet, and answers in many points to the descriptions given of Meros, being densely covered with forests, full of wild beasts and of a height at which, in that part of India, ivy, box, etc., flourish. At its roots are the following old towns with names all derivable from Bacchos: Lusa (Nysa), Lyocah (Lyaeus), Elye, Awân, Bimeeter (Bimêtêr), Bôkra (Bou-Kera), and Kerauna (Keraunos). Beneath the town of Lusa flows the river Burindu, which is occasionally unfordable during the spring. Abbott makes this remark about the river with reference to the statement in Plutarch that when Alexander sat down before Nysa, the Macedonians had some difficulty of advancing to the attack on account of the depth of the river that washed its walls. V. de Saint-Martin and Dr. Bellew identify Nysa with Nysatta, a village near the northern bank of the Kâbul river about six miles below Hashtnagar, but except some correspondence between the names, there seems little to recommend this view. Strabo has one or two passages concerning Nysa. “In Sophoclês,” he says, “a person is introduced speaking the praises of Nysa, as a mountain sacred to Bacchos: ‘Whence I beheld the famed Nysa, the resort of the Bacchanalian bands, which the horned Iacchos makes his most pleasant and beloved retreat, where no bird’s clang is heard.’ From such stories they gave the name Nysaians to some imaginary nation, and called their city Nysa, founded by Bacchos; a mountain above the city they called Mêros, alleging as a reason for imposing these names that the ivy and vine grow there, although the latter does not perfect its fruit, for the bunches of grapes drop off before maturity in consequence of excessive rains” (xv. 687). In a subsequent passage (697) he says: “After the river Kôphês follows the Indus. The country lying between these two rivers is occupied by the Astakênoi, Masianoi, Nysaioi, and the Hippasioi. Next is the territory of Assakanos, where is the city Masoga.” Pliny also has one or two notices of Nysa. “Most writers,” he says (_H. N._ vi. 21), “assume that the city Nysa and also the mountain Merus, consecrated to the god Bacchus, belong to India. This is the mountain whence arose the fable that Bacchus issued from the thigh (μηρός) of Jupiter. They also assign to India the country