In the spring, the Greek army pushed on to Arachosia, almost directly south of Bactria, where the king founded another Alexandria, probably on the site of the modern Candahar. At the foot of the high range of the Hindu Kush, a complex mass of mountains which divides southern from central, eastern from western Asia, called Paropanisus, the army passed the winter, and yet another city, named after their leader, was founded somewhere to the north of Cabul, Alexandria of the Caucasus. In the early spring the difficult mountain ranges which protected Bactria were crossed, the troops suffering much from the cold and from the lack of food. They were obliged to subsist on raw meat and on herbs instead of bread. After resting the army, Alexander led them on through an arid plain to Bactria, the chief city of the satrapy. (329-28 B.C.) Bessus, the pretender, had tried to hinder the progress of the Greeks by laying waste the country in front of them, but as soon as they drew near, his horsemen deserted him and he fled across the Oxus. Alexander lost no time in following him up. The pursuit carried him through Sogdiana, where he crossed the Oxus on the rafts, made of inflated skins, such as are still in use to-day. The river was passed at a point where it was not a mile wide, at Kilif, and from thence the road was taken to Maracanda, a town whose old name is now thinly disguised as Samarcand. Bessus was deserted by his supporters, who thought that they would be glad to secure peace by his surrender. They abandoned him, and he was found by a division of the Greek army in a walled village, and was finally sent in chains to Bactria, after Alexander had charged him with the murder of Darius, his kinsman and benefactor.