Journal of an Asiatic Expedition, 1793, NY Mag
Journal of an Asiatic Expedition attempted by me, Alexander the son of Olympia, (and perhaps the son of Philip.)
446th Olympiad, June 23. Eight o'clock in the evening. Confoundedly tired with marching through this sun-burnt oriental country. A puddle of fresh water is a natural curiosity, and my canteen is half full of sediment. But the hope of filling our knapsacks with Persian gold keeps us from repining. I mean to measure my mattrass in less than an hour, and if that slut Thais keeps me in bed till six o'clock to-morrow morning, I'll know why. There is no campaigning with or without these trollops.
24th. Ten in the morning. Just finished reviewing my troops -- Adjutant-general Parmenio is as formal as his old maiden sister -- to receive and return the salutes of a thousand fellows is worse than to be engaged in a decent skirmish. I ever hated ceremony. Give me a girl, a bottle, and a battle, sans souci.
25th. Three in the afternoon. My scouts have this moment come in and inform, that I can easily reach the banks of the Granicus in two hours; and that the Persians, gay as gems and gold can make them, and numerous as locusts, line the eastern shore as far as the eye can reach. My men expect a scratch, but I and Darius's general perfectly understand each other. I have promised him a province when I shake his hand at Babylon, and I know the coward will rely upon me. I am to make the onset with great play fury, and he is to retreat as ostentatiously as he pleases.
--Seven o'clock. Well, the farce is over, and we Invincible Macedonians have got the Granicus in our rear! My opponent behaved pretty well; although he ought to have pretended resistence a little longer than he did. I believe the rascal thought more than once that we were in earnest. I will give one of the half starved poets that hang upon me, a pistareen and mug of grog, to describe this days' bustling as a battle of amazing magnitude: Paint Bucephalus as plunging thro' the foaming current, and bearing me resistless at the head of thirty thousand veterans on a foe, valiant, tho' unequal -- describe the eagle of victory hovering over my helmet -- and the Fates fainting onthe shore. The fools of posterity perhaps may read the nonsense and believe it. [clip]