 The army of Alexander the Great was halted on the banks of river Indus by the refusal of his troops to go further east.They saw people in the Indian subcontinent growing sugarcane and making "granulated, salt-like sweet powder", locally called "sākhar" (साखर), pronounced as "sakcharon" (ζακχαρον) in Greek (Modern Greek, "zachari" ζάχαρη).On their return journey, the Greek soldiers carried back some of the "honey-bearing reeds".