ARAB GEOGRAPHERS 



postmaster in Media, thus relates in his "book of routes and 

 provinces " (completed about 885) : ^ 



"As concerns the sea that is behind [i.e., to the north of] the Slavs, and 

 whereon the town of Tulia [i.e., Thule] lies, no ship travels upon it, nor any 

 boat, nor does anything come from thence. In like manner none travels upon 

 the sea wherein lies the Fortunate Isles, and from thence nothing comes, and it 

 is also in the west. The Russians,- who belong to the race of the Slavs [i.e., 

 Slavs and Germans], travel from the farthest regions of the land of the Slavs 

 to the shore of the Mediterranean [Sea of Rum], and there sell skins of beaver 

 and fox, as well as swords " (?). 



The Russian merchants also descended the Volga to the 

 Caspian Sea, and their goods were sometimes carried on camels 

 to Bagdad.^ 



There was no great change in knowledge of the North in 

 the succeeding centuries. Ibn al-Faqih, about 900 A.D., has 

 nothing to say about the North. He mentions in the seventh 

 climate women who " cut off one of their breasts and burn it 

 at an early age so that it may not grow big," "* and he says that 

 Tulia (Thule) is an island in the seventh sea between Rumia 

 (Rome) and Kharizm (Khwarezm in Turkestan) " and there 

 no ship ever puts in." Ibn al-Bahlul, about 910 A.D., gives 

 information after Ptolemy about the latitudes of the northern 

 regions and mentions two islands of Amazons, one with men 



1 Cf. Ibn Khordadbah, 1889, pp. xx., 67, 115, 88; 1865, pp. 214, 235, 264. 



2 " Rus " was the name of the Scandinavians (mostly Swedes) in Russia 

 who founded the Russian empire (" Gardarike " or " SviJ'joi? hit mikla "). 



3 Among the four wonders of the world Ibn Khordadbah mentions " a 

 bronze horseman in Spain [cf. the Pillars of Hercules], who with outstretched 

 arm seems to say: Behind me there is no longer any beaten track, he who 

 ventures farther is swallowed up by ants." So De Goeje translates it. It 

 might seem to be connected with the swarms of ants that came down to the 

 shore and wanted to eat the men and their boat on the first larger island out in 

 the ocean that Maelduin arrived at in the Irish legend (cf. Vol. I, p. 336) ; but 

 Professor Seippel thinks it possible that the original reading was " is swal- 

 lowed up in sand " (and not by ants). 



■i This comes very near to Hippocrates' words about the Amazons, that the 

 mothers burn away the right breast of their girl children, " thereby the breast 

 ceases to grow and all the strength and fullness goes over to the right shoulder 

 and arm" (cf. also Vol. I, p. 8 £.). 



197 



