444 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



the recoiling Scythae were supplied with the Hindoo 

 religious elements, which some of the tribes, migrating 

 westward, have evidently mixed up with Celtic and 

 Finnic legends in the north of Europe. We do not, 

 for example, find the Asii, here called Lazi, to have 

 possessed the doctrines recorded in the Edda. When, 

 according to the Chinese annals, they were opposing 

 the Tatzin or the Romans, in their endeavours to open 

 a trade with China, for which purpose, being hindered 

 on land, they sent an ambassador by sea to the Celes- 

 tial Empire, in the reign of a sovereign, denominated 

 " Anton," i. e. Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. While 

 they were still residing on the Caspian, and when they 

 began to form a strong community on the banks of the 

 Borysthenes, Thorgitaus, their chief divinity, is not 

 represented with characters suited to the high nor- 

 thern latitude, where Thor and Woden are afterwards 

 made to operate in a manner congenial with the cli- 

 mate. If the city Asgard, once existing near Azof, 

 at the mouth of the Don, was the representative of the 

 first abode commemorated in the north, then the Asii 

 possessed at that point an intermediate resting place, 

 so that from their first known station within the high 

 table land of Asia, above the southern sources of the 

 Jaxartes, they moved gradually to the south through 

 Sogdiana, across the Paropamissus, and then westward, 

 to the three stations already indicated, before they or 

 a clan of this people again returned to the north, pro- 

 bably by ascending the Borysthenes, and halting some 



