2 PUNT'S NATURAL HISTOET. [Book VI. 



nature that of the Hellespont, 4 being only eight hundred 

 and seventy-five paces in width, while at the two Bospori the 

 passage across may he effected by oxen 6 swimming, a fact from 

 which they have both derived their name. And then besides, 7 

 although they are thus severed, there are certain points on 

 which these coasts stand in the relation of brotherhood towards 

 each other the singing of birds and the barking of dogs on 

 the one side can be heard on the other, and an intercourse can 

 be maintained between these tw r o worlds by the medium even 

 of the human voice, 8 if the winds should not happen to carry 

 away the sound thereof. 



The length of the borders of the Euxine from the Bosporus 

 to the Lake Maeotis has been reckoned by some writers at 

 fourteen hundred and thirty- eight miles ; Eratosthenes, how- 

 ever, says that it is one hundred less. According to Agrippa, 

 the distance from Chalcedon to the Phasis is one thousand miles, 

 and from that river to the Cimmerian Bosporus three hundred 

 and sixty. We will here give in a general form the distances as 

 they have been ascertained in our own times ; for our arms have 

 even penetrated to the very mouth of the Cimmerian Straits. 



After passing the mouth of the Bosporus we come to the 

 river Khebas, 9 by some writers called the Rhesus. We next 

 come to Psillis, 10 the port of Calpas, 11 and the Sagaris, 12 a famous 



4 Straits of the Dardanelles or of Gallipoli, spoken of in B. iv. c. 18, as 

 seven stadia in width. 



5 The Thracian Bosporus, now the Channel or Straits of Constanti- 

 nople, and the Cimmerian Bosporus or Straits of Kaffa, or Yeni Kale. 



6 From j3oc, an ox, and Tropoc:, " a passage." According to the legend, 

 it was at the Thracian Bosporus that the cow lo made her passage from 

 one continent to the other, and hence the name, in all probability, cele- 

 brated alike in the fables and the history of antiquity. The Cimmerian 

 Bosporus not improbably borrowed its name from the Thracian. See 

 JEsch. Prom. Vine. 1. 733. 



7 This sentence seems to bear reference to the one that follows, and not, 

 as punctuated in the Latin, to the one immediately preceding it. 



8 It is not probable that this is the case at the Straits of Kaffa, which 

 are nearly four miles in width at the narrowest part. 



9 Now the Riva, a river of Bithynia, in Asia Minor, falling into the 

 Euxine north-east of Chalcedon. 



10 Probably an obscure town. 



11 On the river Calpas or Calpe, in Bithynia. Xenophon, in the Ana- 

 basis, describes it as ^ about half way between Byzantium and Heraclea. 

 The spot is identified in some of the maps as Kirpeh Liman, and the pro- 

 montory as Cape Kirpeh. 



12 Still known as the Sakaria. 



