Chap. 20.] ACCOUNT OF COUNTHIES, ETC. 35 



(Etei ; among them the Napaei 96 are said to have been destroyed 

 by the Palaai. The rivers in their country that are the best 

 known, are the Mandragseus and the Carpasus. Indeed upon 

 no subject that I know of are there greater discrepancies among 

 writers, from the circumstance, I suppose, of these nations 

 being so extremely numerous, and of such migratory habits. 

 Alexander the Great has left it stated that the water of this 

 sea 97 is fresh, and M. Varro informs us, that some of it, of a 

 similar character, was brought to Pompey, when holding the 

 chief command in the Mithridatic war in its vicinity ; the salt/' 8 

 no doubt, being overpowered by the volume of water discharged 

 by the rivers which flow into it. He adds also, that under the 

 direction of Pompey, it was ascertained that it is seven days' 

 journey from India to the river Icarus, 99 in the country of the 

 Bactri, which discharges itself into the Oxus, and that the 

 merchandize of India being conveyed from it 1 through the 

 Caspian Sea into the Cyrus, may be brought by land to Phasis 

 in Pontus, in five days at most. There are numerous islands 

 throughout the whole of the Caspian sea : the only one that is 

 well known is that of Tazata. 2 



CHAP. 20. THE SERES. 



After we have passed the Caspian Sea and the Scythian 

 Ocean, our course takes an easterly direction, such being the 



locality which is sufficiently near the gold districts of the Uralian chain 

 to account for the legends connecting them with the Gryphes, or guardians 

 of the gold. 



96 The former reading was, " The Napsei are said to have perished ns 

 well as the Apellaei." Sillig has, however, in all probability, restored the 

 correct one. " Finding," he says, " in the work of Diodorus Siculus, 

 that tWo peoples of Scythia were called, from their two kings, who wero 

 brothers, the Napi and the Pali, we have followed close upon the footsteps 

 of certain MSS. of Pliny, and have come to the conclusion that some 

 disputes arose between these peoples, which ultimately led to the destruction 

 of one of them " 



97 Of the Caspian Sea. 



s8 Said on the supposition that it is a bay or gulf of the Scythian or 

 Septentrional Ocean. 



99 Ansart suggests that this is the modern Rocsha. 



1 From the Oxus. 



* Ansart suggests that this island is that now called Idak, one of the 

 Ogurtchinski group. 



D 2 



