86 INTRODUCTION. 



Nor should the arrival of the Centaurs be over- 

 looked in these researches, for though poetical 

 records are not history, the fact of their presence, 

 their superior attainments, and the character of their 

 horses, proves that a basis of truth was wrought up 

 into fictions, which, though they conferred upon that 

 horde impossible characters, nevertheless, in their 

 circumstances, permit reason to detect the first ap- 

 pearance of a riding nation, mounted upon a breed 

 of horses which we shall trace out in the sequel. 

 This irruption belongs to the earliest movement 

 of the cavalry hordes from Central Asia, coming 

 upon Thrace and Thessaly by the north of the 

 Black Sea and across the lower Danube ; while 

 another, not long after, evidently composed of a 

 more southern tribe, broke into Asia Minor, and 

 was known in tradition by the appellation of Ama- 

 zons. The first, most likely, were northern Scythae 

 of High Asia, real horsemen ; the second, high land 

 SacsB, Stri-rajas, perhaps Pandu followers of Crishna 

 and Ballirama, led by martial queens, wearing long 

 clothes, and detached westward from a cause un- 

 known, * but both more civilized than the Pe- 

 lasgians of either side of the -ZEgean : the first 

 exclusively riders, the second both riders and cha- 



* The Stri-rajahs, or women princes of Marawa, opposite 

 Ceylon, have in Indian records all the characteristics of Ama- 

 zons, and are represented with similar attributes in sculpture. 

 At present the robber tribe of Kalures, occupying the same 

 territory, have women in chief authority, and polygandry is 

 the law. 



