142 PRINCIPAL EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OP THB 



well as the large quantity of gold which, in the time of 

 Herodotus, had been accumulated among the Massagetae 

 (a tribe of Gothic descent), became, by means of the inter- 

 course opened with the Euxine, an important source of 

 wealth and luxury to the Greeks. I place the locality of 

 this source between the 53d and 55th degrees of latitude. 

 The region of auriferous sand, of which the Daradas 

 (Darders or Derders, mentioned in the Mahabharata, and 

 in the fragments of Megasthenes,) gave intelligence to the 

 travellers, and with which the often repeated fable of the 

 gigantic ants became connected, owing to the accidental 

 double meaning of a name, ( 205 ) belongs to a more southern 

 latitude, 3 5 or 37. It would fall (according to which 01 

 two combinations was preferred), either in the Thibetian 

 high land east of the Bolor chain, between the Himalaya and 

 Kuen-liin, west of Iskardo ; or north of those mountains, to- 

 wards the desert of Gobi, which is also described as being rich 

 in gold by the Chinese traveller and accurate observer Hiuen- 

 thsang, in the beginning of the seventh century of our era. 

 How much more accessible to the trade of the Milesian 

 colonies on the north east of the Euxine, must have been 

 the gold of the Arimaspes and the Massagetse! It has 

 appeared to me suitable to the subject of the present portion 

 of my work, to allude thus generally to all that belongs to 

 an important and still recently operating result of the 

 opening of the Euxine, and of the first advances of the 

 Greeks towards the East. 



The great event, so productive of change, of the Doric 

 migration and the return of the Heraclidse to the Pelopon- 

 nesus, falls about a century and a half after the semi- 

 mythical expedition of the Argonauts, t . e. after the opening 



