xlii NOTES. 



have been able to gather from my own experience, and from long-continued 

 literary studies. 



C 200 ) p. 141. Hecatffii fragm. ed. Klausen, p. 39, 92, 98, and 119. See 

 also my investigations on the history of the geography of the Caspian Sea, 

 from Herodotus down to the Arabian El-Istachri, Edrisi, aud Ibn-el-Vardi, 

 on the sea of Aral, and on the bifurcation of the Oxus and the Araxes, in my 

 Asie Centrale, T. ii. p. 162297. 



(2 01 ) p. 141. Cramer de Studiis quee veteres ad aliarum gentium contulerint 

 linguas, 1844, p. 8 and 17. The ancient Colchians appear to have been identical 

 with the tribe of Lazi (Lazi, gentes Colchorum, Plin.viM ; the Aafot of Byzan- 

 tine writers) ; see Vater (Professor in Kasan), der Argonautenzug aus den 

 Quellen dargesteUt, 1845, Heft i. S. 24; Heft ii. S. 45, 57, and 103. In 

 the Caucasus, the names Alani (Alanethi for the land of the Alani), Ossi, an 

 ass, may still be heard. According to the investigations commenced with 

 philosophic and linguistic acumen in the valleys of the Caucasus by George 

 Rose, the language spoken by the Lazi would appear to contain remains of the 

 ancient Colchian idiom. The Iberian and Grusic group of languages includes 

 Lazian, Georgian, Suanian, and Mingrelian, all belonging to the family of the 

 Indo-Germanic languages. The language of the Ossetes is nearer to the 

 Gothic than to the Lithuanian. 



(2 02 ) p. 141. On the relationship of the Scythians (Scolotes or Sacse), 

 Alani, Goths, Massa-Getse, and the Yueti of the Chinese historians, see Klap- 

 roth, in the commentary to the Voyage du Comte Potocki, T. i. p. 129, as 

 well as my Asie Centrale, T. i. p. 400 ; T. ii. p. 252. Procopius himself 

 says very distinctly (De Bello Gothico, iv. 5 ed. Bonn, 1833, Vol. ii. p. 476,) 

 that the Goths were formerly called Scythians. The identity of the Getae and 

 the Goths has been shewn by Jacob Grimm in his recently-published 

 work, iiber Jornandes, 1846, S. 21. Niebuhr believed (see his Untersuchun- 

 gen iiber die Geten und Sarmaten, in his kleinen histor. und philologischen 

 Schriften, Ite Sammlung, 1828, S. 362, 364, and 395,) that the Scythians 

 of Herodotus belong to the family of the Mongolian tribes ; but this opinion 

 has the less probability, since these tribes, partly under the yoke of the Chi- 

 nese, and partly under that of the Hakas or Kirghis (Xe/>x ty ^ Menander) 

 still lived far in the east of Asia round Lake Baikal in the beginning of the 

 13th century. Herodotus distinguishes, moreover, the bald-headed Argip- 

 pseans (iv. 23) from the Scythians; and if the first-named are said to be 

 "flat-nosed," they have at the same time "a long chin," which, according to 

 my experience, is by no means a physiognomic characteristic of the Calmucks 



