ON ITS EXTERIOR. VOLCANOES. 339 



The now better-known situation of the volcanic chain 

 of the Thian-schan has very naturally led to the question, 

 whether the mythical land of Gog and Magog, where 

 perpetual fires are said to bum from the bottom of the 

 Eiver el Macher, may not be connected with the erup- 

 tions of Peschan or the volcano of Turfan ? This Oriental 

 myth, which belonged originally to the west side of the 

 Caspian, the Pylse Albanise, near Derbend, has migrated, 

 as is so often the case with fables, and has travelled far 

 to the eastward. Edrisi makes Salam el Terdjeman, 

 interpreter to one of the Abasside caliphs, travel from 

 Bagdad, in the first half of the ninth century, towards 

 the Land of Darkness. Passing through the Steppe of 

 the Baschkirs, he arrives at the snow-covered mountain 

 Coccai'a, which is surrounded by the great wall of Magog 

 (Madjoudj). Amedee Jaubert, to whom we owe im- 

 portant supplements to our knowledge of Nubian geo- 

 graphy, has shown that the fires which burn on the 

 declivity of the Coccai'a are not volcanic (Asie centrale, 

 t. ii. p. 99). Edrisi places further to the south the 

 Lake Tehama. I think I have shown the probability 

 of Tehama being the great lake Balkasch, into which the 

 Hi falls, and which is only 180 miles to the south. A 

 century and a half after Edrisi, Marpo Polo transferred 

 the wall of Magog to the mountain of In-schan, east of 

 the high plain of Grobi, towards the river Hoang-ho and 

 the Chinese Wall, of which, as well as of the use of tea, 

 the celebrated Venetian traveller, strangely enough, does 

 not speak. The In-schan, the boundary of the domi- 

 nions of Prester John, may be regarded as the eastern 

 prolongation of the Thian-schan (Asie centr. t. ii. p. 92 

 -104). 



r- O 



