BOOK V I .] History of Nature. 1 ] 1 



Mountains, and discover the Coasts of the Ocean which lie 

 on the right hand. Asia is washed by this Ocean on three 

 Sides : on the North Side is the Scythian : on the East it is 

 called Eous : and from the South they name it the Indian. 

 And according to the various Gulfs, and the Inhabitants, it is 

 divided into many Names. But a great part of Asia toward 

 the North hath in it extensive Wildernesses, by reason of the 

 violence of its frozen Star. From the extreme North to the 

 North-east are the Scythians. Beyond whom, and the very 

 point of the North Pole, some have placed the Hyperborei ; 

 of whom we have spoken at large in the Treatise of Europe. 

 The first Promontory that you meet with in the Country 

 Celtica is named Lytarmis : and then the River Carambucis, 

 where, by the forcible influence of the Stars, the Mountains 

 Rhiphaei are deprived of their ragged Tops. And there we 

 have heard that there are a People named Arimphaei: a 

 Nation not much unlike the Hyperborei. They have their 

 Habitations in Forests ; their Food is Berries ; both Women 

 and Men count it a shame to have Hair ; mild in their man- 

 ners; and therefore, by report, they are held to be sacred, 

 and to be inviolable even by those wild People that dwell 

 near them ; neither do they respect them only, but also those 

 who fly to them. At some distance beyond them are the 

 Scythians, 1 as well the Cimmerii, Cicianthi, and Georgi ; 

 and the Nation of the Amazons. These reach to the Caspian 

 and Hircanian Sea : for it breaketh forth from the Scythian 

 Ocean, 2 toward the back parts of Asia, and is called many 

 Names by the neighbouring Inhabitants, but especially by 

 two of the most celebrated, the Caspian and Hircanian. 

 Clitarchus is of opinion that this Sea is full as great as the 



1 At this day, the Moschovites, white and black Russians, Georgians, 

 Amazonians, and the less Tartary. Wern. Club. 



a Strabo (lib. xi.) entertains the same erroneous opinions respecting 

 the Caspian Sea. That both these intelligent writers, as well as other 

 ancient geographers, should have been so mistaken is the more extraor- 

 dinary, as Herodotus (lib. i. 203) had given a just description of it long 

 before. " The Caspian Sea," he says, " is a sea of itself, which does not 

 mingle with any other." Wern. Club. 



