474 Lassen on the History traced [No. 10L 



the fabulous Nysaeans. We have mentioned every important 

 fact for our purpose by adding, that Alexander did not touch 

 the southern bank of the Kophen, since he was informed, that 

 it was not fertile, as the beautiful land of Alps in the north.* 

 We therefore meet between the Paropamisades and the Indus 

 a series of independent, warlike mountaineers, under their chief- 

 tains, separated into many smaller tribes, rich in flocks and 

 herds ; they are always called Indians, though no mention is made 

 of either institutions characteristic of India, nor of Brahmins. 

 This is doubtless correct ; for they were inhabitants of the Indian 

 frontier, not exactly regulated by Indian customs, outcasts of 

 the soldier caste, as Indians might term them. 



As mention has been made of the Gandarians, we are allowed 

 to combine these accounts with those, long before given by 

 Herodotus. The Gandarians he mentions, must be the same 

 with those now under consideration. Darius also enumerates 

 them among the number of the nations under his sway. He- 

 rodotus does not mention the general name of the Paropami- 

 sades, but only single tribes, among whom the Sattagydes 

 perhaps belong to the Paropamisades of a later period. f 



In these accounts the national discrepancies between eastern 

 and western Cabulistan appears most evident, the western half 

 belonging to the Paropamisades, the eastern to India. 



Ptolemy* s accounts are contemporaneous with a period refer- 

 red to in some of the coins ; the additional value his infor- 

 mation thus acquires, is enhanced by constant perspecuity of 

 detail and expression. 



He considers the (Kwac) Koas (VII. I.) as the main river, as 

 it indeed has a much longer course than the Cabul or Cophen, 

 which stream is not mentioned at all. Hence according to him, 

 the Koas disembogues into the Indus, and the Suatus (in the In- 

 dian language Zubhavastu, the Sewad) into the Koas. He knows 

 the sources of the latter in the mountains of the high north, 

 which he calls the mountains of the Komedes. 



Under the sources at the Koas there live the Lambagse, 



* Strabo, XV. 26. 

 t Old Persian arrow-headed inscriptions, p. 110. 



