THE BIBLE PEDIGREE OF THE NATIONS OP THE WORLD. 133 



boundary it was, so we may infer was it with the Eipaian 

 Mountains — they were the northern border of the Eiphaian 

 Kinimerioi, and took their name from these, the children of 

 Eiphath, the second branch of Gomer's race. 



But, while in eastern Europe the Kimmerioi did not extend 

 northward beyond those hills, in the middle of our continent 

 at least as early as Homer's time we find them settled much 

 further to the north ; for thus does the bard allude to them in 

 his tale of the wanderings of Ulysses : — 



Now she was nearing the bounds of the deep-flowing Ocean 

 And there lie both the country and city of Kimmerian men, 

 Who are covered with thick air and cloud. Nor ever does 

 The gleaming sun look down on them with his rays, 

 Neither when he mounts up to the starry sky, 

 Nor when he turns back from heaven and moves towards earth. 

 Arriving there we drove the ship ashore, and thence the tree-fruits 

 Took. And we our very selves again did go against the stream of 

 Ocean, 



Until we reached the land whereto Circe had directed us. 



Odyssey I, 22. 



It is evident that under this description Homer could not have 

 meant to refer to the Kimmerians of Southern Eussia ; for the 

 Grecian navigators who brought him news of these would at the 

 outset have told him that they lived along the northern shore of 

 the Black Sea, and it would have been unreason, transcending 

 the most poetic fancy, to assume that they also lived on 

 the southern shore of the distant Ocean. The idea of this 

 expanse of water completely encircling the habitable world 

 beyond doubt arose from the combined reports of Greek 

 seamen sailing under adventurous Phoenician captains to and 

 along the Baltic Sea and of those gatherers of amber who at an 

 early period brought their precious ware from the Baltic down 

 to the Adriatic Sea, telling how the Atlantic Ocean was 

 continued north-eastward by the German Ocean, and that again 

 eastward and northward by the Baltic, and further east (as 

 rumour perchance added) by the Gulf of Finland. It was from 

 such informants that Homer must have heard the tale which 

 he elsewhere tells, of a land where a man who could dispense 

 with sleep might earn double wages, as there was hardly any 

 night. As Gladstone rightly infers, in his chapter on the great 

 poet's geography, one of the travellers he talked with must 

 have visited the far north in summer-time and the other in 

 winter; and hence he places the land of twofold sunshine 

 beside Ocean in the west and the Kimmerian land of gloom, 



