Chap. 20.] ACCOUNT OE COUNTEIES, ETC. 
35 
(Etei ; among them the N'apaei^^ are said to have been destroyed 
by the Palsei. The rivers in their country that are the best 
known, are the Mandragaeus and the Carpasus. Indeed upon 
no subject that I know of are there greater discrepancies among 
writers, from the circumstance, I suppose, of these nations 
being so extremely numerous, and of such migratory habits. 
Alexander the Great has left it stated that the water of this 
sea^' is fresh, and M. Yarro informs us, that some of it, of a 
similar character, was brought to Pompey, when holding the 
chief command in the Mithridatic war in its vicinity ; the salt,'^* 
no doubt, being overpowered by the volume of water discharged 
by the rivers which flow into it. He adds also, that under the 
direction of Pompey, it was ascertained that it is seven days' 
journey from India to the river Icarus, in the country of the 
Eactri, which discharges itself into the Oxus, and that the 
merchandize of India being conveyed from it ^ through the 
Caspian Sea into the Cyrus, may be brought by land to Phasis 
in Pontus, in five days at most. There are numerous islands 
throughout the whole of the Caspian sea : the only one that is 
well known is that of Tazata.^ 
CHAP. 20. THE SERES. 
After we have passed the Caspian Sea and the Scythian 
Ocean, our course takes an easterly direction, such being the 
locality which is sufficiently near the gold districts of the Uralian chain 
to account for the legends connecting them with the Gryphes, or guardians 
of the gold. 
^6 The former reading was, The Napsei are said to have perished as 
well as the Apellsei." Sillig has, however, in all probability, restored the 
correct one. "Finding," he says, "in the work of Diodorus Siculus, 
that two peoples of Scythia were called, from their two kings, who were 
brothers, the Napi and the Pali, we have followed close upon the footsteps 
of certain MSS. of Pliny, and have come to the conclusion that some 
disputes arose between these peoples, which ultimately led to the destruction 
of one of them." 
Of the Caspian Sea. 
Said on the supposition that it is a bay or gulf of the Scythian or 
Septentrional Ocean. 
Ansart suggests that this is the modern Eocsha. 
^ From the Oxus. 
2 Ansart suggests that this island is that now called Idak, one of the 
Ogurtchinski group. 
D 2 
