accompanying the historian to those interesting countries. And lastly we shall endeavour to shew that his information about India is much less vague and inaccurate than has generally been supposed.

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In the infancy of maritime pursuits, Asia Minor was naturally the highway for the intercourse between Europe and Asia. Both its form and its position rendered it the connecting link between the great eastern monarchies and the rising powers of the west. It is chiefly under this character that Herodotus seems to have considered it he looked upon it as a slip of neutral ground intended by nature to form the "Grand Trunk Road" for the nations of the earth. He shews indeed considerable acquaintance with the names of its various divisions, while treating of it as comprising four out of the twenty satrapies into which Darius divided his empire; and he was undoubtedly most thoroughly at home in the geography of its western coast. But his strong point is the military and commercial road which, beginning at Sardis, passed through the whole of the Peninsula, and terminated at Susa. His itinerary is worth extracting entire.

"There are royal stations all along, and excellent inns, and the whole road is through an inhabited and safe country. There are twenty stations extending through Lydia and Phrygia, and the distance is ninety-four parasangs and a half. [The "half" implies that parasang-stones or even half-parasang-stones were erected on the line of road.] After Phrygia the river Halys is met with, at which there are gates, which it is absolutely necessary to pass through, and thus to cross the river: there is also a considerable fort on it. [It must be remembered that the Halys formed the boundary between the old Lydian and Median kingdoms.] When you cross over into Cappadocia, and traverse that country to the borders of Cilicia, there are eight and twenty stations, and one hundred and four parasangs; and on the borders of these people, you go through two gates, and pass by two forts. When you have gone through these and made the journey through Cilicia, there are three stations and fifteen parasangs and a half. The boundary of Cilicia and Armenia is a river that is crossed in boats; it is called the Euphrates. In Armenia there are fifteen stations for resting places, and fifty-six parasangs and a half; there is also a fort in the stations. Four rivers that are crossed in boats flow through this country, which it is absolutely necessary to ferry over. First, the Tigris; then, the second and third have the same name, though they are not the same river, nor do they flow from the same source. [He means the Greater and Lesser Zab.] For the first mentioned of these flows from the Armenians, and the latter from the Matienians. The fourth river is called the Gyndes, which Cyrus once distributed into three hundred and sixty channels. As you enter from Armenia into the country of Matiene, there are four stations; and from thence as you proceed to the Cis

sian territory, there are eleven stations and forty-two parasangs and a half, to the river Choaspes, which also must be passed in boats: on this Susa is built."

This road is now used by caravans travelling from Smyrna to Ispahan, and the only alteration in its course is made to suit the more easterly portions of Persia in which it now terminates. "On the whole," says Heeren," the ancient and modern roads agree in one particular, the reason of which we are told by Herodotus; that is to say, they chose the longer in preference to the shorter way, that they might travel through inhabited countries and in security. The direct road would have led them through the midst of the steppes of Mesopotamia; where security would have been out of the question, on account of the roving predatory hordes. Therefore, in ancient times, as well as the present, they chose the northern route along the foot of the Armenian mountains, where the traveller enjoyed security from molestation and an abundant supply of all necessaries."

It is however doubtful whether Herodotus possessed much knowledge of the interior of Asia Minor except of this great road. He estimates, for example, the whole breadth of the peninsula, from the Levant to the Euxine, as somewhat less than a five days' journey for an active man. This would require the rate of travelling to be about sixty miles a day, which is, we suppose, about double of what any man can perform, if he is to travel five days successively. Herodotus' calculation, therefore, makes the peninsula about half of its real breadth.

But with the western parts he is thoroughly familiar, and his memory was stored with recollections of the peculiarities belonging to the country of his birth. While discussing the formation of the valley of the Nile, he illustrates his theory by a reference to similar formations, though on a much smaller scale, in the parts about Ilium and in Tenthrania, in the neighbourhood of Ephesus, and the whole plain of the Moander. He had unquestionably examined the sedimentary deposits on his native coasts, and had accounted for them on sound geological principles. Nor had he forgotten the ancient monuments with which his native country was enriched. His narrative of Sesostris reminds him of a monument erected by that conqueror at Nymphi, a few miles eastward of Smyrna, to serve as a memorial of his conquests. He describes it as the figure of a man, five cubits high, cut out in the rock, holding a spear in his right hand and a box in his left, and bearing an inscription engraved in Egyptian characters on the breast, between the shoulders, to this effect, "I have obtained possession of this conntry by my shoulders."

This monument, which was erected before the Trojan war, and is more than three thousand years old, is to be seen in the

present day. Murray's Handbook to the East recommends the traveller in Asia Minor to visit this interesting relic, and assures him that he will find the monument agreeing exactly with the description given of it by Herodotus, except that the spear and bow are in the contrary hands to those which he describes. Herodotus's mistake is perfectly natural. He was describing the monument apropos of something the Egyptian priests told him about the conquests of Sesostris, and he probably made a note of it at the time from memory: accordingly he places the weapon in the respective hands in which they would ordinarily be found, the spear in the right, the bow in the left; forgetting, or not having observed, that the arrangement on the monument was peculiar.

Our historian had made diligent enquiries respecting the nations lying to the northeast of Asia Minor, but he was unable to obtain any information which he could understand or explain, and he therefore confines himself to a simple record of what he had heard. He tells us this expressly. Over and over again he calls attention to the fact that he is simply a retailer of intelligence, and the attentive reader need never be at a loss to discover where the historian withholds, and where he yields, his assent to the wonders related to him. And even when he does not express his disbelief of some startling and most improbable piece of information, there are always sufficient indications in the style of his narrative to shew that he does not make himself responsible for the truth of the facts. He often records what he was told simply because he was told so, judging, as it would seem, and most likely not on any defined principles but from the historical instinct, that, in the times in which he wrote, traditional reports, whether true or false, ought to be recorded as part and parcel of the history of the people from whom they emanated. It is much to be regretted that the early commentators on Herodotus did not observe the obvious distinction which the historian draws between the facts which came under his own observation, and those which he obtained at secondhand. Of the latter kind are those reports which reached him concerning the wonderful nations who lived far to the north. In those marvellous countries, he was told, there lived a people called the Argippai, who had goats' feet, and others who slept for six months in the year. Herodotus had no means of ascertaining what was the probable explanation of these marvellous statements, and he therefore contented himself with simply recording them. Could he have done better? Most certainly not. We moderns, who have made such extensive progress in geographical research, can recognise in these goat-footed beings the inhabitants of the Ural and Altai mountains, with their knee

joints secured against the cold by goat-skin wrappers, while the people who sleep for six months are those denizens of the polar region who never see the sun for six months at a time. We should even be inclined to go a step further, and congratulate ourselves upon having ascertained the interesting fact that people in those aboriginal periods had a sense of the ludicrous, and rejoiced at "taking in" our inquisitive traveller.

Herodotus' account of the Caspian sea possesses great interest for the geologist. He is correct in calling it a lake, and affirming that it had no visible connection with any known sea; but his ideas of its position and dimensions were derived not from the actual condition of the sea in his time, but from a traditional account of what it had been in ante-historical periods. How he happened to fall in with traditional sources of information on such a subject, it would be difficult to say. But there can be no reasonable doubt that such is the case. His Caspian includes the sea of Aral, and the space now lying between the two seas. This is proved not only by the peculiar form he ascribes to it for he represents the major axis of the oval to lie east and west, instead of north and south-but also by his supposing that the Oxus and Araxes emptied themselves into it, both of which flow into the sea of Aral. This junction of the two seas could hardly have existed within the historical period, and certainly did not exist when Herodotus wrote. But in primeval times there is every reason to believe that the two seas were united.

"M. de Mouraviev asserts," says Bell, "that he fully recognised the ancient shores of the Caspian between the present coasts and the southern extremity of the sea of Aral. At this moment the Caspian sea is subsiding; and the decrease of its waters is the more remarkable within these few years, as vessels drawing eighteen feet water could lately navigate this sea, and now it will admit of none that draw above fifteen feet at the most. A few years ago, the waves of the Caspian washed the walls of Bakon; at present they are at a considerable distance from it, and the consequence is, that the ships of war of the Russian Imperial Navy are no longer stationed in the Gulf of Bakon, but in a tolerably convenient part of the Isle of Sara, which is ten miles distant from it. But what is most extraordinary is that this subsiding of the waters has uncovered first the top and then the lower parts of a vast caravanserai, which is situated in the sea, the distance of about two versts from the coasts. Thus it appears that at some period, more or less remote, the Caspian sea was much lower towards the western coasts than it is at the present moment, when it is observed to be subsiding. In support of this singular fact, it may be added that, according to the unanimous tradition of the country, people formerly went along the shore of the Caspian from Lankhara to Salian; and that the road, now partly covered by the

waters of the sea, is no longer passable. The fall of the waters has also left exposed some new islands. One of these is several versts in extent. The soil of it is very firm; and it is probable that in a few years it will be inhabited by fishermen, like all the other isles of the Caspian. The Djanderia, or the southern and principal of the three months by which the Sir discharges its waters into the Aral, has been dry for a period of ten years, and the Konvan-deria, forming the middle branch, has certainly considerably diminished within the last hundred years. The environs of the Aral lake abundantly demonstrate that its shores have been gradually narrowing, and that the shifting sands are insensibly gaining upon it.'

To the above interesting information it may be added that the tract of country between the two seas bears the appearance of having been formerly covered by water, while the eastern shore of the Caspian, which lies in nearly the same level as the adjacent country, is jagged and uneven, as if formed by the gradual subsidence of the water. The sea of Aral is now one hundred and seventeen feet above the Caspian, but this was not originally the relative altitude of the two seas. Geographers believe that they can detect the ancient level of the Caspian at an elevation three hundred feet above its present surface: it may, therefore, easily have included the sea of Aral; while the lower elevation of the Caspian at the present day is to be accounted for by the more rapid evaporation to which it is subject in consequence of its extensive surface. As we write, a friend informs us that the Caspian and Black seas are now encroaching so much on their respective shores as to render their eventual junction not improbable. This information is given on the authority of a Russian engineer. We suspect the "wish is father to the thought," in this case. Any alteration in the features of the country which would open an entrance for Russia into Central Asia without obliging her to send her armies across the deadly Caucasian range, would be an immense boon to that aggressive Power; but we doubt whether this wish is likely ever to be fulfilled. The Caspian is, it is true, eighty-three feet and a half below the level of the Black sea, but the space between them is so closely guarded by the giant arm of Caucasus that this junction could not be formed unless assisted by a convulsion of nature, in any part of the Euxine coast south of Anapa. The encroachment of the Black sea, therefore, could hardly take place on any extensive scale; unless, indeed, it intends to fraternise with its neighbour through the intervention of the sea of Azof: but what likelihood there is of any junction in that quarter we are unable to say. The abovementioned fact regarding the disclosure of an ancient caravanserai by the subsidence of the Caspian sea, would, however, seem to prove that that sea has