Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. Excerpt from book: Section 3SCYTHIA AND SARMATIA ASIATICA. 39 occupied themselves in working gold mines; and the Argippsei, north of the Caspian Sea, whose habits of shaving the head, and of riding on white horses (as related by Herodotus), mark them as the progenitors of the textit{Calmucks and textit{Bashkirs. 2. The district between the Rha and the Tanais formed part of the undefined country named Sarmatia, which extended beyond the confines of Asia over textit{European Russia. Sauromatse, or Sarmatee, was the generic name for the numerous tribes who occupied this vast district, the most important of whom in Asiatic Sarmatia were?the Thyssagetse, in the N.; the Aorsi, about the northern coast of the Caspian Sea; and the Siraceni, between the Caspian and the Palus Mseotis. The only towns known to the ancients were the colonies planted by the Asiatic Greeks along the shores of the Euxine?viz., Tanais, at the mouth of the textit{Don; Phana- goria, on the peninsula formed on the eastern side of the Cimmerian Bosphorus; Sinda, farther down the coast; and Pityus, near the Colchian border. A considerable trade was carried on from these towns in skins, slaves, wood, and horses. CHAPTER IV. I. SYRIA. ?II. PHCENICIA. ? III. PALESTINA. IV. ARABIA. I. Syria. Sykia was bounded on the E. by the Euphrates, on the N. and N. W. by M. Amanus, on the W. by Mare In- teruum and Phoenicia, and on the S. by Palsestina andArabia: it still retains its ancient name. Within these limits there are contained two widely different districts, the mountainous region which skirts the shore of the Mediterranean and the northern frontier, and the great desert which stretches eastward to the Euphrates and southward to the border of Arabia. The former receives its character from the ranges of Amanus in the N. and Libanus in the S., which are connect...
