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DECEMBER, 1884.]
the range that bears their name. Below them, and below the range are the Akadrai, after whom are the A spithrai, then along the Great Gulf the Am bastai, and around the gulfs immediately adjoining the Ik hthyophagoi
PTOLEMY'S GEOG. BK. VII, CH. 3.-THE SINAI.
Sinai.
5. The interior towns of the Sinai are named thus:
********....
Akadra....
Aspithra Kokkonagara Sarata
6. And the Metropolis Sinai or Thinai ........ 180° 40' 3° S. which they say has neither brazen walls nor anything else worthy of note. It is encompassed on the side of Kattigara towards the west by the unknown land, which encircles the Green. Sea as far as Cape Prason, from which begins, as has been said, the Gulf of the Batrakheian Sea, connecting the land with Cape Rhapton, and the southern parts of Azania.
178° 20' 21° 15' 175° 16° 2° S. 4° S.
179° 50' 180° 30'
It has been pointed out how egregiously Ptolemy misconceived the configuration of the coast of Asia beyond the Great Gulf, making it run southward and then turn westward, and proceed in that direction till it reached the coast of Africa below the latitude of Zanzibar. The position, therefore of the places he names, cannot be determined with any certainty. By the Wild Beast Gulf may perhaps be meant the Gulf of Tonquin, and by the Gulf of the Sinai that part of the Chinese Sea which is beyond Hai-nan Island. The river Kottiaris may perhaps be the river of Canton. Thinai, or Sinai, may have been Nankin, or better perhaps Si-gnan-fu, in the province of Shen-si, called by Marco Polo, by whom it was visited, Ken-jan-fu. "It was probably," says Yule (Marco Polo, vol. II, p. 21)" the most celebrated city in Chinese history and the capital of several of the most potent dynasties. In the days of its greatest fame it was called Chaggan." It appears to have been an ancient tradition that the city was surrounded by brazen walls, but this Ptolemy regarded as a mere fable. The author of the Periplús (c. 64), has the following notice of the place:-"There lies somewhere in the interior of Thina, a very great city, from which silk, either raw or spun or woven into cloth is carried overland to Barygaza through Baktria or by the Ganges to Limyrikê... Its situation is under the Lesser Bear." Ptolemy has placed it 3 degrees south of the equator!
I here subjoin, for comparison, a passage from Ammianus Marcellinus which traverses the ground covered by Ptolemy's description of Central and
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Eastern Asia. Ammianus wrote about the middle of the fourth century of our æra, and was a well informed writer, and careful in his statement of facts The extract is from the 23rd Book of his History:
"If you advance from Karmania into the interior (of Asia) you reach the Hyrkanians, who border on the sea which bears their name. Here, as the poorness of the soil kills the seeds committed to it, the inhabitants care but little for agriculture. They live by hunting game, which is beyond measure varied and abundant. Tigers show themselves here in thousands, and many other wild beasts besides. I bear in mind that I have already described the nature of the contrivances by which these animals are caught. It must not be supposed, however, that the people never put hands to the plough, for where the soil is found richer than usual the fields are covered with crops. In places, moreover, that are adapted for being planted-out, gardens of fruit-trees are not wanting, and the sea also supplies many with the means of livelihood. Two rivers flow through the country whose names are familiar to all, the Ox us and Maxera. Tigers at times, when pressed by hunger on their own side of these rivers, swim over to the opposite side and, before the alarm can be raised, ravage all the neighbourhood where they land. Amidst the smaller townships there exist also cities of great power, two on the sea-board, Socunda and Saramanna, and the others inlandAzmorna and Solen, and Hyrkana, which rank above the others. The country next to this people on the north is said to be inhabited by the Abii, a most pious race of men, accustomed to despise all things mortal, and whom Jupiter (as Homer with his over-fondness for fable sings) looks down upon from the summits of Mount Ida. The seats immediately beyond the Hyrkanians form the dominions of the Margiani, who are nearly on all sides round hemmed in by high hills, and consequently shut out from the sea. Though their territory is for the most part sterile, from the deficiency of water, they have nevertheless some. towns, and of these the more notable are Jasonion and Antiochia and Nisas. The adjoining region belongs to the Baktriani, a nation hitherto addicted to war and very powerful, and always troublesome to their neighbours, the Persians, before that people had reduced all the surrounding states to submission, and absorbed them into their own name and nationality. In old times, however, even Arsakes himself found the kings who ruled in Baktriana formidable foes to contend with. Most parts of the country are, like Margiana, far distant from the sea, but the soil is productive, and the cattle that are pastured on the plains and hill-sides, are compact of structure, with limbs
