four syllables, or the first syllable in reperit short. His verses deserve in other respects great attention.

If Homo Sum states no objection in the course of a month, we will send his letter to another publication, in which he will more probably obtain satisfaction on the nature of his inquiry than in this Journal.

Our notice of the new edition of Brotier's Tacitus is unavoidably postponed.

We shall be obliged to any of our Readers to send us additions or corrections to the Lists of Hebrew Grammars inserted in our present Number, as it is more than probable that it is at present incomplete.

J. J. on the Book of Jasher, &c. in our next.

In our next we shall insert the article on the Poetry of Professors Barrow and Duport.

Conjectures on the Chronology of the Travels of St. Paul are unavoidably postponed.

on Hebrew Criticism in our next.

E. S.'s. Inscriptions will form an interesting article.
Bibliotheca Gossetiana will be continued in our next.

Bentley's Emendation on Menander in our next. We have hopes of procuring from a Correspondent some remarks on Bentley, to form an Appendix.

A set of Fables, supposed to be Phædrus's, have been lately published in Italy, and reprinted by Renouard, in Paris, 1812, 12mo. pp. 40. We shall give them entire in one of our future Numbers. Spurious or genuine, they will be interesting.

De Eschyli Epodis Commentarius as soon as possible.

Literary Intelligence must be deferred to our next Number. We have been promised by a friend a Collation of an ancient edition of Terence, unknown to Fabricius, Ernesti, and the Bipont editors. We believe it is the same with the one thus specified by Mr. Dibdin, p. 394. 2d Ed. Terentius Guid. Juvenalis et Ascenscii [Lugd.] 4to. 1506. Litteris Gothicis.

In a future No. we hope that our correspondent will favor us with some remarks on Dr. Middleton's Observations respecting this disputed verse in his work intitled, The Doctrine of the Greek Article applied to the Criticism and the Illustration of the New Testament, London, 1808. 8vo. pages 632-53. Indeed we should feel ourselves greatly obliged to any Scholar, who would favor us with a notice of this work. Mr. J. Jones, in his Illustrations of the Four Gospels, has animadverted on it in terms of severity. We would direct the attention of any Scholar disposed

us with such a notice, to Mr. Veysie's Remarks on the positive Articles, and to the Observations on them in Review, and also to a paper in the Critical Review.

SUPPLEMENT

TO N°. XVIII.

OF

The Classical Journal,

FOR JUNE, 1814.

OBSERVATIONS

ON THE

GEOGRAPHY OF SUSIANA.

BY WILLIAM VINCENT, D. D.

THE Geographical Memoir of the Persian Empire, published last year by Mr. M'Donald Kinneir, and accompanied with a map by Mr. Arrowsmith, opens a field of information little explored by travellers from Europe, and described very imperfectly both by ancient and oriental writers.

The vast tract of country between the Indus and the Tigris comprehends so large a proportion of desert towards the province of Seistan, on the north, and such a line of desolation towards the coast of the Indian Ocean, on the south, that there has been little to attract the curiosity of travellers, or the adventure of merchants, our best sources of intelligence; and armies have seldom traversed it, but with the view of more distant conquests beyond the Indus.

Alexander, Timour, Humaioon, and Nadir Shah, all advanced either by a northern or an intermediate route; but Alexander only (if we except the fabulous accounts of Dionysus and Semíramis) had the fortitude to hazard a march through the burning sands of Gadrosia on his return, or the wisdom to explore the ocean on that desolate coast, by committing his fleet to the guidance of Nearchus.

To illustrate the course of this fleet was impossible, previous to the survey of the coast by Commodore Robinson, in 1774, underVOL. IX. Cl. JI. Suppl. No. XVIII.

2 F

taken by order of the East India Company, from Bombay; and happy am I to find, that, by comparing that survey with the route of Captain Grant, and the other routes inland, directed by Sir John Malcolm, and specified by Mr. M.Donald, I have conducted Nearchus from the Indus to the Gulph of Persia, almost without

an error.

An additional pleasure it would have been, if the geography of Susiana, which I had traced out from all the authors, ancient, modern, and oriental, that I could discover, and corrected with great attention in my second edition, had coincided with the account of Mr. McDonald, derived from a personal visit to that province. But this, in one respect, was not to be required of me; for there were, when I wrote, no data in existence from which it was possible to trace the course of the rivers inland. Their source from the mountains, their order and succession, their issue into the Gulph of Persia, were easily obtainable; but by what lines they passed through the intermediate country, there was no authority in the ancients to decide, no maps to be depended on, no modern travellers to correct the mistakes or variations of the learned, who had embraced different opinions upon the subject.

If Mr. M'Donald is right in his description of the rivers and their courses, still he laments himself (p. 104) that he cannot reconcile his account with the geography of the ancients. I must not say that his own account is incomplete; neither am I in the habit of questioning the veracity of any traveller, when he has actually visited the country which he describes. I concede likewise, that throughout the whole work of Mr. M'Donald, there is the strongest evidence of his attention to truth, unbiassed by prejudice or partiality; and every reason to be persuaded that in the parts, which he did not personally explore, his information is derived from the best sources that were accessible.

But in the province of Susiana, as I am most ready to acknow ledge my own errors, so I hope it will give no offence to Mr. M'Donald if I suggest to him that there are difficulties still remaining, which neither his book nor his map have completely removed; and that his reasoning has not yet convinced me that the Susa of the ancients can be identified with the modern Sus.

Upon the rivers of Susiana there is no longer any dispute between us; for his map, which gives a second source on the west to the river Eulêus, not only corrects the principal error I have committed, but reconciles the apparent discordance of the ancient historians. Some of these, it is well known, had reported that the Kings of Persia drank no water but that of the Eulêus; others

The Persian Ambassador in 1810 said that water from the Karoon, or Euleus, was still carried to Basra,

attributed the same honor to the Choaspes; the conclusion therefore was, that the two names belonged to the same river. I had conjectured that the Eulêus had two sources; but finding no authority to confirm this supposition, I was necessitated, in detailing the march of Timour, to place Dez-Phoul on the Eulêus, although it is in reality on the western source, which I now consider as the Choaspes. For this information I feel myself much indebted to Mr. M'Donald.

2

This western source he calls the Ab-Zal; the same name which it bears in the Commentaries of Timour; and he again gives this branch two sources, one in the mountain of Shutur, and the other in those of Louristan (p. 96); they form a junction three days' journey north of Dez-phoul, and fall into the Karoon, or Eulêus, at Bundekeel, eight farsangs, or four-and-twenty miles, below Shuster. (p. 86.) From this account we collect, that both these sources, rising out of the chain of mountains which surround Susiana, have their origin in Media. But still the Ab-Zal cannot be the river of Susa; for whatever name that river is to bear, it must have three properties; that is, it must rise in Media, it must pass by the capital, it must communicate with the Gulph of Persia. the Ab-Zal has but one of these properties; it does rise in Media, but it does not pass by the capital, (if Sus is to be assumed for Susa), it does not communicate with the Gulph directly, but by the intervention of another river.

Now

The Karoon, therefore, is the true Eulêus, for Mr. M'Donald himself says it rises from the mountains of Louristan 22 farsangs S. W. of Ispahan, out of the same hill as the Zeinderood or river of Ispahan, but on the opposite side. This should be the Susiana side, but Mr. M. calls it a Median River, (p. 103.), and this stream passing so near the capital as to embrace it, the capital Susa must be at Shuster and not at Sus, for if Sus be assumed for the capital, the Ab-Zal does not approach it nearer than seven or eight miles, by Mr. M'Donald's own account. I refer the whole to the testimony of Pliny,3 Ptolemy, and Dionysius.

A third river, called the Kierkè by other writers, the Kerah or Kara-sou of d'Anville and Mr. M'Donald, is by him assumed

1 See Ancient Commerce, Vol. I. p. 448.

2 Susa seems placed indifferently on the Eulêus or Choaspes by different authors.

Pliny, lib. vi. c. 16. Eulæus ortus in Medis. Dionysius: Xoáσng ïxxwy Ινδὸν Ὕδωρ, lin. 1073.

'Iyday must be a corrupt reading, unless it mean only strange, or foreign. Salmasius reads, Mndov "Twp.

4 Kara-sou signifies black river, and Mr. M. says it is a furious stream. so, perhaps turbid, and not likely to become the favored beverage of k

2

for the river of Susa, as passing by Sus; but this, I think, would not be called a Median river, either by ancients or moderns; neither, if it were so called, would it answer the purpose, for it issues into the Tigris, and does not fall into the Gulph of Persia. It is true that it rises beyond the mountains, but in a province which, I imagine, would have been called Korduênè by the ancients, as it is styled Kurdistan by Mr. M'Donald; which, though comprehended sometimes in the general name of Media, is so peculiarly distinguished by the origin, genius, and manners of the inhabitants, that the district would rather have been specified, than the province at large; for the natives are the Kurds, the Kardaces of various authors, the Kardookhi of Xenophon, so celebrated as a race of plunderers in all ages, as to give a prevalence to the name of the country which they possessed. But on this more hereafter.

At present I shall pass with Mr. M'Donald to the eastern rivers of Susiana, called the Koprátas, the Pasitígris, and the A'rosis, and known to oriental writers by the respective names of the Khoorookhankende, the Jerabi, and the Tab or Endian; for however incorrectly I may have traced the course of these streams, in regard to their order and succession we are both agreed.

The Koprátas and Pasitígris3 unite with the Eulêus, and issue into the Gulph of Persia by the same mouth. This is a point on which the Greek and Persian geographers are agreed, and is confirmed by Mr. M'Donald: he differs only from the Voyage of Nearchus in giving their respective courses, but not in their order or succession: his distance, however, between the Eulêus and the Pasitígris corresponds with the account of the Greeks and the Persians; he states it at ninety miles; a space which a Tartar army of horse might pass in three days, and a Macedonian army of horse and infantry might traverse in four and these are the marches attributed to Alexander and Timour, on their advance towards Persis, by their several historians.

+

But if Mr. M'Donald's map is correct, as it carries the ordinary road from Shuster to the A'rosis across the Koprátas and Pasitígris, near the sources of those rivers, it is by no means easy

Arab.

According to D'Anville and Thevenot; but Mr. M. says into the Shat al

2 Usually written Gordyênè.

3 There are six or seven streams that pass through the Delta, but these two join the Karoon before its issue into the sea.

4 They probably marched by night, as Antígonus is reported to have done by Diodorus, 1. xix. c. 18.

s Diodorus represents the Koprátas as 400 feet wide, and not passable without boats ; 1. xix. c. 18. οξὺς δὲ ἐν τῇ καταφορά προσεδεῖτο πλοίων ἢ ζεύγματος.