led the Hyperis by
Juba, is the modern Nabend.

[Illustration: 282.jpg SCENE IN THE MOUNTAINS OF PERSIA.]

Drawn by Boudier, from Costs and Flandin, _Voyage en Perse_,
vol. i. pl. xcvi.

[Illustration: 285.jpg HEAD OF A PERSIAN ARCHER]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph of the Naksh-i-Rustem
bas-relief taken by Dieulafoy.

The mountainous district is furrowed in all directions by deep ravines,
with almost vertical sides, at the bottom of which streams and torrents
follow a headlong course. The landscape wears a certain air of savage
grandeur; giant peaks rise in needle-like points perpendicularly to
the sky; mountain paths wind upward, cut into the sides of the steep
precipices; the chasms are spanned by single-arched bridges, so frail
and narrow that they seem likely to be swept away in the first gail that
blows. No country could present greater difficulties to the movements
of a regular army or lend itself more readily to a system of guerrilla
warfare. It was unequally divided between some ten or twelve tribes:*
chief among these were the Pasargadaa, from which the royal family took
its origin; after them came the Maraphii and Maspii.

* Herodotus only mentions ten Persian tribes; Xenophon
speaks of twelve.

The chiefs of these two tribes were elected from among the members
of seven families, who, at first taking equal rank with that of the
Pasargadaae, had afterwards been reduced to subjection by the Achaemenidae,
forming a privileged class at the court of the latter, the members
of which shared the royal prerogatives and took a part in the work
of government. Of the remaining tribes, the Panthialad, Derusiaei, and
Carmenians lived a sedentary life, while the Dai, Mardians, Dropici,
and Sagartians were nomadic in their habits. Each one of these tribes
occupied its own allotted territory, the limits of which were not always
accurately defined; we know that Sagartia, Parseta-kone, and Mardia
lay towards the north, on the confines of Media and the salt desert,*
Taokene extended along the seaboard, and Carmania lay to the east.
The tribes had constructed large villages, such as Armuza, Sisidona,
Apostana, Gogana, and Taoke, on the sea-coast (the last named possessing
a palace which was one of the three chief residences of the Achaemenian
kings),** and Carmana, Persepolis, Pasargadae, and Gabae in the
interior.***

* Parsetakene, which has already been identified with th