e-eyed people. On the west it is bounded
by the Armenians, and Mount Niphates, the Asiatic Albani, the Red Sea,
and the Scenite Arabs, whom later times have called the Saracens. To the
south it looks towards Mesopotamia, on the east it reaches to the
Ganges, which falls into the Southern Ocean after intersecting the
countries of the Indians.

14. The principal districts of Persia, under command of the Vitaxae, that
is to say of the generals of the cavalry, and of the king's Satraps, for
the many inferior provinces it would be difficult and superfluous to
enumerate, are Assyria, Susiana, Media, Persia, Parthia, the greater
Carmania, Hyrcania, Margiana, the Bactrians, the Sogdians, the Sacae,
Scythia beyond Mount Emodes, Serica, Aria, the Paropanisadae, Drangiana,
Arachosia, and Gedrosia.

15. Superior to all the rest is that which is the nearest to us,
Assyria, both in renown, and extent, and its varied riches and
fertility. It was formerly divided among several peoples and tribes, but
is now known under one common name as Assyria. It is in that country
that amid its abundance of fruits and ordinary crops, there is a lake
named Sosingites, near which bitumen is found. In this lake the Tigris
is for a while absorbed, flowing beneath its bed, till, at a great
distance, it emerges again.

16. Here also is produced naphtha, an article of a pitchy and glutinous
character, resembling bitumen: on which if ever so small a bird perches,
it finds its flight impeded and speedily dies. It is a species of
liquid, and when once it has taken fire, human ingenuity can find no
means of extinguishing it except that of heaping dust on it.

17. In the same district is seen an opening in the earth from which a
deadly vapour arises, which by its foul odour destroys any animal which
comes near it. The evil arises from a deep well, and if that odour
spread beyond its wide mouth before it rose higher, it would make all
the country around uninhabitable by its fetid effect.

18. There used, as some affirm, to be a similar chasm near Hierapolis in
Phrygia; from which a noxious vapour rose in like manner with a fetid
smell which never ceased, and destroyed everything within the reach of
its influence, except eunuchs; to what this was owing we leave natural
philosophers to determine.

19. Also near the temple of the Asbamaean Jupiter, in Cappadocia (in
which district that eminent philosopher Apollonius is said to have been
born near the town o