crops of wheat. The entire region was well-watered; it enjoyed a
delightful climate; and besides corn and cattle furnished many products
of value.

Outside the plateau on the north, on the north-east, on the west, and
on the south, lie territories which, in comparison with the high
region whereon they adjoined, may be called lowlands. The north-eastern
lowland, the broad and rich valley of the Kur, which corresponds closely
with the modern Russian province of Georgia, was in the possession of a
people called by Herodotus Saspeires or Sapeires, whom we may identify
with the Iberians of later writers. Adjoining upon them towards the
south, probably in the country about Erivan, and so in the neighborhood
of Ararat, were the Alarodians, whose name must be connected with that
of the great mountain. On the other side of the Sapeirian country, in
the tracts now known as Mingrelia and Imeritia, regions of a wonderful
beauty and fertility, were the Colchians--dependants, but not exactly
subjects, of Persia.

The northern lowland, which consisted of a somewhat narrow strip of land
between the plateau and the Euxine, was a rich and well-wooded region,
630 miles in length, and in breadth from forty to a hundred. It was
inhabited by a large number of rude and barbarous tribes, each of whom
possessed a small portion of the sea-board. These tribes, enumerated in
the order of their occurrence from east to west, were the following:
the Moschi, the Macrones (or Tzani), the Mosy-noeci, the Mares, the
Tibareni, the Chalybes, the Paphlagones, the Mariandyni, the Bithyni,
and the Thyni. The Moschi, Macrones, Mosynoeci, Mares, and Tibareni
dwelt towards the east, occupying the coast from Batoum to Ordou.
The Chalybes inhabited the tract immediately adjoining on Sinope.
The Paphlagonians held the rest of the coast from the mouth of the