THE OUDE TRIBES OF RAMA.

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With the north-western part of Macedonia we fall in with Tartarian latitudes, and a Tartarian people; they are the Bottiæans and the Briges; properly the "Boutias and the Birgoos," both lying to the east of Cashmir; while the Emathian range is the representative of a part of "Emadus," or "Himalaya." The "Birgoo of the present day is situated close to the south-eastern frontiers of the province of Spiti.1 As a proof of the connection between the Birgoos (Briges) and the "Gana Lova" (Cana Lovii), "tribe of Lova," both political, dynastic, and geographical, I would quote the excellent authority of Colonel Tod, who, speaking of the Birgoo-jeer, (the Birgoo,) one of the royal Rajpoot tribes, observes, that the "Race was Sooryavansi, and the only one, with the exception of the Gehtote, which claims from Lova, the elder son of Rama; and, for the presence of fourteen tribes of Rama,2 the great sovereign of Oude, whose family clan is in full force in Greece, I refer the reader to a most singular specimen of Greek orthography, inscribed on Mount Oita, or the mountains of Oude;' viz., 'Call-id-Romos,' which being interpreted first into Sanscrit, and next into English, will stand thus, 'Cul-Ait-Ramas,' 'Tribe of Oude Ramas.'" I should here remark, that the Ramas were Sooryavansi, or of the Sun tribes; their mythology, history, language, and worship, with one arm reached to Rome, with the other to Peru.

I must now return to the consideration of the province of "Thes-salia," a Greek euphonism for Des-Shalia, or the "Land Of Shal," Shal, for the convenience of pronunciation spelt Shawl. This is an elevated valley or table. land, bounded on the east by the Kurklekkee mountains

1 About lat. 32° N., long. 78" 40' E.

2 See the fourteen tribes of the Oitæ (people of Oude), in Müller's "Map of Greece."

3 "Oita" is the common Greek geographical form of "Oude," passim.

overhanging the Bolan Pass, and on the west by the heights connected with Chehel Tan. "The soil is generally fertile, being a rich black loam, yielding wheat, barley, rice, lucerne, and similar vegetation suited for fodder, besides madder, tobacco, and esculent vegetables. The wildest parts of the enclosing mountains are the haunts of wild sheep and goats; the more accessible tracts yield ample pastures to the herds and flocks of the mountains. Orchards are numerous, and produce in great perfection and abundance, apples, pears, plums, peaches, apricots, grapes, mulberries, pomegranates, quinces, and figs." It is thus apparent, that the same fertility that characterised the Hellenic Thes-Salia, was the boast of its predecessor in Afghanistan. The chief town of this rich province of Greece, so famed for its cavalry, was the "City Of Sal," "PUR-Sal," strangely written by the Greeks Phar-Sal-Os. I have little doubt but that the proper name both for the Afghan and Greek province now noticed, was "Shali; and that it was so named from "shali," rice in general, but especially of two classes, the one like white rice growing in deep water, and the other a red sort, requiring only a moist soil; this is amply descriptive of the capabilities of the well-watered "Land of Shali," or Thes-Salia.

The great artery which waters this rich country finds an egress through a single chasm, celebrated for its romantic beauty, called the Dembhe5 or "cleft." "The entrance of the Peneus," says Dr. Wordsworth, "through

1 Thornton, Punj., vol. ii. p. 189.

2 From Pur, a city; and Sal, city of Sal. See Rule for change of "u" or "oo," to "a" or "a." (See Rule vi. Appendix.)

3 Wilson's Sans. Lex. i. v. Sali.

4 Shali is thus pronounced with the "h," but spelt Sali; the "s" partaking of the sound of "sh" in the word "shall:" when written in the English character it is marked "" to distinguish it from the clearsounding "s." Of which the Greeks made "Tempe."

the narrow defile of Tempé, between the mountains of Olympus and Ossa, a few miles before its entrance into the sea, suggested to Xerxes the reflection, that Thessaly might easily be flooded by damming up this only outlet of the stream, and the opinion that Thessaly was actually covered by the sea in more ancient times, appears not only probable in itself, from a consideration of its physical formation (and it may be suggested from its very name,) but is confirmed by the ancient traditions which have assumed the form of mythological legends with respect to that country. Neptune, in these accounts, strikes the rock with his trident, and opens a passage for the imprisoned water, by the fissure." The reader will not fail to recollect that the same achievement was performed in the draining of Cashmir, by Casyapa, a celebrated Bud'histic saint; and he will shortly understand the value of the term Poseidon, when he will duly appreciate that primæval industry and piety were once united in one individual. As we gradually unravel the primitive geography of the Indo-Hellenic settlements, we shall, just in that proportion, be prepared to comprehend the first history of those colonists, for, if we are foiled in the just view of the earliest geography of the land, most assuredly we shall not obtain any correct view of its history, as they are inextricably bound up with each other.

1 Dr. Wordsworth's Greece, Pictorial and Descriptive.

"THE CITIES OF THE MOUNTAIN CHIEFS."-Hom.

THERE are three distinct features in which north-western Asia is reproduced in Greece. These demonstrate, in the most comprehensive form, three separate groups of original colonists. How the settlements founded by these respective bands may have been subsequently modified, cannot be decided without an attentive examination of the geography and history of India and Northern Greece. The Ac-Helous, or Helas-water, is properly the representative of the Indus. The Pene-i-os (Paen-i-Os, "The chiefs of the Ookshus" or Oxus,) and the Sperchius (river Sverga) of the Ganges. All the evidences bearing upon this subject go to establish these facts indisputably. It is evident, however, that Western Thessaly was the stronghold of those powerful Aswas or Horse tribes, that gave such a distinctive name to the Ionians; one of these great clans, the Catti, will be shortly noticed.

The Ionians, (a Greek form of expressing "HIYANIANS' and YAVANIANS, i. e. "The Horse tribes,") after their emigration into Greece, formed on the western

1 Mer and Mero, a mountain; and pit, a chief. The application of "articulating men (uépot) is a fiction of the antiquarians of Greece of old standing, grafted on the true Sanscrit term, which afterwards passed into poetical use.

2 Hiyan, plural of Hiya, a horse—Hiyanios (Ionios) is a derivative form. Tavan signifies "a swift horse," a title identical with Hiyan. The

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banks of the Pindus, and in fact in the whole of Western Greece, settlements of a nature so durable, as to give their abiding designations both to land and sea; their original seats will be seen on the northern Indus. From this great branch of the human family noticed by the Hebrew legislator as "Javan," was named the Hiyanian (Ionian) Sea, and Hipairus1 (Epirus). These great tribes, —the Yavanas,—are by Sanscrit writers designated as widely as their actual extent, viz., from Bactria (i. e. Bhooctria, or land of the "Great-war-caste") to the shores of Greece. Hence, the apparent looseness of the term, so often noticed by Orientalists. The most south-westerly confluent of the Hellenic Oxus, is the Pamisus, a name derived from the same source as the Paro-Pamisus of the Greeks, i.e. the Hindoo-Koosh mountains in the immediate vicinity of the Oxus. The Paropamisus of the Greeks is the Pahar-oop'-Bamis, or the Mountain near Bami, or Bamian.3

Such a stream, in fact, exactly corresponding to the Pamisus of Thessaly, which flows into the Peneus, or Oxus of Greece, will the reader find rising near Bamisus (Bamian), and flowing into the Oxus of Asia. Nor will these Bamian people in Greece be found very far from their new Pamisus, they are the Bomi-enses (Bamian

ordinary resolution of the Sanscrit "v" into the Greek "o," and the "y" into its corresponding form "i," absorbs the two short vowels, and gives the form “I, o, n," and the derivative "Ionios." (See Appendix, Rules vi-xx.)

1 From Hi, a horse; pa, a chief; and bra, the earth.

2 The well-known identification of Ionia and Yavana by Prinsep, in the inscription of Asoka, the Buddhist emperor of India, is as satisfactory to the philologist, as to the historian.

3 Bamian is evidently the plural form of Bami, the people of Bami. "Pahar Bami, the mountain of Bami,—commonly called Bamian; in Sanscrit, Vami-nagari or Vami-gram, emphatically called Budha Bamian. Bamian is represented in the books of the Buddhists as the source of holiness and purity."—Wilford, As. Res., vol. vi. p. 463.

K