'A second journey through Persia, Armenia, and Asia Minor, to Constantinople, between the years 1810 and 1816. With a journal of the voyage by the Brazils and Bombay to the Persian Gulf. Together with an account of the proceedings of His Majesty's embassy under Sir Gore Ouseley, Bart. K.L.S. With two maps, and engravings from the designs of the author.' [‎374] (440/516)

374
ILLUSTRATION OF POLYBIUS.
are looked upon as a sufficient number to guard this pass. Here we
entered the great mass of wood, extending to the plain of Asterabad, and
began to descend the great range of mountains which forms the bound
aries between the Caspian, the Turcomans, and Khorassan. The trees
in these forests grow to the most stupenduous sizes. Oak, elm, beach,
ash, alder, larch, maple, and all forest trees, are here to be seen in tkeir
greatest beauty. Every precipice is clothed, except two conspicuous
abrupt peaks of the highest summits, where a white soil intervenes be
tween the wood. The road is the most difficult over which I ever tra
velled, being composed of a soil constantly moist, in some places deep
in mud, in others broken with slippery rocks and loose stones. Not
very far from the Derwazeh is a second pass, called the Sanduk or the
trunk, which gives its name to the whole mountains, and is indeed the
very worst of bad roads. It consists of a succession of slippery and
shagged rocks, over which there is a path, but so narrow, that a loaded
beast can scarcely pass it, and none but the horses of the country tread
it with safety, for all others run the greatest hazard of breaking their
limbs. Similar passes, but neither so long nor so dangerous, inter
vene on the descent, at each of which the passenger must from neces
sity get off his beast: it took us near four hours to reach the plain of
Asterabad.
The whole account of the march of Antiochus from Hecatompylos
into Hyrcania as described by Polybius, is so exactly descriptive of the
country over which we travelled, and particularly of our descent to
Asterabad, that there is reason to suppose, that we pursued the same
route. The mountain of the Sanduk will then be the Labutas of
that historian, Asterabad, the site of the ancient Tambracus, and the
country of Gurgan, situated close to Asterabad, will be Hyrcania of the
Greeks. *
Although the mist was very thick on the tops of the mountain,
yet we were fortunate enough to get an extensive view of part of the
\ - ...
* See Polybius, lib. x. 24.