untains. But they did not round Carambis, for the winds and the gleam
of the heavenly fire stayed with them till they reached Ister's mighty
stream.

Now some of the Colchians, in a vain search, passed out from Pontus
through the Cyanean rocks; but the rest went to the river, and them
Apsyrtus led, and, turning aside, he entered the mouth called Fair.
Wherefore he outstripped the heroes by crossing a neck of land into the
furthest gulf of the Ionian sea. For a certain island is enclosed by
Ister, by name Peuce, three-cornered, its base stretching along the
coast, and with a sharp angle towards the river; and round it the
outfall is cleft in two. One mouth they call the mouth of Narex, and the
other, at the lower end, the Fair mouth. And through this Apsyrtus and
his Colchians rushed with all speed; but the heroes went upwards far
away towards the highest part of the island. And in the meadows the
country shepherds left their countless flocks for dread of the ships,
for they deemed that they were beasts coming forth from the
monster-teeming sea. For never yet before had they seen seafaring ships,
neither the Scythians mingled with the Thracians, nor the Sigynni, nor
yet the Graucenii, nor the Sindi that now inhabit the vast desert plain
of Laurium. But when they had passed near the mount Angurum, and the
cliff of Cauliacus, far from the mount Angurum, round which Ister,
dividing his stream, falls into the sea on this side and on that, and
the Laurian plain, then indeed the Colchians went forth into the Cronian
sea and cut off all the ways, to prevent their foes' escape. And the
heroes came down the river behind and reached the two Brygean isles of
Artemis near at hand. Now in one of them was a sacred temple; and on the
other they landed, avoiding the host of Apsyrtus; for the Colchians had
left these islands out of many within the river, just as they were,
through reverence for the daughter of Zeus; but the rest, thronged by
the Colchians, barred the ways to the sea. And so on other islands too,
close by, Apsyrtus left his host as far as the river Salangon and the
Nestian land.

There the Minyae would at that time have yielded in grim fight, a few to
many; but ere then they made a covenant, shunning a dire quarrel; as to
the golden fleece, that since Aeetes himself had so promised them if
they should fulfil the contests, they should keep it as justly won,
whether they carried it off by craft or even openly in the king's