the Empire in huge masses.
Whole cliffs of the former overhang the river Kashkar in Kaferistan; and
the myrrhine vases of antiquity which were (it is probable) of agate,
and came mainly from Carmania, seem to have been of a great size.

We may conclude this review by noticing, among stones of less
consequence produced within the Empire, jet, which was so called from
being found at the mouth of the river Gagis in Lycia, garnets, which are
common in Armenia, and beryl, which is a product of the same country.

CHAPTER III. CHARACTER, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, DRESS, ETC., OF THE PEOPLE.

"I lifted up mine eyes, and saw, and, behold, there stood before the
river a ram which had two horns: and the two horns were high; but one
was higher than the other, and the higher came up last."--Dan. viii. 3.

The ethnic identity of the Persian people with the Medes, and the
inclusion of both nations in that remarkable division of the human
race which is known to ethnologers as the Ipanic or Arian, have been
maintained in a former volume. To the arguments there adduced it seems
unnecessary to add anything in this place, since at the present day
neither of the two positions appears to be controverted. It is admitted
generally, not only that the Persians were of the same stock with the
Medes, but that they formed, together with the Medes and a few
other tribes and peoples of less celebrity, a special branch of the
Indo-European family--a branch to which the name of Arian may be
assigned, not merely for convenience sake, but on grounds of actual
tradition and history. Undistinguished in the earlier annals of their
race, the Medes and Persians became towards the eighth or seventh
century before our era, its leading and most important tribes. Closely
united together, with the superiority now inclining to one, now to the
other, they claimed and exercised a lordship over all the other members
of the stock, and not only over them, but over various alien races
also. They had qualities which raised them above their fellows, and a
civilization, which was not, perhaps, very advanced, but was still not
wholly contemptible. Such details as could be collected, either from
ancient authors, or from the extant remains, of the character, mode of
life, customs, etc., of the Medes, have already found a place in this
work.

The greater part of what was there said will apply also to the Persians.
The information, however, which we possess, with respe