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HEADERTEXT.
189

On the Position of Siisa. 189 The reader will now be prepared to hear the observations of the learned writer who has since taken up the subject^ which Mr K. was compelled to own he left, as he found it, jjerplewt. After observing that " Mr Kinneir has very superfluously made the Etdeus and the Choaspes two distinct rivers in his map,'^ though d'Anville, Vincent, Mannert, and after them Hoeck, (in a Latin prize essay entitled Veteris Mediae et Persiae monumenta) have placed the identity of the Euleits and the Choaspes beyond all doubt,"^ he proceeds to say, '^ Arrian, Pliny, and the Bible place Susa on the Eiileiis; Herodotus, Strabo and Curtius, on the Choaspes; and what some relate of the Euleiis^ others mention with regard to the Choaspes^ that it was famed for its exceedingly light and excellent water, that the Persian kings drank of no other, and carried it with them on their journies.^' Then after mentioning the difference of opinions as to the position of Susa^ and Dr Vincent'^s argument drawn from the voyage of Nearchus, he adds, " Without dwelling on the force of this and the other reasons adduced by Vincent for the identity of aS'?^^^ and Shitster^ we hasten to communicate a passage from the original sources of Persian Geography, which de- cides the question, and fixes the site of the ancient Susa at Shuster. This passage occurs in the valuable Manuscript, No. 433 of the Imperial library, which seems to be a portion of the Nusetol-Kulub. " The Tigris of Shiister rises in the yellow mountain {KithisercV) and the (other) mountains of Great Louristan^ and after a course of thirty and odd parasangs reaches Shiister. It is always cool, and digests food, so that in the hot weather ^ The distinction however is not altogether superfluous for Mr Kinneir's argument : the epithet would be more applicable to Mr Mitford's distinction between the Euleus and the Pasitigris^ which, he imagines, both fell by separate mouths into the Persian gulf, having their courses nearly parallel and not very distant for a considerable way before reaching the gulf. He adds, '^ Susa stood on the Euleus. But this river was, towards its mouth, so inconvenient for navigation, that the preferable course for vessels from the gulf to Susa was up the Pasitigris to a canal communicating with the Euleus,'^ (Ch. lv. Sect, v.) No authority is cited for this assertion, but it seems to be founded on the description of Alexander's voyage down the Euleus^ Arrian VII. 7, combined with Ind. 42, in neither of which passages however is there any alhision to such a canal. The only one mentioned is the Hofar Cut.