COSMOS, VOL. II - World eBook Library

506 COSMOS.
Euphrates and the Indus. A Greek, Scylax of Karyanda, was
employed to explore the course of the Indus, from the then-
to its mouth.
existing territory of Caschmeer (Kaspapyrus)*
An active intercourse was carried on between Greece and
Egypt (with Naucratis and the Pelusian arm of the Nile),
before the Persian conquest, and even under Psammitichus and
Amasis.f These extensive relations of intercourse with other
nations drew many Greeks from their native land, not only for
the purpose of establishing those distant colonies which we
shall consider in a subsequent part of the present work, but
also as hired soldiers who formed the nucleus of foreign
armies in Cartilage,;}; Egypt, Babylon, Persia, and in the
Bactrian district of the Oxus.
A deeper insight into the individuality and national character
of the different Greek races has shown that, if a grave and
reserved exclusiveness prevailed amongst the Dorians, and in
part also amongst the .^Eolians, we must, on the other hand,
ascribe to the gayer Ionic race a mobility of mind, which,
under the stimulus of an eager spirit of enquiry, and an everwakeful
activity, was alike manifested in a faculty for mental
contemplation and sensuous perception. Directed by the
objective bent of their mode of thought, and adorned by a
luxuriance of fancy in poetry and in art, the lonians scattered
the beneficent germs of progressive cultivation, wherever they
established their colonies in other countries.
As the landscape of Greece was so strikingly characterised
by the peculiar charm of an intimate blending of land and
sea, the configuration of the coast line to which this character
was owing, could not fail early to awaken in the
minds of the Greeks a taste for navigation, and to excite them
to an active commercial intercourse and contact with foreign
nations. The maritime dominion of the Cretans and Rhodians
was followed by the expeditions of the Samians, Phocceans,
Taphians, and Thesprotians, which were, it must be owned,
* Regarding the most probable etymology of Kaspapyrus
of Hecataeus
(Fragm. ed. Klausen, No. 179, v. 94), and the Kaspatyrus of
Herodotus (iii. 102, and iv. 44), see my Asie centrale, t. i. pp. 101-104.
f Regarding Psammitichus and Aahmes, see p. 489.
Droysen, Geschichte der Bildung des hellenistischen Staatemysterns,
1843, s. 23.
See p. 376.