stand in evident connection with Συρίη[631]. Who but they could give that name to the island where Eumæus was born? an island with which we see them to have been in relations by a double token; the first, a Phœnician slave carried thither by the Taphians; and the second, Eumæus as a boy carried off thence by the Phœnicians, who had paid it a visit with a cargo of fine goods. The island of Ψυρίη, lying north-west from Chios, probably owed its title to the same source: if not also Σκῦρος, corrupted from Συρός. Surely then, like Φαίηκες from Φοίνικες, so Homer made Σχερίη from Συρίη. It being always remembered that Scheria is for Homer, like Phœnicia, a maritime land. It is nowhere called an island; from which we know, that Homer either believed it to be attached to the continent, or to form, like Crete[632], a continent of itself. [628] Od. iii. 318. [629] Od. iv. 82. [630] Od. iii. 286-90. [631] Od. xv. 402. Much difficulty has been raised about this Συρίη: see Wood on Homer, pp. 9-16; but surely without need. We have no occasion to translate καθύπερθε into _trans_, πέρην, or _beyond_. The Συρίη νῆσος, or Syros, has the same bearing in respect to Delos, as Ψυρίη in respect to Chios, which is called καθύπερθε Χίοιο, Od. iii. 170. It may perhaps mean _to windward_, and this would correspond with the idea of Ζέφυρος as the prevailing wind of the Ægæan. Another difficulty is made about the phrase ὅθι τροπαὶ ἠελίοιο, which is interpreted as describing the position relatively to Delos. I know not why this should constitute a difficulty at all, if Syros is to the west and north of Delos. But there would be no difficulty, even if Delos were west of Syros: for the words ὅθι τροπαὶ ἠελίοιο may apply grammatically to either of the two islands as viewed from the other. [632] Od. xix. 172. The Erembi of Menelaus are generally understood to be the Arabians. The Æthiopes, whom he also visits, extend from the extreme east to the furthest west of the surface of the earth; and they possibly may have a counterpart in the Cimmerians of the north. In the same zone with the Æthiopes, on the borders of Ocean to the south, a passage of the Iliad places the ἄνδρες Πυγμαῖοι[633]. Herodotus supports Homer in this, as in most other particulars. And the researches of the most recent travellers sustain the assertion of these two old ethnologists of Greece, that there are dwarfed races in the interior of Africa, accessible from Egypt. [633] Il. iii. 2-6. Thus, then, it would appear in general that the voyage and travels of Menelaus, together with those of Ulysses, including in the former his final passage to Elysium, cover the entire surface of the earth, such as Homer had conceived it. This, however, can only be taken generally, and tells us little of what Homer thought concerning the actual form of the earth’s surface, while it leaves untouched various questions regarding its distribution in detail. With some of these let us now endeavour to deal.