This land and nation is obviously the garden of Yima and his elect, whom the myth of Iran places on the divine hill. These are the long-lived Hyperboreans of the Greeks, who dwell in the remote north beyond the Rhipaean mountains--one of the old common myths of the Aryan and Greek branch of the Indo-Germanic stock. [28] Megasthenes and Eratosthenes in Strabo, pp. 689, 690; Arrian, "Ind." 3, 8. [29] Lassen explains Paropamisus as Paropa-nishadha, "lower mountain," in opposition to Nishadha, "high mountain," by which the high ridge of the Hindu Kush is meant, _loc. cit._ 1^2, 27, _n._ 4. [30] Muir, "Sanskrit Texts," 2^2, 324, 328. [31] Strabo, pp. 690, 691. [32] Diod. 2, 35; Strabo, pp. 700, 717. [33] Megasthenes in Strabo, pp. 690, 702; cf. Arrian, "Ind." 4. Diodorus allows the upper Ganges a breadth of 30 stades, at Palibothra a breadth of 32 stades--2, 37; 17, 93. [34] Arrian, "Ind." 4. [35] Diod. 2, 37. [36] Strabo, p. 691. [37] Diod. 2, 37. [38] Strabo, p. 695. [39] Diod. 2, 37. [40] Strabo, pp. 690, 691. [41] Aristobulus in Strabo, pp. 692, 693; cf. Curtius, 8, 30, ed. Mützell. [42] These statements, which are quite correct, are found in Megasthenes in Strabo, p. 76; Diod. 2, 35. [43] Strabo, p. 695; Diod. 2, 35. [44] Strabo, pp. 690, 693. [45] Strabo, p. 695. [46] Strabo, p. 694; Arrian, "Ind." 11. [47] Strabo, pp. 692, 693. Arrian ("Ind." 7) mentions the Sanskrit name of the umbrella palm, _tala_, and tells us that the shoots were eaten, which is also correct. [48] Arrian, "Ind." 6, 17; Strabo, pp. 96, 690, 696, 701, 706, 709. CHAPTER II. THE ARYAS ON THE INDUS.