the men are employed out of doors, the women stay at home, make gold and silver thread, and sew the clothes of their fathers and brothers. [254] Reise in den Caucasus, cap. 24. The author thus spells the name in German characters, _Ckaratschai_. Father Lamberti, a missionary from the Society of the Propaganda at Naples, who remained twenty years in that part of Asia in the seventeenth century, calls them “_i Caraccioli_,” in which name we observe the addition of an Italian termination. See his Relatione della Colchide, hoggi delta Mengrelia, Napoli, 1654, cap. 28. p. 196. [255] The origin of the English _shawl_. Such is the account given by a recent and most competent witness of the actual condition of this interesting nation, who, though now perhaps reduced in number, occupy probably after the lapse of 2500 years their original seat at the distance of from forty to eighty miles to the north-east of the same coast, to which they have always resorted for commercial purposes[256]. [256] Souchom-Kalé is only twelve miles from _Iscuria_, a single promontory intervening between the bay and river of the former harbor and those of the latter. See Spencer’s Travels, vol. i. p. 295-297, and his Map at p. 209. We cannot survey the now deserted Iscuria without observing, what a mournful contrast the Euxine presents under the sway of both Russia and Turkey to the useful energy, which more than 2000 years ago promoted life and the arts of life, and brought into close and peaceful contact the most refined and the most uncultivated nations, under the direction of the Ionians of Miletus. The beauty, the bravery, the activity, and the independence of a highland clan still represent the skill and enterprize of the ancient Coraxi; but the commerce, which rewarded their industry, and extended their reputation through the civilized world, has sunk into insignificance. Besides the above notices of the Coraxi in Strabo and Tzetzes we find little said concerning the breeding of sheep in this part of Asia. Aristotle, however, mentions the sheep of “Pontus near Scythia,” and says that they were without horns[257]. The Melanchlæni also, who are mentioned by Herodotus in his account of the Scythian tribes, and who lived to the north of the Coraxi, were so called, because they wore black palls. [257] Hist. Anim. viii. 28. There can be no doubt, that the use and management of sheep were known from the earliest times throughout nearly the whole of Asia Minor, and that some nations in this region had attained to a superiority in the art before the settlement in it of the Grecian colonists.