The ancients had evidently formed no theory as to whence the Pelasgi came, but were satisfied with the notion of their autochthoneïty,[9] which we cannot adopt. It must be acknowledged, however, that we are little able to trace them with certainty beyond the limits of Greece, before their arrival in that country. My own opinion is, that when the migrations began from that vast and lofty table land of Central Asia, which formed the primitive abode of mankind, and where the mother language of the Sanskrit, the Greek, and many other dialects was first spoken, the illustrious race, afterwards known under the name of Pelasgi, moved westward by the Caspian, along the Caucasian range, through Armenia and Kourdistân, until they descended into the plains of Asia Minor. Here we seem to touch upon the obscurest verge of Grecian fable, for the tradition which sent Argo to Colchis, at the Eastern extremity of the Black Sea, evidently contemplated the people of the land as a kindred race, of similar faith, character, and manners. By what precise channel the stream of population rolled westward, cannot be determined: but here and there, on the southern shores of the Euxine, we discover some obscure footsteps of the parents of the Greeks, as they continued their journeyings towards the land which they were afterwards to encircle with glory. Moving through Pontos, Paphlagonia, and Bithynia, they appear everywhere to have made settlements on the coast, until they reached the narrow stream of the Bosporos, over which they threw themselves into Europe. Footnote 9: Marsh. Chron. Sec. ix. p. 130.