(See his _History of Ancient Geography_, p. 439 _n._) NOTE C.—ASPASIOI ASSAKÊNOI The Aspasioi are the people called by Strabo, in his list of the tribes which occupied the country between the Kôphês and the Indus, the Hippasioi. They are easily to be recognised under either of these names as the Aśvaka who are mentioned in the _Mahâbhârata_ along with the Gândhâra as the barbarous inhabitants of far distant regions in the north. The name of the _Aśvaka_, derived from _aśva_, “a horse,” means cavaliers, and indicates that their country was renowned in primitive times, as it is at the present day, for its superior breed of horses. The fact that the Greeks translated their name into Hippasioi (from ἵππος, a horse) shows that they must have been aware of its etymological signification. V. de Saint-Martin inclines to think that the name of the Hippasioi is partly preserved in that of the Pachaï, a considerable tribe located in the upper regions of the Kôphês basin. It is more distinctly preserved in _Asip_ or _Isap_, the Pukhto name of this tribe, called by Mohammedans the _Yusufzai_. The name of the Assakênoi, like that of the Aspasioi, represents the Sanskrit Aśvaka, which in the popular dialect is changed into Assaka, and by the addition of the Persian plural termination into Assakan, a form which Arrian has all but exactly transcribed, and which appears without any change in the Assakanoi of Strabo and the Assacani of Curtius. They are now represented by the Aspîn of Chitral and the Yashkun of Gilgit. Some writers think, however, that the name of the Assakans or Asvakans is still extant in that of the Afghans, for the change of the sibilant into the rough aspirate is quite normal, and also that of _k_ into _g_, a mute of its own order. Dr. Bellew, however, in his _Inquiry into the Ethnography of Afghanistan_, finds the source of the name in the Armenian Aghván, and says it seems clear from what he has explained that the name Afghân merely means “mountaineer,” and is neither an ethnic term of distinct race nationality nor of earlier origin than the period of the Roman dominion in Asia Minor. See the _Inquiry_, pp. 196-208. NOTE D.—MAZAGA