GASANDES
Eth.
GASANDES (
Γασανδεῖς), an Arab tribe, mentioned by Diodorus Siculus (3.44), identical with the Cassanitae of Ptolemy, and the Cassandreis of Agatharchides. Diodorus places them, with the Alibaei, next to the Debae, on the south, in agreement with Ptolemy, who finds them south of the Cinaedocolpitae,--his name for the Debae,--and gives Badeo as the name of their capital (6.7.6). Diodorus and Agatharchides agree in remarking on the difference of the climate of this part of Arabia from that of the other parts. “This country,” says Diodorus, “is not scorched as are the neighbouring regions, but is often covered with soft and thick clouds, from which distil snows and refreshing showers, which render even the summer temperate.
The country produces all kinds of fruits, and is remarkably rich, but, owing to the ignorance of the inhabitants, it is not properly cultivated; they collect gold in large quantities, which they find in the natural fissures of the earth, not in the form of golddust, but in nuggets, the smallest of which equal in size the olive-stone; the largest are little inferior to the walnut.
The natives wear them round their wrists and necks, alternated with transparent pebbles. Having an abundance of gold, but a scarcity of copper and iron, they are glad to barter the former with the merchants for an equal weight of the latter.” An identity both of climate and name enables us to fix the Gasandes immediately to the south and south-east of Mekka, in
Mount Gazuan, the country of Zohran, of which Burckhardt reports: “Grapes abound in the mountains., Most other fruits are cultivated in these mountains, where water is at all times abundant, and the climate temperate. Snow has sometimes fallen, and water been frozen, as far as Sadâ.” (
Travels in Arabia, vol. ii. p. 377, quoted by Forster,
Arabia, vol. ii. p. 144.)
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G.W]
