This people, who must certainly have bordered on the Bactrians, dwelt probably either on the Pamir Steppe, or on the high plain of Chinese Tartary, east of the Bolar range--the modern districts of Kashgar and Yarkand.

They were reckoned excellent soldiers.

They fought with the bow, the dagger, and the battle-axe, and were equally formidable on horseback and on foot.

In race they were probably Tatars or Turanians, and their descendants or their congeners are to be seen in the modern inhabitants of these regions.

According to Ctesias, their women took the field in almost equal numbers with their men; and the mixed army which resisted Cyrus amounted, including both sexes, to half a million.