"Perhaps I ought to apologize for this map, Captain Ringgold," said Mr. Gaskette, when he had unrolled the huge sheet; "for the boundaries of these ancient countries are so indefinite in the great atlas that I have not been able to lay down all of them."
"You have done exceedingly well, Mr. Gaskette, and I think the professor can ask for nothing better than you have given him," replied the commander.
"Certainly not," added the learned gentleman. "I can give the boundaries no more definitely than they are presented on this beautiful map. I am extremely delighted to have the assistance which it will afford me. The artist might have guessed at some of the division lines, as others have done. He has given us Mesopotamia, Susiana, and the region between them, and that is all I desire.
"Perhaps I shall disappoint you, Mr. Commander, by the meagreness of my description of these ancient countries; for these subjects in detail would be very tiresome to the company under present circumstances, and I propose to bring out only a few salient points in regard to them," said the professor.
"The only thing I feared, Professor, was that you would go into them too diffusely, forgetting that your audience are not savants, or even college students, such as you have been in the habit of addressing. I am very glad to find that you have just the right idea in regard to the situation," replied Captain Ringgold.
"It is fortunate that we agree," continued the instructor, as he took the pointer and turned to the map. "This map lays before you the region lying to the north-east of Arabia, on the port hand of the ship, as the commander would say; and with your imagination you can look over these mountains and sands and see it. You observe that Syria is on the west of the northern part of it, with Armenia just where it is now, on the north of it, though there was more of it then than now; for in ancient times it reached to the Caspian Sea. An old lady in the country at whose house I used to spend my vacation used to call things that could not be changed as fixed as the laws of the 'Medes and Parsicans.' She meant the Medes and Persians; and Media, now a part of Persia, was the eastern boundary of the region mapped out On the south-east is Susiana, now a large portion of Persia.