[Footnote 164:  Lord Curzon, in his work on Persia, devotes chap. xix in vol.  II to a description of the City of Ispahan, and of his journey there.  Chap. xx contains an account of his journey from Ispahan to Shiraz.  The distance between the two cities is 81 parasangs, equivalent to 312 miles.  It will be seen that here, as well as in the cases of Ghaznah, Samarkand, and Tibet, Benjamin altogether under-estimates the true distances.]

[Footnote 165:  Asher, following the printed editions, quotes the Jewish population of this place as 8,000, and assumes, without any justification, that Khiva is here referred to.  He also substitutes Oxus for Gozan.  In the Middle Ages the Oxus was known under the name of Jayhun or Gihon (Gen. ii. 13).  The name of the city according to our text is Ghaznah, which eight hundred years ago was the capital of Afghanistan.  Ibn Batuta says it was ten stages from Kandahar on the way to Herat.  Le Strange (p. 348) writes as follows:  “Ghaznah became famous in history at the beginning of the eleventh century as the capital of the great Mahmud of Ghaznah, who at one time was master both of India on the east and Bagdad on the west.”  Istakhri says:  “No city of this countryside was richer in merchants and merchandise, for it was as the port of India.”  The river Gozan, on which we are told Ghaznah lies, must appear to the reader to be ubiquitous.  On p. 33 we find the Habor of Kurdistan is its affluent; on p. 55 it is at Dabaristan; on p. 59 in Khorasan.  There is a simple solution of the difficulty.  In each of the localities Benjamin was told that the river was called Gozan; for in the Mongolian language “Usun” is the name for water or river.  Thus “Kisil-Usun” means “Red River.”  The addition of a “g” before a “u” or “w” is quite a common feature in language; it occurs, for instance, in the Romance and Keltic languages.]

[Footnote 166:  The British Museum text has:  “And he put them in Halah and in Habor and the mountains of Gozan and the mountains of the Medes.”  Having regard to the passages 2 Kings xix. 12 and Isaiah xxxvii. 12, Noeldeke maintains that there was a tract of land watered by the river Gozan, known as Gozanitis, which Scripture refers to.  See J.  Q.R., vol.  I, p. 186.

     Naisabur is a city near Meshed, and close to high mountains
     which are a continuation of the Elburz mountain range.

We draw attention to the cautious manner in which Benjamin speaks here and elsewhere when alluding to the whereabouts of any of the ten tribes.  The tradition is widespread that independent Jewish tribes were to be found in Khorasan until recent times.  Mr. E.N.  Adler was told that in an Armenian monastery near Kutais, ancient records are preserved which conclusively prove that the Jews were paramount in certain districts three or four centuries ago; Jews in many Lands,