to the borders of India. Whence then came that great
and N powerful race, who suddenly- overturned all the
dynasties of Asia, subdued-the civilised parts of Africa,
and of Europe ? Were, they one, perhaps the first, of
those great swarms, who, from the - remote , regions of
High Asia, have poured themselves down in different ages
to overrun the Eastern World; or had- they been, as it
is generally supposed, the primeval inhabitants of some
region in the. vast extent of Iran, who,vtlikej the Arabs
in later times, after remaining for ages .in quiet obscurity,
suddenly emerged, as if moved by some inward impulse,
and, like that people,-became almost universal conquerors?
In order to answer this question, and .various*inquiries
which—are connected wi t h -we -mu s t enteTvIh®? ;*som e
investigations.
- Before we proceed to the history off the Persian race,
it will be advisable to take a brief survey of thp^geo-;
graphical features of the country which they inhabited.
Iran, the country off the Arian, or MetknPersian race,
is, for the most part, a plateau, or high tableland. It is
bounded on the east by the long valley through which
the Indus, after penetrating the barrier of the Himalayan
chain, takes its course from north to south; and on the
west by the channels of the Assyrian rivers, and by. the
Persian Gulph. This high region"forms a. .four-sided
figure* nearly that of a parallelogram, but. having .its
greatest length on the northern border, which faces, the
Caspian Sea and the plains of Turkistan, qpd its greatest
breadth towards the east and the valley of the Indus,
The western border of Iran seems. shortened where the
land is contracted between the southern extremity of the
Caspian and the northern end of the Persian Gulph ;
while the chains of bordering mountains, taking on this
side an oblique direction from north-west to south-east,
namely, from Tabriz, or even from Mount Ararat, towards
Ormuz and the corner of the Persian Gulph, shorten,
by One third, the southern side of the rectangle, or cause
the whole outline of this region to assume the form of an
irregular trapezium. Ther whole extent of the space
included • between these boundaries is from 70 to 80
thousand square geographical miles, or about one-tenth
part of the whole Surface of Asia. A traveller who takes
his way from the low valley of the Indus and traverses
the eastern border formed by the long chain of the mountains
of :Soliman, or one Who, from the north and from the
plains ||i;Turkistan,^fows the path of many a nomadic
tribe .through Ferghana and Badakshan, and passes the
Jaxartes and theVGxus, and the borders of Samarkand and
Bokhara or of Balkh towards the northern boundary, enters
in either direction on an Upland raised between three and
four thousand feet in average elevation above the lower
country whence «he commenced his journey. The Iranian
table-land is insulated or s.Urroundd<f ,by low tracts, except on
the angle which points .towards the north-east. In that
.jfuarter^il is joined' by a great, isthmus' of high land to
the^iofty yegion of Eastern Turkistan and Tibet, and the
greater plateau of High Asia. This isthmus, as it may
be|tetEhed , !is formed by the Alpine-heights of the Hindu-
Khushj pr Indidrt Caucasus, which reach above the level
of pbrpetual snow. The northern'boundary of Iran, if
we trace it from its*? eastern extremity; stretches westward
from the Hindu-Khush towards Bamian and HeraIt n, nanl ongo:
the northern limit of Khorasan and Kohestan ; it subsides
on the borders of Balkh and Herat into hills of moderate
elevation,* but rises again further to the westward, in
Hyrcania, into the heights of Elburz and the snowy tops
of Demavend; thence reaching, still in the same direction,
Georgia, it joins itself to the very nucleus of Mount Taurus.
The Imaus and the Paropamisus of the ancients, were
parts * of this series of mountainous elevations, and were
regarded by Strabo and Pliny as a great ramification- or
northern extension Mount Tau r u s . T h i s northern
* Ritter’s Erdkunde. ^Sce, also* Lt. A. Conolly’s Narrative of an Overland
Journey to India, vol. 1, p. 227. •*
' 1 f Plinii H. N. 5i 27. .
Tire chain of Taurus was, by the early Greeks, before the expedition of
Alexander, confined to Asia Minor. Arrian, but particularly Strabo, following
Eratosthenes and Pliny, gives it a much greater extent, and describes it as rising
from the coasts of Pamphylia and Cilicia, and reaching, by the Hyrcanian or