south of west until reaching Koshteermen below Khojend, where they turn off suddenly to the northward as far as Hazret. From this point to Yany Kurgan the Syr runs in a northwesterly direction, and thence holds on to the westward until it discharges itself into the Aral near the north-eastern extremity of that sea. During the latter part of its course the Syr Darya receives no tributaries, and its volume is sensibly diminished in crossing the desert. Its total length from the source of the Naryn is estimated at 1200 miles. Below Baildyr Tungai, which is 538 miles above Fort Perofski, the Syr is a noble river, from 300 to 800 yards in width and varying in depth from 18 to 30 feet. It flows between steep clay banks which are often flooded at certain seasons of the year, while its current is computed at from 3 to 43 miles per hour, according to the period of the day, -for it runs with the greatest strength between ten and eleven in the morning, when it decreases in velocity till two in the afternoon, about which time it recovers its former force and rapidity. The steamers which descend at the rate of six to ten miles in the hour are content to mount the stream at one-third of that speed. At no great distance from its mouth the Syr spreads out into a marshy brackish delta, not above four feet deep in midchannel and diminishing to a width of 360 feet in the main stream. On both sides a vast plain of grass, or rushes, stretches out far and wide. In 1863 Admiral Boutakof ascended the river as high as Baildyr Tungai, and two years later steamers ascended even to Namangan. That gallant Admiral is said to have surveyed and mapped the Syr for one thousand miles from its embouchure. According to Captain Meyer the course of the river is persistently shifting more and more to the northward, owing to the slow but continuous rising of the land to the south. Throughout the steppe beds of ancient rivers may be traced, while semi-fossilized oceanic molluscs occur in masses, showing that the Aral itself has largely receded from its former limits. Sometimes it happens that a tribe dams up a channel to injure an unfriendly neighbour or rival, and straightway all cultivation ceases, and fields and meadows become an arid waste. Not many years since the main channel of the Syr was the Kuvan Darya, which now stops short in a marshy lake near Khoja Niaz, a hundred miles from the Aral. The present main stream is excessively tortuous between Fort Perofski and Fort 2, and the water has sunk so low that it is navigable for rather less than three months in the year, for vessels drawing three feet of water. It has already been mentioned that the earlier Greek writers regarded the Caspian Sea as a Gulf of the Northern Ocean. Ptolemy, however, observes: 'The Hyrcanian Sea, called also the Caspian, is everywhere shut in by the land, so as to be just the converse of an island encompassed by the water.' By Ibn Haukal it is named the Sea of Khozr, while to the Muscovites it was originally known as the Sea of Kwalis, that being the name they applied to the tribes dwelling near its shores. In the 14th and 15th centuries it was called the Sea of Baku, from the chief port on the western coast, while Abu'l-Ghazee Khan alludes to it in the 17th century by its Persian appellation of the Sea of Kulsum. It was first navigated by Patroclus, the Admiral of Seleucus and Antiochus. The historical associations connected with this sea will, however, be described in a subsequent chapter. The water appeared to General Abbott as being very salt, but not bitter, and as clear as crystal. The sea lies in a basin of fossiliferous limestone, the eastern shores being low and swampy, but at the north-eastern extremity precipitous cliffs rise almost out of the water to the height of 700 feet. There are no tides, but, as Jonas Hanway remarks, 'a prodigious current and confused sea' often result from a sudden change of the wind after it has been blowing for some time from the northward. The Caspian Sea is about 640 miles in length from north to south, and from 100 to 200 miles broad. In the centre it is deep, but shallow at the sides, and, although it receives the waters of eighty-four streams in addition to the stupendous discharge of the Volga, it has no outlet, and preserves its level solely by evaporation. Conjointly with the Aral, it drains an area 2000 miles in length from the sources of the Volga to those of the Syr, and 1800 miles in breadth from the headstreams of the Koanna in North Russia, to those of the Sefid Rood in Koordistan. The smaller rivers, the lakes, the mountains, and the deserts of Central Asia, will each be described in connection with the countries or provinces to which they respectively belong.. EARLY CHAPTER II. EARLY HISTORY. INHABITANTS-SCYTHIANS-UNDER DARIUS AND XERXES-MOUNT IMAUS MARGIANA-BACTRIA-SOGDIANA-ALEXANDER'S ZULKARNAIN-THE GRECO-BACTRIAN CAMPAIGNS KINGDOM-THE PAR SIKUNDER IN Canon Rawlinson's edition of Herodotus, excellent reasons are given for regarding Armenia as the cradle of the Aryan race. At some very remote period three kindred streams of migration are supposed to have issued, perhaps contemporaneously, from their common source, and to have flowed, one to the northward across the Caucasus, a second in a westerly direction across Asia Minor into Europe, while the third turned to the south-east and stopped only at the Indus. After a time this last-mentioned branch became straitened for space, and, in the 15th century before the Christian era, divided into two floods of emigration and conquest, the one gradually spreading over Hindostan, and driving the Turanian aborigines into the mountains, while the other crossed the Hindoo Koosh and subjected or expelled the Scythian or Turanian races known as Sogdians, Bactrians, Arians (of Herat), Hyrcanians, Arachosians, and people of Ragiana and Media Atropatene, the Modern Azerbijan: here, too, the aboriginal inhabitants fleeing into the mountains and deserts. Turanian dialects prevailed from the Caucasus to the Indian Ocean, from the Mediterranean to the Ganges, and perhaps throughout the whole of Asia. Even now they are spoken by all the various races which wander over the vast steppes of Northern Asia and Eastern Europe; by the hill tribes of India, and by many nations of the Eastern Archipelago.' This Turanian or Scythic element was still strong in the time of Herodotus. To that stock belonged the Sacæ, the Parthians, the Asiatic Ethiopians, the Colchians, the Sapeiri, the Tibareni, and the Moschi. Closely allied, too, were the Armenians, the Cappadocians, the Susianians, and the Chaldæans of Babylon. The race, however, is now extinct. In vain we look for their descendants at the present day. ** The Scyths have disappeared from the earth. Like the American Aztecs, whom they resembled in some degree, they have been swept away by the current of immigration, and, except in the mounds which cover their land, and in the pages of the historian or the ethnologist, not a trace remains to tell of their past existence,'-though some writers have too hastily confounded the Scythians with the Mongolians, attributing a like origin to both. The empire of Darius Hystaspes-the Gushtasp of Firdousi -was divided into 20 satrapies, of which the Fifteenth comprised the Saca and the Caspians, whose joint tribute amounted to 250 talents per annum, while to the Sixteenth belonged the Parthians, the Chorasmians, the Sogdians, and the Herat Arians, whose annual tribute was 300 talents. The army of Xerxesthe Isfundear of Firdousi-was largely recruited from the warlike peoples of Central Asia. The Bactrians went to the war wearing a head-dress very like the Median, but armed with bows of cane, after the custom of their country, and with short spears. The Sacæ, or Scyths, were clad in trousers, and had on their heads tall stiff caps rising to a point. They bore the bow of their country and the dagger; besides which they carried the battle-axe, or sagaris. They were, in truth, Amyrgian Scythians (from the confines of India), but the Persians call |