Walid, and thus 'the race of the caliphs and imams was ennobled by the blood of their royal mothers.'

The Sassanian dynasty reigned over Persia for 415 years, but their power extended beyond the Oxus under the ablest princes of the race, and Sir John Malcolm asserts that their memory is still cherished by a nation whose ancient glory is associated with the names of Ardisheer, Shahpoor, and Nousheerwan.' Be that as it may, although the final victory of the Arabs was achieved at Nehavund, A.D. 651, or in the year of the Hijra 28, it was not until A.D. 706 that Transoxiana, or, as it then came to be called, Mawaralnahr, was finally subdued by Walid's lieutenant Kotaiba Ibn Moslem, or Catibah, 'the camel-driver,' who imposed upon the infidels a tribute of two millions of pieces of gold, broke or burnt their idols, delivered a sermon in the mosque of Khwarezm or Khiva, drove the Toorkish hordes to the desert, and overawed the Chinese.

To their (the victorious Arabs) industry, the prosperity of the province, the Sogdiana of the ancients, may in a great measure be ascribed, but the advantages of the soil and climate had been understood and cultivated since the reign of the Macedonian kings. Before the invasion of the Saracens, Carizme, Bochara, and Samarcand were rich and populous under the yoke of the shepherds of the North. These cities were surrounded with a double wall; and the exterior fortification, of a larger circumference, enclosed the fields and gardens of the adjacent district. The mutual wants of India and Europe were supplied by the diligence of the Sogdian merchants, and the inestimable art of transforming linen into paper has been diffused from the manufacture of Samarcand over the western world.'

There is, doubtless, some degree of truth in this ornate picture, but it is strange that so keen a critic as Gibbon did not see in the necessity of an 'exterior fortification' irresistible

evidence of the unsettled state of the country, and of the general insecurity of life and property. That double line of circumvallation has been noticed by modern travellers, but no one has ventured to cite the fact as a proof of order and prosperity. The manufacture of linen paper, it may be added, was not introduced into Samarkand from China until the middle of the seventh century, or about twenty-five years before Saad, the Mussulman Governor of Khorassan, made his entry into that city, and it had long before been in use among the Persians. The shepherds of the north' were not likely to place a high value upon the possession of an 'inestimable art,' which had nothing to do with the rearing of sheep or horses. It was certainly through the Arabs that paper made from linen first found its into Europe from the far East.

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At the same time it sufficiently appears from Colonel Yule's exceedingly interesting book on 'Cathay and the Way Thither,' that in the sixth century the Toorkish Court had attained to a high degree of semi-barbarous magnificence. That learned and accomplished geographer quotes a fragment of Menander Protector, in which it is related how the Toorks sent an embassy to the Emperor Justinian at Byzantium. The Sogdians had previously prevailed upon Dizabulus, the great Khan of the Toorks, who had won their country from the Ephthalites or White Huns, to endeavour to obtain permission from Nousheerwan, King of Persia, to carry their silken goods into his territories, as to a new market. That monarch, however, was advised by his counsellors that it would be highly inexpedient for the Persians to enter into friendly relations with the Turks, for the whole race of the Scythians was not to be trusted.' Poison was consequently administered to the unfortunate envoys, and in most instances with fatal effect, whilst the king caused it to be whispered about among the Persians that the Turkish ambassadors had died of the suffocating dry heat of the Persian

climate; for their own country was subject to frequent falls of snow, and they could not exist except in a cold climate.' The Khan was not deceived, but was compelled to dissemble his indignation, and to content himself with despatching to Byzantium the chief man among the Sogdians, named Maniach, in company with an envoy from his own court, in order to 'cultivate the friendship of the Romans, and to transfer the sale of silk to them, seeing also that they consumed it more largely than any other people. . And thus it was that the nation of the Turks became friends with the Romans.'

These friendly overtures were well received, and a return embassy under Zemarchus was despatched by the Emperor Justinian to the Toorks, who were anciently called Sacæ.' On the arrival of the Byzantine ambassadors in Sogdiana, they were presented with some specimens of iron from the Sogdian mines, which they appear to have regarded as a piece of brag on the part of the barbarians. Colonel Yule, however, suggests that they were simply presented with the bar, or lump, of iron, annually forged by the Toorks in memory of their original settlement on the Altai Mountains, where they worked as smiths and armourers in the service of the Khan of the Geugen. Zemarchus, his suite and baggage, were then purified from all evil intents by passing between two fires, and at last reached the camp of Dizabulus pitched in a valley beyond the Jaxartes, perhaps at Ming Bulak, or, the Thousand Springs; though Sir Henry Rawlinson is probably more correct in placing the Khakhan's encampment at the foot of the Ak-tagh, or White Mountains, to the north of Samarkand.

The envoys were at once conducted to the Khakhan's tent, in which they found him 'seated on a golden chair with two wheels, which could be drawn by one horse when required.' The audience being over, they were invited to a feast, and spent the rest of the day convivially, in a tent that was

furnished with silken hangings of various colours artfully wrought. They were supplied with wine, not pressed from the grape like ours, for their country does not produce the vine, nor is it customary among them to use grape wine, but what they got to drink was some other kind of barbarian liquor. . . Next day again they assembled in another pavilion, adorned in like manner with rich hangings of silk, in which figures of different kinds were wrought. Dizabulus was seated on a couch that was all of gold, and in the middle of the pavilion were drinking vessels, and flagons, and great jars, all of gold. So they engaged in another drinking match, talking and listening to such purpose as people do in their drink, and then separated. The following day there was another bout in a pavilion supported by wooden posts covered with gold, and in which there was a gilded throne resting on four golden peacocks. In front of the place of meeting there was a great array of waggons in which there was a huge quantity of silver articles, consisting of plates and dishes, besides numerous figures of animals in silver, in no respect inferior to our own. To such a pitch has attained the luxury of the Toorkish sovereign.'

To foreign artisans, however, rather than to his own may be fairly attributable the beauty of his 'silver articles,' the spoils of plundered cities. On their homeward journey, Justinian's envoys are said to have reached the Oech,' or Oxus, and then 'the great and wide lagoon,' evidently the Aral. Crossing the Ust Urt they at last came to the Volga, and finally took ship at Trapezus, or Trebizond, for Byzantium. Sir Henry Rawlinson, it may be remarked, maintains that Zemarchus passed over the bed of the Aral, without being aware that it was a sea, and is of opinion that the ambassador took nearly a bee line from the Toorkish encampment to the Volga. But in that case, how came he to sight the Oech, or Oxus?

Anthonan the Moslem supremacy was established by Kstalba grer the whole of Mavarinahr, or the region beyond the var Cras in the first decade of the eighth century, the small Chinese States grouped together as Tokbars, or Takharistan, continued for many years afterwards to send envoys to Singinfu in token of their faithful allegiance, and it was not until a. D. 730 that route was paid to the Kuulf by the petty principalities in the valleys of the upper Oxus.

The condition of Mawaralmahr in the tenth century is denicted by the Arab traveller Ton Haukil-as translated by Sir William Ouseley-in the most glowing colours. The inhabitants are represented as people of probity and virtue, averse from evil and fond of peace." Such was the productiveness of the soil that every year enough corn was laid up to compensate for deficient harvests in the other regions.

Every kind of fruit and meat, writes the enthusiastic wanderer, abounds there; and the water is most delicious. The cattle are excellent; the sheep from Turkestan, Ghaznien, and Somarcand, are highly esteemed in all places. Maweralnahr affords raw silk, wool, and goats') hair in great quantities. Its