period of the Empire.

The plan adopted in former portions of this work makes it necessary,
before concluding this chapter, to glance briefly at the character of
the various countries and districts by which Media was bordered--the
Caspian district upon the north, Armenia upon the north-west, the Zagros
region and Assyria upon the west, Persia proper upon the south, and upon
the east Sagartia and Parthia.

North and north-east of the mountain range which under different names
skirts the southern shores of the Caspian Sea and curves round
its south-western corner, lies a narrow but important strip of
territory--the modern Ghilan and Mazanderan. [PLATE II., Fig. 2.] This
is a most fertile region, well watered and richly wooded, and forms one
of the most valuable portions of the modern kingdom of Persia. At first
it is a low flat tract of deep alluvial soil, but little raised above
the level of the Caspian; gradually however it rises into swelling
hills which form the supports of the high mountains that shut in this
sheltered region, a region only to be reached by a very few passes over
or through them. The mountains are clothed on this side nearly to their
summit with dwarf oaks, or with shrubs and brushwood; while, lower
down, their flanks are covered with forests of elms, cedars, chestnuts,
beeches, and cypress trees. The gardens and orchards of the natives
are of the most superb character; the vegetation is luxuriant; lemons,
oranges, peaches, pomegranates, besides other fruits, abound; rice,
hemp, sugar-canes, mulberries are cultivated with success; vines grow
wild; and the valleys are strewn with flowers of rare fragrance, among
which may be noted the rose, the honeysuckle, and the sweetbrier.
Nature, however, with her usual justice, has balanced these
extraordinary advantages with peculiar drawbacks; the tiger, unknown