features of much beauty and attraction. This strip, narrow compared to
the desert on either side of it, is yet, looked at by itself, a region
of no inconsiderable dimensions, extending, as it does from east to
west, a distance of 320, and from north to south of nearly 200 miles.
The mountain chain, which running southward of the Caspian, skirts the
great plateau of Iran, or Persia, on the north, broadens out, after
it passes the south-eastern corner of the sea, into a valuable and
productive mountain-region. Four or five distinct ranges here run
parallel to one another, having between them latitudinal valleys, with
glens transverse to their courses. The sides of the valleys are often
well wooded; the flat ground at the foot of the hills is fertile; water
abounds; and the streams gradually collect into rivers of a considerable
size.

The fertile territory in this quarter is further increased by the
extension of cultivation to a considerable distance from the base of
the most southern of the ranges, in the direction of the Great Iranic
desert. The mountains send down a number of small streams towards
the south; and the water of these, judiciously husbanded by means of
reservoirs and _kanats_, is capable of spreading fertility over a broad
belt at the foot of the hills; which, left to nature, would be almost as
barren as the desert itself, into which it would, in fact, be absorbed.

It was undoubtedly in the region which has been thus briefly described
that the ancient home of the Parthians lay. In this neighborhood alone
are found the geographic names which the most ancient writers who
mention the Parthians connect with them. Here evidently the Parthians
were settled at the time when Alexander the Great overran the East, and
first made the Greeks thoroughly familiar with the Parthian name and
territory. Here, lastly, in the time of the highest Parthian splendor