Page:A general history for colleges and high schools (Myers, 1890).djvu/424

370 maintaining there what is called the New Persian Empire, the kings of which, until the rise of the Saracens in the seventh century, were the most formidable rivals of the emperors of Constantinople.

The Arabians were hidden in their deserts; but in the seventh century we shall see them, animated by -a wonderful religious fanaticism, issue from their peninsula and begin a contest with the Christian nations of the East and the West which, in its varying phases, was destined to fill a large part of the mediaeval period.

The Tartar tribes were buried in Central Asia. They will appear late in the eleventh century, proselytes for the most part of Mohammedanism; and, as the religious ardor of the Semitic Arabians grows cool, we shall see the Crescent upheld by these zealous converts of another race, and finally, in the fifteenth century, placed by the Turks upon the dome of St. Sophia in Constantinople.

As the Middle Ages draw to a close, the remote nations of Eastern Asia will gradually come within our circle of vision; and, as the Modern Age dawns, we shall catch a glimpse of new continents and strange races of men beyond the Atlantic.