Page:History of Art in Persia.djvu/18

 The Countr^y. 3 green slopes, the result of abundant rains, are seldom seen save towards the Persian Gulf, the Caspian and Indian Seas. The contrast between the two zones is so great as to have elicited the remarks of every European traveller makinj^ his way from Russia or Turkey, and entering Persia by Tiflis, Erivan, and Taurus, or Bagdad and Hamadan. To the westward, the valley of the Tigris and the bay, which is but the prolongation of it, consist of mountain ranges forming a network over an immense tract of country. These mountains slope down to the water's edge by a series of terraces upheld by vertical walls, broken here and there by impetuous streams tearing with irresistible force to join the river on the left bank. Beyond these high mountains immense plains, destitute of running water, stretch away to the east with a scarcely perceptible indtne, as far as the Indian Ocean and the closed basin of Helmend, which descends firom fihe Hindu- Kush range. Geologists tell us that the formation of iAie Iran plateau is to be explained by an overflowing from the north, which filled the spacious basin comprised between the Hindu- Kush and the chain of Zagros during one or two consecutive upheavals. The alluvium brought by the flood left everything covered exeept the very top, whose peaks shoot up like rocks out of the sea. Hence it is that throughout this region short plains and mountains succeed each other without transition. The summits of the latter are splintered up, and their sides so precipitous that no vegetable soil can adhere to their surface; there is not a tree to be seen, not even herbaceous plants, lichens, or mosses ; for the rain-waters are drained as they foil, and percolating the soil, which everywhere is extremely porous, they collect into subterraneous depressions of no great depth, extending beneath the arid surface of the tablelands.* Necessity taught man in early days to find out the cool, refreshing liquid in these exhaustless reservoirs, in order to water and fertilize a few patches, at least, of a land that at first sight might seem doomed to everlasting sterility. The western portion of Iran is that which alone is of any account in history, at least in the history of the ancient world. This privilege at first was due to its situation as neighbour of that Mesopotamia where civilization, favoured by the marvellous pro- ductiveness of the soil, sprang into being as early as in Egypt, and where^ from those remote days to the present hour, powerful Digitized by Copgle
 * DiBULAfov, VAflMiifMe, etc., torn. ii. pp. 3-8.