Page:Outlines of European History.djvu/84

 K. ..M^lli.i.. 1 Ill ,1., ,iillhi,>. I nil ii'Hlli.li I CHAPTER III WESTERN ASIA : BABYLONIA, ASSYRIA, AND CHALDEA Section io. The Lands and Races of Western Asia Water boundaries of western Asia Mountainous north ; desert south The fertile crescent between The westernmost reach of Asia is an irregular region roughly- included within the circuit of waters marked out by the Caspian and Black seas on the north, by the Mediterranean and the Red seas on the west, and by the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf on the south and east. It is a region consisting chiefly of mountains on the north and desert on the south. The earli- est home of men in this great arena of western Asia is a borderland between desert and mountains — a kind of culti- vable fringe of the desert — a fertile crescent having the moun- tains on one side and the desert on the other. This fertile crescent is approximately a semicircle, with the open side toward the south, having the west end at the southeast comer of the Mediterranean, the center directly north of Arabia, and the east end at the north end of the Persian Gulf (see map, p. 56). It lies like an army facing south, with one wing stretching along the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, the other reaching out to the Persian Gulf, while the center has its 56