rom the Chaboras, to the cultivated lands of Assyria,
may be considered as a part of the desert of Arabia, a dry and barren
waste, which could never be improved by the most powerful arts of human
industry. Julian marched over the same ground which had been trod above
seven hundred years before by the footsteps of the younger Cyrus, and
which is described by one of the companions of his expedition, the sage
and heroic Xenophon. [47] "The country was a plain throughout, as even
as the sea, and full of wormwood; and if any other kind of shrubs or
reeds grew there, they had all an aromatic smell, but no trees could be
seen. Bustards and ostriches, antelopes and wild asses, [48] appeared
to be the only inhabitants of the desert; and the fatigues of the march
were alleviated by the amusements of the chase." The loose sand of the
desert was frequently raised by the wind into clouds of dust; and a
great number of the soldiers of Julian, with their tents, were suddenly
thrown to the ground by the violence of an unexpected hurricane.

[Footnote 44: Before he enters Persia, Ammianus copiously describes
(xxiii. p. 396-419, edit. Gronov. in 4to.) the eighteen great provinces,
(as far as the Seric, or Chinese frontiers,) which were subject to the
Sassanides.]

[Footnote 45: Ammianus (xxiv. 1) and Zosimus (l. iii. p. 162, 163)
rately expressed the order of march.]

[Footnote 46: The adventures of Hormisdas are related with some mixture
of fable, (Zosimus, l. ii. p. 100-102; Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs
tom. iv. p. 198.) It is almost impossible that he should be the brother
(frater germanus) of an eldest and posthumous child: nor do I recollect
that Ammianus ever gives him that title. * Note: St. Martin conceives
that he was an elder brother by another mother who had several children,
ii. 24--M.]

[Footnote 47: See the first book of the Anabasis, p. 45, 46. This
pleasing work is original and authentic. Yet Xenophon's memory, perhaps
many years after the expedition, has sometimes betrayed him; and the
distances which he marks are often larger than either a soldier or a
geographer will allow.]

[Footnote 48: Mr. Spelman, the English translator of the Anabasis, (vol.
i. p. 51,) confounds the antelope with the roebuck, and the wild ass
with the zebra.]

The sandy plains of Mesopotamia were abandoned to the antelopes and wild
asses of the desert; but a variety of populous towns and villages were
pleasantly situated on the banks of