mentioned are celebrated in all ages for
those characteristics which render a spot desirable for human
habitation. As to Sogdiana, or Maver-ul-nere, the region with which we
are specially concerned, the Orientals, especially the Persians, of the
medieval period do not know how to express in fit terms their admiration
of its climate and soil. They do not scruple to call it the Paradise of
Asia. "It may be considered," says a modern writer,[23] "as almost the
only example of the finest temperate climate occurring in that
continent, which presents generally an abrupt transition from burning
tropical heat to the extreme cold of the north." According to an Arabian
author, there are just three spots in the globe which surpass all the
rest in beauty and fertility; one of them is near Damascus, another
seems to be the valley of a river on the Persian Gulf, and the third is
the plain of Sogdiana. Another writer says: "I have cast my eyes around
Bokhara, and never have I seen a verdure more fresh or of wider extent.
The green carpet mingles in the horizon with the azure of the sky."[24]
Abulfeda in like manner calls it "the most delightful of all places God
has created." Some recent writer, I think, speaks in disparagement of
it.[25] And I can quite understand, that the deserts which must be
passed to reach it from the south or the north may betray the weary
traveller into an exaggerated praise, which is the expression both of
his recruited spirits and of his gratitude. But all things are good only
by comparison; and I do not see why an Asiatic, having experience of the
sands which elsewhere overspread the face of his continent, should for
that reason be ill qualified to pronounce that Sogdiana affords a
contrast to them. Moreover, we have the experience of other lands, as
Asia Minor, which have presented a very different aspect in different
ages. A river overflows and turns a fruitful plain into a marsh; or it
fails, and turns it into a sandy desert. Sogdiana is watered by a number
of great rivers, which make their way across it from the high land on
its east to the Aral or Caspian. Now we read in history of several
instances of changes, accidental or artificial, in the direction or the
supply of these great water-courses. I think I have read somewhere, but
cannot recover my authority, of some emigration of the inhabitants of
those countries, caused by a failure of the stream on which they
depended. And we know for certain that th