its mines of rubies, which to this day
are the object of the traveller's curiosity.[31] I might extend my
remarks to the country south of the Oxus and of its mountain range, the
modern Affghanistan. Though Cabul is 6,000 feet above the level of the
sea, it abounds in pomegranates, mulberries, apples, and fruit of every
kind. Grapes are so plentiful, that for three months of the year they
are given to the cattle.

6.

This region, favoured in soil and climate, is favoured also in position.
Lying at the mouth of the two great roads of emigration from the far
East, the valleys of the Jaxartes and the Oxus, it is the natural mart
between High Asia and Europe, receiving the merchandize of East and
North, and transporting it by its rivers, by the Caspian, the Kur, and
the Phasis, to the Black Sea. Thus it received in former days the silk
of China, the musk of Thibet, and the furs of Siberia, and shipped them
for the cities of the Roman Empire. To Samarcand, its metropolis, we owe
the art of transforming linen into paper, which the Sogdian merchants
are said to have gained from China, and thence diffused by means of
their own manufacturers over the western world. A people so
circumstanced could not be without civilization; but that civilization
was of a much earlier date. It must not be forgotten that the celebrated
sage, Zoroaster, before the times of history, was a native, and, as some
say, king of Bactriana. Cyrus had established a city in the same region,
which he called after his name. Alexander conquered both Bactriana and
Sogdiana, and planted Grecian cities there. There is a long line of
Greco-Bactrian kings; and their coins and paterae have been brought to
light within the last few years. Alexander's name is still famous in the
country; not only does Marco Polo in the middle ages speak of his
descendants as still found there, but even within the last fifteen years
Sir Alexander Burns found a man professing that descent in the valley of
the Oxus, and Lieutenant Wood another in the same neighbourhood.

Nor was Greek occupation the only source of the civilization of
Sogdiana. Centuries rolled on, and at length the Saracens renewed, on
their own peculiar basis, the mental cultivation which Sogdiana had
received from Alexander. The cities of Bokhara and Samarcand have been
famous for science and literature. Bokhara was long celebrated as the
most eminent seat of Mahometan learning in central Asia; its colleges
were, a