effected it; Sogdiana was at its
very extremity, or its borderland; there the last king of Persia took
refuge from the south, while the Turks were pouring into it from the
north. There was little to choose for the unfortunate prince between the
Turk and the Saracen; the Turks were his hereditary foe; they had been
the giants and monsters of the popular poetry; but he threw himself into
their arms. They engaged in his service, betrayed him, murdered him, and
measured themselves with the Saracens in his stead. Thus the military
strength of the north and south of Asia, the Saracenic and the Turkish,
came into memorable conflict in the regions of which I have said so
much. The struggle was a fierce one, and lasted many years; the Turks
striving to force their way down to the ocean, the Saracens to drive
them back into their Scythian deserts. They first fought this issue in
Bactriana or Khorasan; the Turks got the worst of the fight, and then
it was thrown back upon Sogdiana itself, and there it ended again in
favour of the Saracens. At the end of 90 years from the time of the
first Turkish descent on this fair region, they relinquished it to their
Mahometan opponents. The conquerors found it rich, populous, and
powerful; its cities, Carisme, Bokhara, and Samarcand, were surrounded
beyond their fortifications by a suburb of fields and gardens, which was
in turn protected by exterior works; its plains were well cultivated,
and its commerce extended from China to Europe. Its riches were
proportionally great; the Saracens were able to extort a tribute of two
million gold pieces from the inhabitants; we read, moreover, of the
crown jewels of one of the Turkish princesses; and of the buskin of
another, which she dropt in her flight from Bokhara, as being worth two
thousand pieces of gold.[34] Such had been the prosperity of the
barbarian invaders, such was its end; but not _their_ end, for adversity
did them service, as well as prosperity, as we shall see.

It is usual for historians to say, that the triumph of the South threw
the Turks back again upon their northern solitudes; and this might
easily be the case with some of the many hordes, which were ever passing
the boundary and flocking down; but it is no just account of the
historical fact, viewed as a whole. Not often indeed do the Oriental
nations present us with an example of versatility of character; the
Turks, for instance, of this day are substantially what they were fou