rther from the saltpetre with which their soil or their
atmosphere is impregnated. The sole influence then of their fatherland,
if I may apply to it such a term, is to drive its inhabitants from it to
the West or to the South.

4

I have said that the geographical features of their country carry them
forward in those two directions, the South and the West; not to say that
the ocean forbids them going eastward, and the North does but hold out
to them a climate more inclement than their own. Leaving the district of
Mongolia in the furthermost East, high above the north of China, and
passing through the long and broad valleys which I spoke of just now,
the emigrants at length would arrive at the edge of that elevated
plateau, which constitutes Tartary proper. They would pass over the high
region of Pamer, where are the sources of the Oxus, they would descend
the terrace of the Bolor, and the steeps of Badakshan, and gradually
reach a vast region, flat on the whole as the expanse they had left, but
as strangely depressed below the level of the sea, as Tartary is lifted
above it.[6] This is the country, forming the two basins of the Aral and
the Caspian, which terminates the immense Asiatic plain, and may be
vaguely designated by the name of Turkistan. Hitherto the necessity of
their route would force them on, in one multitudinous emigration, but
now they may diverge, and have diverged. If they were to cross the
Jaxartes and the Oxus, and then to proceed southward, they would come to
Khorasan, the ancient Bactriana, and so to Affghanistan and to Hindostan
on the east, or to Persia on the west. But if, instead, they continued
their westward course, then they would skirt the north coast of the Aral
and the Caspian, cross the Volga, and there would have a second
opportunity, if they chose to avail themselves of it, of descending
southwards, by Georgia and Armenia, either to Syria or to Asia Minor.
Refusing this diversion, and persevering onwards to the west, at length
they would pass the Don, and descend upon Europe across the Ukraine,
Bessarabia, and the Danube.

Such are the three routes,--across the Oxus, across the Caucasus, and
across the Danube,--which the pastoral nations have variously pursued
at various times, when their roving habits, their warlike propensities,
and their discomforts at home, have combined to precipitate them on the
industry, the civilization, and the luxury of the West and of the South.
And at s