and fruits, in their fresh and dried state, are carried from Afghanistan to all parts of India. The chief domestic animals are horses, camels, and sheep, the latter being of the fat-tailed variety. In the west, wild asses, wild goats, and wild sheep, are not uncommon. The chief exports are fruit, horses, and wool.

9. The population of Afghanistan has been estimated at between five and six millions, but in reality we know very little about the number of people living in the outof-the-way parts. The only towns of importance are Kabul, Ghuzni, Kandahar, and Herat. It should be added that the Bolan Pass to Quetta in Beluchistan, and the Khyber Pass to Kabul, which are regarded as the northwestern gates of India, are practically in the hands of Great Britain.

LESSON XXVI.

PERSIA.

1. Persia is a plateau five times the size of Great Britain, but not quite so populous as Ireland. This country ranks among the most famous nations of the world if we consider its past; but, looking at it from its present point of view, it is one of the poorest and least important of the greater states of Asia.

2. Persia is a country for which nature has done little, and for which, therefore, man must do much. It is a great upland, averaging 2,500 feet above the sea-level. The only level portions are those skirting the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf, and the southern shore of the Caspian. The northern margin of the plateau is marked by the Elburz Mountains, and the southern by the parallel chains of the Kohrud Mountains and the yet partially explored and often snow-capped ranges of the provinces of Kurdistan, Farsistan, and Laristan.

3. The high plains which extend between these mountain barriers are sandy and sterile wastes, except

where irrigated by the few rivers which intersect the country. The streams are dependent for their supply of water on the rain or snow which falls on the mountains, and when these fail a famine is the result. There are some extensive lakes lying in the mountain valleys. Of these Lake Urumiah, in the north-western corner of the country, lies nearly 4,000 feet above the level of the sea. Its waters are so salt that fish cannot live in them.

4. The climate of Persia is so extreme that it has been said that people perish with cold at one extremity, while they are suffocated with heat at the other. This is to some extent true. The summers are excessively hot, and the winters, in many parts of the country, are proportionately cold. The only region where the climate is comparatively equable is along the shores of the Caspian, but here it is unhealthy. In the lowland along the Persian Gulf, the heat of the summer is almost unbearable; but the winter and spring are most enjoyable. The greatest extremes are met with in the interior. Here the winters are as piercingly cold as the summers are oppressively hot. As the summer progresses, the heat gets so intolerable in a city like Teheran, that every one who can afford it deserts the town for the country. The valleys of Elburz Mountains are the favourite resorts. Here the Shah,* with all his court, makes his camp, though the marquees, with the retinue of servants, ministers, courtiers, and soldiers, to the number of three or four thousand present less the appearance of a temporary camp than that of a luxurious series of canvas and silken palaces.

The

5. The natural productions of Persia are not extensive. Salt is the only mineral of importance, though the beautiful turquoise is found in the Elburz Mountains. The soil is fertile when irrigated, and produces fine crops of wheat, rice, cotton, sugar-cane, and tobacco. mulberry-tree is also cultivated, and silk is an important product. The horse and camel are the chief domestic animals, while large herds of sheep and goats graze on the mountain slopes. Wild animals are numerous and

*The Shah-in-Shah, or "King of Kings," is an absolute ruler, and his will, if not opposed to the doctrines of Islam, is absolute.

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the rivers which flow into the Caspian yield quantities of fish, chiefly exported to Russia.

6. The manufactures are very limited in extent, but some of them-such as carpets, silks, and shawls—have long been famous. The trade, carried on mainly by caravans, is also insignificant. Tabriz is the great emporium of the inland traffic.

7. There are many towns in Persia with populations between twenty and one hundred thousand. Teheran is the present capital; but Tabriz, Ispahan, and other towns, have all at different times had the honour of being the Shah's capital. Black mud walls, ill-paved streets, filthy thoroughfares, bare walls of houses facing the streets, bad water and little of it, are the general features common to nearly all the towns of Persia. Shiraz, "the city of colleges," is visited chiefly by those who are curious to examine the magnificent ruins of Persepolis, the ancient capital, and at one time, "the glory of the East," and the pride of Darius, Xerxes, and Antaxerxes, until it was destroyed by Alexander the Great in his march of conquest.

LESSON XXVII.

CENTRAL ASIATIC STATES.

1. North of India, Afghanistan, and Persia, lie a number of states or provinces, some independent or quasi-independent, whilst others are subject to the Emperors of China and Russia, and the Ameer of Afghanistan. The country was originally under khans of Turkish origin, and hence is known by the general name of Turkestan. The eastern division has already been described under the Chinese Empire. The river Amoo, or Oxus, runs through the western portion into the Sea of Aral.

2. The petty khanates tributary to Afghanistan are little more than settlements in the oasis on the borders of the great Turkoman desert. There are also many petty

states, or chieftainships, in the secluded valleys of the Hindoo Koosh and neighbouring ranges, which maintain, as they have maintained for ages, a more or less complete autonomy. In the spring some of these valleys are very pleasant.

3. To the north of the Hindoo Koosh is the great Pamir table-land, one of the least known parts of Asia. The plateau is 180 miles long and 100 miles in breadth from east to west, and has an elevation from ten to fifteen thousand feet. "It consists," writes Colonel Yule, "chiefly of stretches of tolerably level steppes, broken and divided by low, rounded hills, much of it covered with saline exudations, and interspersed with patches of willows and thorny shrubs, and in summer with extensive tracts of grass from two to three feet in height. Wild fowl abound upon the lakes in summer to an extraordinary degree, and in the vicinity of water deer of some kind are very numerous, and the great wild sheep roams apparently all over the plateau." Among the lakes the Victoria Lake is one of the largest. It is 15,500 feet above the level of the sea, and is surrounded by lofty hills.

4. The north-western portion of Independent Turkestan is occupied by the Khanate of Khiva; the southwestern portion is the Turkoman territory, and east of Khiva, and stretching south to the Oxus, is the Khanate of Bokhara.

5. The only inhabited or fertile part of Khiva is that watered by the irrigating canals along the left bank of the Oxus, not far from where it falls into the Sea of Aral. It yields grain and fruits, and inferior silk is produced in considerable quantities. The trade is almost entirely in the hands of the Russians, and the Khan is a vassal of the Czar. Khiva, the capital, is a town of three or four thousand mud-built houses surrounded by a wall.

6. Bokhara was once one of the most powerful of the Asiatic khanates. It was the Mecca of the Mahommedans. The shrines of Moslem saints scattered over its holy soil, and the chools and colleges of Bokhara, the

capital, gave it in the eyes of a people with whom religion and rule are inseparably mixed up, a distinction over kingdoms more powerful in men and arms. Except on the banks of the Oxus, and the regions fertilised by canals, little of the land is cultivated or inhabited. Outside these oases the land is desert, sandy steppes, in which a well of water is a highly-valued possession. In the watered region cotton, silk, fruits, and grain, are grown, and cattle and the broad-tailed sheep are reared.

7. The Turkoman country lies between the Oxus and the borders of Persia, and reaches westward to the shores of the Caspian. It is a great desert-the "Black Sands -with but few fertile spots in the south. The "wild" Turkomans are for the most part nomadic robber tribes, the most powerful of which are the Tekkes. The ancient city of Merv is usually considered the capital of the Turkoman territory.

8. Within the past twenty years Russia has absorbed large portions of the Khanates of Khiva and Bokhara, and the whole of the Khanate of Khokan. Tashkend, in the latter khanate, is now the capital of the Russian central Asiatic territories. The northern portion of this Russian domain is the Kirghiz Steppe, a bare, stony region, deficient in water, with many salt lakes. forms a scant pasture-ground for horses and cattle. Sea of Aral lies to the south of this region.

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9. The eastern part of the Russian dominion includes the provinces of Ferghana and Zarafshan. The former, consisting mainly of the Khanate of Khokan, has a more equable climate than any other part of Russian Turkestan. Samarcand, the capital of the latter, is interesting as the spot where Alexander the Great fixed his headquarters when he was warring with the mountain tribes in the neighbourhood, and where he killed his friend Clytus in a fit of drunken passion.