often
well wooded; the flat ground at the foot of the hills is fertile; water
abounds; and the streams gradually collect into rivers of a considerable
size.

The fertile territory in this quarter is further increased by the
extension of cultivation to a considerable distance from the base of
the most southern of the ranges, in the direction of the Great Iranic
desert. The mountains send down a number of small streams towards
the south; and the water of these, judiciously husbanded by means of
reservoirs and _kanats_, is capable of spreading fertility over a broad
belt at the foot of the hills; which, left to nature, would be almost as
barren as the desert itself, into which it would, in fact, be absorbed.

It was undoubtedly in the region which has been thus briefly described
that the ancient home of the Parthians lay. In this neighborhood alone
are found the geographic names which the most ancient writers who
mention the Parthians connect with them. Here evidently the Parthians
were settled at the time when Alexander the Great overran the East, and
first made the Greeks thoroughly familiar with the Parthian name and
territory. Here, lastly, in the time of the highest Parthian splendor
and prosperity, did a province of the Empire retain the name of
Parthyene, or Parthia Proper; and here, also, in their palmiest days,
did the Parthian kings continue to have a capital and a residence.

Parthia Proper, however, was at no time coextensive with the region
described. A portion of that region formed the district called Hyrcania;
and it is not altogether easy to determine what were the limits between
the two. The evidence goes, on the whole, to show that, while Hyrcania
lay towards the west and north, the Parthian country was that towards
the south and east, the valleys of the Ettrek and Gurghan constituting
the main portions of the former, while the tracts east and south of
those valleys, as far as the sixty-first degree of E. longitude,
constituted the latter.

If the limits of Parthia Proper be thus defined, it will have nearly
corresponded to the modern Persian province of Khorasan. It will have
extended from about Damaghan (long. 54 deg. 10') upon the west, to the
Heri-rud upon the east, and have comprised the modern districts of
Damaghan, Shah-rud, Sebzawar, Nishapur, Meshed, Shebri-No, and Tersheez.
Its length from east to west will have been about 300 miles, and its
average width about 100 or 120. It will have conta