, and depending for its harvests entirely upon the
winter rains, and for its water during the summer on wells which are
chiefly brackish. Tolerable pasturage is, however, obtainable in places
even during the hottest part of the year, and between Cape Jask and
Gwattur the crops produced are far from contemptible.

A small tract of coast, a continuation of the territory just described,
intervening between it and Kerman, was occupied in the early Persian
times by a race known to the Persians as Maka, and to the Greeks as
Mycians. This district, reaching from about Cape Jask to Gombroon,
is one of greater fertility than is usual in these regions, being
particularly productive in dates and grain. This fertility seems,
however, to be confined to the vicinity of the sea-shore.

To complete the description of the Eastern provinces two other tracts
must be mentioned. The mountain-chain which skirts the Great Plateau on
the north, distinguished in these pages by the name of Elburz, broadens
out after it passes the south-eastern corner of the Caspian Sea till it
covers a space of nearly three degrees (more than 200 miles). Instead
of the single lofty ridge which separates the Salt Desert from the low
Caspian region, we find between the fifty-fourth and fifty-ninth degrees
of east longitude three or four distinct ranges, all nearly parallel to
one another, having a general direction of east and west. Broad and rich
valleys are enclosed between these latitudinal ranges which are watered
by rivers of a considerable size, as more especially the Ettrek and
the Gurgan. Thus a territory is formed capable of supporting a largish
population, a territory which possesses a natural unity, being shut in
on three sides by mountains, and on the fourth by the Caspian. Here in
Persian times was settled a people called Hyrcani; and from them the
tract derived the name of Hyrcania (Vehrkana), while the lake on which
it adjoined came to be known as "the Hyrcanian Sea." The fertility
of the region, its broad plains, shady woods and lofty mountains were
celebrated by the ancient writers.

Further to the east, beyond the low sandy plain, and beyond the
mountains in which its great rivers have their source--on the other
side of the "Roof of the World," as the natives name this elevated
region--lay a tract unimportant in itself, but valuable to the Persians
as the home of a people from whom they obtained excellent soldiers. The
plain of Chinese Tartary,