400 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



north.* They, too, had traversed the Paropamisus, and 

 following the Helmund, had crossed the Arian Desert 

 to the hills of Susiana, where they absorbed the Elamite 

 bowmen ; located their sacred centre at Persagarda, 

 and further west, built Persepolis,t where the great 

 empire of Persia properly commenced. The city and 

 palace was constructed according to a system of archi- 

 tecture already long established at Zariaspa or Bactra, 

 or in conformity with one common to the whole vast 

 region of Nineveh, Babylon, and High Asia. The 

 ancient Parsi language shows, however, a certain 

 affinity with the Assyrian through the Pelhevi, intro- 

 duced by the Medes, and an adopted civilization, in 

 the use of a cuneiform alphabet. This character con- 

 tinued to be used for inscriptions after the overthrow 

 of Darius, and was revived during the Parthian sway, 

 although another dialect, namely the Zend, was spoken 

 a fact which attests the presence of a further Sanscrit 

 element, approaching still nearer to the early Gothic 

 of the west, and a tongue even now in part mixed up 

 with the Poushtoo, used by the Aifghans. The Be- 



r * The Ou-Sun, and Kian-Kuen, or Kakas of Chinese 

 writers, were, according to Klaproth, fair-haired races 

 within the western borders of the high land chains. The 

 Massagetse, first known on the outside of the same table 

 land, gradually moved down to the north-west, and were 

 for a period stationary on the south and east of Lake Aral. 

 They were all Geta tribes or clans, with Finnic intermix- 

 ture. 



t If indeed Persepolis, Pasargadse, and Pefsagarda, are 

 not the same. 



