82 LEAVES FROM THE BOOK OF NATURE. 



ceitful light upon the first condition of powerful nations 

 everywhere immense hordes of emigrants are seen to 

 pour forth, age after age, from the same common centre 

 in middle Asia. Chinese myths speak of an immigra- 

 tion from the West, about two thousand years before 

 Christ, and the "Vendidad" of the Zendavesta says that 

 the early Persians came under Schemschid from Eastern 

 table-lands down into the "four-cornered" land, their pre- 

 sent home. 



By far more positive and certain are the traditions of 

 the three greatest races on earth, both on account of the 

 antiquity, and comparative authenticity of their legends, 

 and on account of the intrinsic evidence drawn from the 

 mutual relationship in which they stand to each other. 



The Hindoos, whom we venerate as the oldest of known 

 civilized nations, derive their origin from the Northwest, 

 and call " Hindukush" and " Belustag" in their traditions 

 invariably the boundary mountains behind which their 

 birth-place is hidden. 



The Shemitic nations also point to the East as their 

 common home, and to the Ararat as the landmark which 

 divides their first dwelling place from their present resi- 

 dence. 



Now, exactly between the Ararat and the Belustag, lies 

 that vast table-land, which most men are disposed to con- 

 sider the birth-place of the first among men. Both Indian 

 and Shemitic races brought with them to their new 

 dwelling places, not only an indistinct recollection of their 

 former home, but many rich treasures of their former 

 civilization, in one word, a history of their people. These 



