152 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OP THE CONTEMPLATION 



world-dominion of the Achaemenides was annihilated ; the 

 expedition to Bactria and Sogdiana, between the Hindoo 

 Coosh and the Jaxartes (Syr) ; and, lastly, the daring 

 advance into the country of the five rivers (Pentapotamia) of 

 Western India. Alexander planted Greek settlements almost 

 every where, and diffused Grecian manners over the immense 

 region extending from the temple of Ammon in the 

 Lybian Oasis, and from Alexandria on the western Delta 

 of the Nile, to the Northern Alexandria on the Jaxartes, 

 the present Kodjend in Fergana. 



The extension of the new field opened to consideration 

 and this is the point of view from which we must 

 regard the enterprises of the Macedonian conqueror and 

 the continuance of the Bactrian Empire, proceeded from 

 the large geographical space made known, and the diversity 

 ot climates, from Cyropolis on the Jaxartes in the 

 latitude of Tiflis and Eome, to the eastern Delta of the 

 Indus, near Tira, under the tropic of Cancer. Let us add 

 the wonderful variety in the character and elevation of 

 the ground, including rich and fruitful lands, desert wastes, 

 and snowy mountains ; the novelty and gigantic size of the 

 productions of the animal and vegetable kingdoms; the 

 aspect and geographical distribution of races of men differ- 

 ing in colour ; the living contact with the nations of the 

 East, highly gifted in eome respects, enjoying a civiliza- 

 tion of high antiquity, with their religious myths, their 

 systems of philosophy, their astronomical knowledge, and 

 their astrological phantasies. At no other epoch (with the 

 exception, eighteen centuries and a half later, of the dis- 

 covery and opening of tropical America), was there offered, 

 at one time and to one part of the human race, a greater 



