THE HUMAN SPECIES. 885 



Arian Desert, of above fifty days' journey, for loaded 

 camels, to Ispahan. Another passes to the north from 

 Dooshak, near the above lake, by Furrah, to Herat, 

 Meshed, to the Atrack River, and Asterabad. But the 

 fourth of these lines is the great and most ancient 

 route of migration, not so much to the Indus, as from 

 the high table land of Thibet to the Oxus, in remote 

 periods apparently much more available than at pre- 

 sent, for the inland sea of Western Asia had not yet 

 entirely shrunk into the Caspian and Aral, and the 

 rivers now lost in sand, or wholly dried up, were still 

 flowing to that Mediterranean. It became the high 

 road from Kachgar by Ota, across the Bolor range, 

 through Karatighin to Bactra, or Balkh, was the great 

 outlet from Hindu-Koosh down the Oxus, or along 

 the flanks of Paropamisus to the west, and by the 

 troglodyte city of Bamean, entered the two passes of 

 Kohi-Baba, by Cabul, and Jalalabad (Nagara), to the 

 Indus. Of the other great line through the Kiptchak 

 and Gakchal chains, by the Kaksou and Terek passes, 

 leading north-west to Och or Takti Soliman, on the 

 Jaxartes ; it is a caravan route, still in use to Oren- 

 burg, in Russia. 



THE SEMITIC RACES. 



IT was along these avenues that the moving colonists 

 descended, both from the plateau of Thibet, and from 

 Hindu-Koosh. We have seen how they penetrated 



2 B 



