﻿44 THE sixth discourse: 



Tartary, between which it lies, let us begin with the 

 source of the great Assyrian stream Euphrates (as the 

 Greeks, according to their custom, were pleased to 

 miscall the Forat) and thence descend to its mouth 

 in the Green Sea, or Persian Gulf, including in our 

 line some considerable districts and towns on both 

 sides of the river ; then, coasting Persia, properly so 

 named, and other Iranian provinces, we come to the 

 Delta of the Sindhu or Indus -, whence ascending to 

 the mountains of Cashghar, we discover its fountains 

 and those of the Jaihun, down which we are conduct- 

 ed to the Caspian, which formerly perhaps it entered, 

 though it loses itself now in the sands and lakes of 

 Khzvarezm. We next are led from the Sea of Khozar, 

 by the banks of the Cur, or Cyrus, and along the 

 Caucasean ridges to the more of the Euxine, and 

 thence by the several Grecian Seas to the point whence 

 we took our departure, at no considerable distance 

 from the Mediterranean. We cannot but include the 

 Lower Asia within this outline, because it was un- 

 questionably a part of the Persian, if not of the old 

 Assyrian empire ; for we know that it was under the 

 dominion of Caikhosrau ; and Diodorus, we find, as- 

 serts, that the kingdom of Troas was dependent on 

 Assyria, since Priam implored and obtained succours 

 from his emperor Teutames, whose name approaches 

 nearer to Tahmuras than to that of any other Assy- 

 rian monarch, Thus may we look on Iran as the no- 

 blest island (for so the Greeks and ihe Arabs would 

 have called it) or at least as the noblest peninfula on 

 this habitable globe ; and if M. Bailly had fixed on it 

 as the Atlantis of Plato, he might have supported his 

 opinion with far stronger arguments than any that he 

 has adduced in favour of Nezv Zembla. If the account, 

 indeed, of the Atlantes be not purely an Egyptian, or 

 an Utopian fable, I should be more inclined to place 

 them m Iran than in any region with which I am ac- 

 quainted. 



