370 NATURAL niSTORY OF 



directed aga'nst (he less pugnacious black nations, and then 

 against each other, striving not only for the choice of regions 

 to inhabit for the possession of pasturage and rivers, but to 

 dictate opinions on all questions of human interest; and as the 

 conquerors of one moment w^ mquished of the next, all 



the tribes, particularly of the west, are exceedingly in 

 in physical and mental appearance bearing evidence to the fact. 

 It is still more a result of the long continued practice common 

 to all, of buying, selling and capturing human beings for 

 ■laves, — the Britons, the Gauls, the Saxon-, Germans, Rus- 

 sians, and Hebrews; all the nations of Western Asia, the 

 ancient Greeks, the Romans, the Carthaginian is and 



Christians, all shared for ages the abominable traffic. The 

 dark-haired nations of the south were choice in searching for 

 fair slaves from the north ; the fair preferred more swarthy, 

 and gave great prices for blacks from Africa. Constantinople 

 abounded in Sclavonic captives and children, purchased by 

 Jews ; the debtor and the prisoner of war were sold, and Ver- 

 dun 'was long celebrated for its traffic in emasculated victims. 

 Hence the fair, the xanthous, the brown and black complex- 

 ioned, are mixed in every nation. 



With regard to the facilities of proceeding by land from the 

 Indus and from central Asia to the west, there is in every 

 direction the difficulty to be encountered of a deficiency 

 of water, and consequently of verdure to subsist cattle. There 

 are extensive deserts of absolute sand, and the coast-line along 

 the Persian Gulf seems never to have been practicable. 

 Beginning from the mouth of the Indus, the first route passing 

 to the west, by Kurrachee, crossed the Luchee Hills to Bam- 

 bacia, Faura, now Puhra, traversed the Gedrosian mountain 

 chain, and led to ancient Pasargada (Persagarda) and Per- 

 sepolis. It was by this line Alexander the Great returned 

 with his forces to Persia. The second was by the Gundara 

 Pass, through the desert to Lake Aria, whence again it bent 

 southwa~d to Persepolis; this was the route of Craterus with a 



