666 Notice of the Ajaib-al-Mukhlukat [No. 152. 



Among the strange animals the author enumerates Gog and Magog, 

 a fierce race who devastated the earth, and whom Alexander the Great 

 is supposed to have subdued.* 



* In the Koran it is stated that Alexander the Great travelled from the south to the 

 north, " until he came between the two mountains beneath which he found a certain 

 people who could scarce understand what was said. And they said, "O Dhulkarnein, 

 verily Gog and Magog waste the land ; shall we therefore pay the tribute on con- 

 dition that thou build a rampart between us and them ?" A wall was built between 

 the two mountains with iron and brass, which Gog and Magog could not scale, nor dig 

 through. Some say that this wall is situate in Armenia and Adherbijan: others on 

 the confines of Turkestan ; but I cannot help forming the idea, that the tradition bears 

 allusion to the great wall of China, which spans 1500 miles of its N. frontier from the 

 Yellow Sea to the Lingtoo Mountains ; built 2000 years ago, to restrain the hordes of 

 Mongol barbarians, who for ages past were wont to devastate that granary of this 

 portion of the East, the great plain that occupies to the extent of 210,000 square miles 

 the N. E. portion of China, with an industrious population equal to that of two-thirds 

 of Europe. 



