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A river overflows and turns a fruitful plain into a marsh; or it fails, and turns it into a sandy desert. Sogdiana is watered by a number of great rivers, which make their way across it from the high land on its east to the Aral or Caspian. Now we read in history of several instances of changes, accidental or artificial, in the direction or the supply of these great water-courses.
But all things are good only by comparison; and I do not see why an Asiatic, having experience of the sands which elsewhere overspread the face of his continent, should for that reason be ill qualified to pronounce that Sogdiana affords a contrast to them. Moreover, we have the experience of other lands, as Asia Minor, which have presented a very different aspect in different ages.
One province of Khorasan, which once was very fertile, is in consequence now a desert It may be questioned, too, whether the sands of the adjacent deserts, which are subject to violent agitation from the action of the wind, may not have encroached upon Sogdiana.
But this era was a turning-point in their history in another and more serious respect. In Sogdiana and Khorasan, they had become converts to the Mahometan faith. You will not suppose I am going to praise a religious imposture, but no Catholic need deny that it is, considered in itself, a great improvement upon Paganism.
The island of Cyprus was also, it is probable, a dependency. On the other hand, Persia Proper, Bactria, and Sogdiana, even Hyrcania, were beyond the eastern limit of the Assyrian sway, which towards the north did not on this side reach further than about the neighborhood of Kasvin, and towards the south was confined within the barrier of Zagros.
When the Persian empire was organized by Darius Hystaspis into satrapies, Parthia was at first united in the same government with Chorasmia, Sogdiana, and Aria.
It was one of Seljuk's family, who at a later date alarmed Mahmood by telling him he could bring 200,000 horsemen from the Scythian wilderness, if he sent round his bow to summon them; it was Seljuk's horde and retainers that ultimately forced back Mahmood's son into the south and the east, and got possession of Sogdiana and Khorasan.
It was called in ancient times Sogdiana; in the history of the middle ages Transoxiana, or "beyond the Oxus;" by the Eastern writers Maver-ul-nere, or Mawer-al-nahar, which is said to have the same meaning; and it is now known by the name Bukharia. To these may be added a third province, at the bottom of the Aral, between the mouth of the Oxus and the Caspian, called Kharasm.
He established wells and cisterns in great numbers along the road of pilgrimage to Mecca; he fed the pilgrims, and distributed immense sums among the poor. He was in every respect a great prince; he extended his conquests across Sogdiana to the very borders of China. He subdued by his lieutenants Syria and the Holy Land, and took Jerusalem.
The great king might proudly number Sogdiana, and even Serica, among the provinces of his empire; but his real dominion was bounded by the Oxus and his useful intercourse with the Sogdoites, beyond the river, depended on the pleasure of their conquerors, the white Huns, and the Turks, who successively reigned over that industrious people.
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