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They have left traces of their dominion, not only on the tops of the mountain passes which lead into the basin of Lake Urumiyeh, but even in the comparatively low plain of Miyandab on the southern shore of that inland sea.
Lake Urumiyeh produces none, as its waters are so salt that they even destroy all the river-fish which enter them. Salt streams, like the Aji Su, are equally unproductive, and the fresh-water rivers of the plateau fall so low in summer that fish cannot become numerous in them. Thus it is only in Zagros, in Azerbijan, and in the Elburz, that the streams furnish any considerable quantity.
As a head-dress it is remarkably attractive; and it is but just to say that it often sets off really handsome faces, with fine features, and glowing eyes. In her further wanderings through the wild lands of Persia, our traveller came to Urumiyeh, on the borders of the salt lake of that name, which in several physical features closely resembles the Dead Sea.
As a head-dress it is remarkably effective; and it is only just to say that it frequently sets off really handsome faces, with fine features and glowing eyes. In the course of her wanderings through the wild highlands of Persia, Madame Pfeiffer came to Urumiyéh, on the borders of the salt lake of that name, which, in some of its physical features, closely resembles the Dead Sea.
Towards the east she had come into contact with the Mannai, or Minni, about Lake Urumiyeh, with the Harkhar in the Van region and in north-western Kurdistan, with the Bartsu or Persians and the Mada or Medes in the country east of Zagros, the modern province of Ardelan, and with the Tsimri, or Zimri, in Upper Luristan.
But the fact that Thothmes III. in the century before Moses calls the Hittite land of the north "the Greater," is the best proof we can have that there was a Hittite colony elsewhere, which was well known to the Egyptian scribes. So far as we can judge from the evidence of proper names, the Hittites belonged to a race which was spread from the Halys in Asia Minor to the shores of Lake Urumiyeh.
Towards the north the boundary was at first the mountain chain closing in on that side the Urumiyeh basin, after which it seems to have been held that the true limit was the Araxes, to its entrance on the low country, and then the mountain chain west and south of the Caspian.
The salt of Lake Urumiyeh is mentioned by Strabo, who says that it forms naturally on the surface, which would imply a far more complete saturation of the water than at present exists, even in the driest seasons. The gems above mentioned are assigned to Media chiefly by Pliny.
The Minæan and the Sabæan dialects of southern Arabia still survive in modern forms; Arabic, which has now overflowed the rest of the Semitic world, was the language of central Arabia alone. In northern Arabia, as well as in Mesopotamia and Syria, Aramaic dialects were used, the miserable relics of which are preserved to-day among a few villagers of the Lebanon and Lake Urumîyeh.
Ararat had become the leader among them, and in the latter days of the older Assyrian dynasty had wrested territory from the Assyrians themselves, and had imposed its dominion from the borders of Cappadocia to the shores of Lake Urumiyeh. But on a sudden all was changed.
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