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The descendants of Zagatai were long considered as the khans or sovereigns of this fair empire, which fell into civil war and anarchy, through the divisions and subdivisions of the hordes, the uncertain laws of succession, and the ambition of the ministers of state, who reduced their degenerate masters to mere state puppets, and elevated or deposed successive khans at their pleasure; and the divided and distracted country was subjected or oppressed by the invasions of the khans of Kashgar, who ruled over the Calmucks or Getes in eastern Turkestan, or little Bucharia, on the cast of Imaus or the Belur-tag.

Alexander, who flourished 324 years before Christ, travelled from Europe into Asia and Africa, passed through Armenia, Assyria, Persia, and Bactria; whence he descended by the mountains of Imaus and the vallies of Parapomissus, into India, and prepared a navy on the river Indus, with which he passed into the ocean.

Towards the East, their victorious arms were stopped only by the ocean; and the tribes, which are thinly scattered between the Amoor and the extreme peninsula of Corea, adhered, with reluctance, to the standard of the Huns. On the West, near the head of the Irtish, in the valleys of Imaus, they found a more ample space, and more numerous enemies.

In the eyes of the Greeks and Persians, the real geography of Scythia was bounded, on the East, by the mountains of Imaus, or Caf; and their distant prospect of the extreme and inaccessible parts of Asia was clouded by ignorance, or perplexed by fiction.

Besides this, Scythia was divided by the western Himalayas, which the Roman writers call Imaus, into Scythia intra Imaum, and Scythia extra Imaum. Given this lack of precision, the Rajputs may be called the Scythians of Asia, and the Scythians the Rajputs of Europe, with the same degree of likelihood.

Then the great adjutant returns from his summer tour to the north winging his way southward over the lofty summits of Imaus. Then, too, did Karl and his comrades believe that their adjutants would be guided by a like instinct, and go back to the R.B.G. the Royal Botanic Garden of Calcutta.

In the same manner, the mountains of Taurus and Imaus divide Asia into two parts; which mountains begin on the Mediterranean, in 36 or 37 degrees of north latitude, over against the islands of Rhodes and Cyprus, and extend eastwards to the sea of China. Thus, likewise, the mountains of Atlas in Africa divide the tawny moors from the black moors, or negroes who have frizzled hair.

Huge Volga! from famed Hypanis, which once Cradled the Hun; from all the countless realms Between Imaus and that utmost strand Where columns of Herculean rock confront The blown Altantic; Roman, Goth, and Hun, And Scythian strength of chivalry, that tread The cold Codanian shore or what far lands Inhospitable drink Cimmerian floods, Franks, Saxons, Suevic, and Sarmatian chiefs, And who from green Armorica or Spain Flocked to the work of death."

It was the knowledge of the art of iron-forging which laid the foundation of the once great empire of the Turks. Gibbon relates that these people were originally the despised slaves of the powerful Khan of the Geougen. They occupied certain districts of the mountain-ridge in the centre of Asia, called Imaus, Caf, and Altai, which yielded iron in large quantities.

And through all these transmigrations of their power we must remember that they were under a martial training and discipline, never suffered to become effeminate. One set of warriors after another did, it is true, become effeminate in Persia: but upon that advantage opening, always another set stepped in from Torkistan or from the Imaus.