CHAPTER I.
_Geography of Parthia Proper, Character of the Region, Climate, Character of the Surrounding Countries._ The broad tract of desert which, eastward of the Caspian Sea, extends from the Mougbojar hills to the Indian Ocean, a distance of above 1500 miles, is interrupted about midway by a strip of territory possessing features of much beauty and attraction.

This strip, narrow compared to the desert on either side of it, is yet, looked at by itself, a region of no inconsiderable dimensions, extending, as it does from east to west, a distance of 320, and from north to south of nearly 200 miles.
The mountain chain, which running southward of the Caspian, skirts the great plateau of Iran, or Persia, on the north, broadens out, after it passes the south-eastern corner of the sea, into a valuable and productive mountain-region.

Four or five distinct ranges here run parallel to one another, having between them latitudinal valleys, with glens transverse to their courses.

The sides of the valleys are often well wooded; the flat ground at the foot of the hills is fertile; water abounds; and the streams gradually collect into rivers of a considerable size.
The fertile territory in this quarter is further increased by the extension of cultivation to a considerable distance from the base of the most southern of the ranges, in the direction of the Great Iranic desert.

The mountains send down a number of small streams towards the south; and the water of these, judiciously husbanded by means of reservoirs and _kanats_, is capable of spreading fertility over a broad belt at the foot of the hills; which, left to nature, would be almost as barren as the desert itself, into which it would, in fact, be absorbed.
It was undoubtedly in the region which has been thus briefly described that the ancient home of the Parthians lay.