Sykes' History of Persia - Heritage Institute

Darius hunting Lions.
(Agate cylinder seal in British Museum.)
CHAPTER I
CONFIGURATION AND CLIMATE
There is a certain tawny nudity of the South, bare sunburnt plains,
coloured like a lion, and hills clothed only in the blue transparent air.—R, L.
Stevenson.
A lamp gives no light in the Sun :
And a lofty minaret looks mean on the slopes of Alvand.
The Gulistan of Sadi.
The Situation of Persia.—Between the valleys of the
Indus on the east and of the Tigris on the west rises
what is generally termed the Iranian plateau. Persia fills
the western and larger portion of this elevated tract,
the eastern portion being occupied by Afghanistan and
Baluchistan. These countries are surrounded on all sides
by gigantic ranges, which are highest
on the west and
north, and the interior is divided into two chief basins.
That on the west, which includes about three-fifths of
Persia and is subdivided into many smaller basins, joins
the eastern, the basin of Sistan, not very far from the
province of that name. This latter area is chiefly drained
by the classical Etymander, now termed the Helmand,
and by minor rivers most of which, in flood time at
any rate, discharge
into the hamun or lake of Sistan.
In altitude the plateau exceeds 5000 feet at Kerman,
4000 at Shiraz, and 3000 in the region of the great
northern cities of Teheran and Meshed, while Tabriz, in
^^^ the extreme north-west, exceeds 4000. Of the central
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