Demavend, which impends over Teheran, and appears to be the highest
summit in the part of Asia west of the Himalayas.

The elevated plateau which stretches from the foot of those two mountain
regions to the south and east is, for the most part, a flat sandy
desert, incapable of sustaining more than a sparse and scanty
population. The northern and western portions are, however, less arid
than the east and south, being watered to some distance by the streams
that descend from Zagros and Elburz, and deriving fertility also from
the spring rains. Some of the rivers which flow from Zagros on this side
are large and strong. One, the Kizil-Uzen, reaches the Caspian. Another,
the Zenderud, fertilizes a large district near Isfahan. A third, the
Bendamir, flows by Persepolis and terminates in a sheet of water of
some size--lake Bakhtigan. A tract thus intervenes between the mountain
regions and the desert which, though it cannot be called fertile, is
fairly productive, and can support a large settled population. This
forms the chief portion of the region which the ancients called Media,
as being the country inhabited by the race on whose history we are about
to enter.

Media, however, included, besides this, another tract of considerable
size and importance. At the north-western angle of the region above
described, in the corner whence the two great chains branch out to
the south and to the east, is a tract composed almost entirely of
mountains, which the Greeks called Atropatene, and which is now known
as Azerbijan. This district lies further to the north than the rest of
Media, being in the same parallels with the lower part of the Caspian
Sea. It comprises the entire basin of Lake Urumiyeh, together with the
country intervening between that basin and the high mountain chain which
curves round the south-western corner of the Caspian, It is a region