THE CAMBRIDGE MEDIEVAL HISTORY I 173

The Asiatic Background

12-1. The Asiatic Background

THE Asiatic background has its basis in the immense zone of steppes and deserts which stretches from the Caspian Sea to the Khingan Mountains, and is divided into two regions by the Pamir and the Thian Shan ranges. The western region, like the whole lowland district of West Asia, even to the extreme north, is a deserted seabed; the eastern (Tarim basin and Gobi) seems formerly to have been covered with great freshwater lakes. The water-basins began to evaporate and to shrink to inland seas, while the intervening country became a desert. The largest remains of former enormous water basins are the salt Caspian Sea and the sweetwater Aral Sea. In both regions all the moisture that falls evaporates, so that no rivers reach the open sea; most of them ooze away in the sand, and only the greatest, such as the Syr, Amu, Ei, Chu, Tarim, flow into large inland seas.

The fact that the evaporation is greater than the fall of moisture, and that the latter takes place chiefly in the cold season, has important consequences, which account for the desert nature of the land. All the salt which is released by the weathering and decomposition of the soil remains in the ground, and only in the higher regions with greater falls of moisture, and by the banks of rivers is the soil sufficiently lixiviated to be fit for cultivation. Everywhere else is steppe and desert absolutely uncultivable. The surface of the land can be divided into six categories: sand deserts, gravel deserts, salt steppes, loam steppes, loess land, and rocky mountains.

Of these the sand-deserts form by far the greatest part. They consist of fine drift-sand, which the driving storm wind forms into sickle-shaped shifting dunes (barkhans). The loose drift-sand is waterless, and for the most part without vegetation; the barkhans, however, here and there display a few poor saxaul and other shrubs; human life is impossible. The gravel deserts, also very extensive, which form the transition between the sand deserts and the steppes, have a sparse vegetation and serve the nomads as grazing grounds in their wanderings to and from winter quarters and summer pastures. The adjoining salt steppes, consisting of loam and sand, are so impregnated with salt that the latter settles down on the surface like rime. In spring they bear a scanty vegetation, which, on account of its saline nature, affords excellent pasture for numerous flocks of sheep. During the rain of autumn and spring the loam steppes, consisting of loess-soil mixed with much sand, are covered with luxuriant verdure and myriads of wild flowers, especially tulips, and, on the drier ground, with camel-thorn (Alkagi camelorum), without which the camel could not exist for any length of time.

These steppes form the real pastures of the nomads. In the loess land agriculture and gardening are only possible where the soil has been sufficiently softened by rainfall and artificial canals, and is constantly irrigated. It forms the subsoil of all cultivable oases. Without irrigation the soil becomes in summer as hard as concrete, and its vegetation dies completely. The oases comprise only two per cent, of the total area of Turkestan. As a rule the rocky mountains are quite bare; they consist of black gleaming stone cracked by frost and heat, and are waterless.

Roughly speaking these differences of vegetation follow one another from south to north, viz. the salt-, the sand-, and the grass-steppes. A little below 50° N. latitude the landscape of West Asia changes in consequence of a greater fall of moisture. The undrained lakes become less frequent, the rivers reach the sea (Ishim, Tobol, etc.) , and trees appear. Here begins, as a transition to the compact forest land, the tree-steppe on the very fertile "black earth." On the Yenisei are park-like districts with splendid grass plains, and luxuriant trees. Northward come endless pine forests, and beyond them, towards the Arctic Sea, is the moss steppe, or tundra.

The climate is typically continental, with icy cold winters, hot summers, cold nights, and hot days with enormous fluctuations of temperature. The warmth increases quickly from winter to spring and decreases just as quickly from summer to autumn. In West Turkestan, the summer is almost cloudless and rainless, and at this time the steppes become deserts. On account of the dryness little snow falls; as a rule it remains loose and is whirled aloft by the north-east storm wind (buran).

These storm burans are just as terrible as the summer storms of salt-dust in Trans-Caspia at a temperature of 104° to 113° Fahrenheit. Considering that in summer the temperature sometimes reaches 118° in the shade, exceeding body-heat by 20°, and that in winter it sinks below —31°, and further that the heat, especially in the sand-deserts, reaches a degree at which the white of egg coagulates, the climate, even if not deadly, should be very injurious to man; Hindustan, which is far less hot, enervates the European on account of the greater moisture, and has changed the Aryan, once so energetic, to the weak and cowardly Hindu. Nevertheless the contrary is the case. The climate of Turkestan is wholesome, and its people are long-lived and healthy, and that especially in the hot summer, on account of the unparalleled dryness of the air. Once acclimatised, one bears the heat very well, and likewise the extreme cold of winter. The climate of Central Asia furthers a rapid bodily and mental development and premature ageing, as well as corpulence, especially among the Altaians. Obesity is even regarded as a distinction, and it became so native to the mounted nomads that it accompanied them to Europe; it is characteristic of all the nomads who have invaded Europe; and Hippocrates mentions it expressly as a characteristic of the Scythians. The climate of Turkestan also influences the character, leading to an apathy which creates indifference to the heaviest blows of fate, and even accompanies the condemned to the scaffold.

The entire West Asiatic region from the salt steppes to the compact forest land forms one economic whole. The well-watered northern part, which remains green throughout the summer, feeds countless herds in the warm season, but affords no pasturage in winter owing to the deep snow. On the other hand, the southern part, which is poor in water — the grass-, sand-, and salt-steppes — is uninhabitable in summer. Thus the northern part provides summer pastures, the southern — the Aral-Caspian basin — winter pastures to one and the same nomad people.

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