COSMOS, VOL. II - World eBook Library

NATURAL DESCRIPTIONS IN THE PERSIAN WRITERS. 409
to the middle ages, whilst the great literature of India apper-
tains in the strictest sense to antiquity.
In the Iranian elevated plateaux nature has not the same
luxuriance of arborescent vegetation, or the remarkable diversity
oi' form and colour, by which the soil of Hindostan is embellished.
The chain of the Vindhya, which long continued to be
the boundary line of the East Arian nations, falls within the
tropical region, whilst the whole of Persia is situated beyond
the tropics, and a portion of its poetry belongs even to the
northern districts of Balkli and Fergana.
The four paradises celebrated by the Persian poets,* were
the pleasant valley of Soghd near Samarcand, Maschanrud
near Ramadan, Scha'abi Bowan near Kal'eh Sofid in Fars,
and Ghute, the plain of Damascus. Both Iran and Turan
are wanting in woodland scenery, and also therefore in the
hermit life of the forest, which exercised so powerful an influence
on the imagination of the Indian poets. Gardens
refreshed by cool springs, and filled with roses and fruit-trees,
can form no substitute for the wild and grand natural scenery
of Hindostan. It is no wonder then that the descriptive
poetry of Persia was less fresh and animated, and that it was
often heavy and overcharged with artificial adornment. If in
accordance Avith the opinion of the Persians themselves, we
award the highest praise to that which we may designate by
the terms spirit and wit, we must limit our admiration to the
and to the infinite diver-
productiveness of the Persian poets,
sity of forms imparted to the materials which they employ;
depth and earnestness of feeling are wholly absent from their
writings.f
Descriptions of natural scenery do but rarely interrupt the
narrative in the historical or national epos of Firdusi. It
seems to me that there is much beauty and local truthfulness
in the description of the mildness of the climate and the
force of the vegetation, extolled in the praise of the coast-land
of Mazanderan, which is put into the mouth of a wandering
bard. The king Kei Kawus is represented as being excited
by this praise to enter upon an expedition to the Caspian Sea,
*
Journal of the Royal Geogr. Soc. of London, vol. x. 1841, pp.
2, 3; Kuckert, MaJkamen Hariri's, &. 261.
t Gothe, in his Commentar zum west-ostlichen Divan, bd. vi. 1828, i.
73, 78, and 111.