The Earth and its Inhabitants Asia: SOUTH-WESTERN ASIA

Christians spreading westwards and the Mohammedans over running the east, multiplied endlessly the number of mountains witnesses of the Deluge. Such witnesses may be found in the Pyrenees, in Roussillon, and Andorra even in Afghanistan, the siah-posh country, and the Throne of Solomon, overlooking the plains of the Indus.At the dawn of history, properly so called, the first definite events are referred to the south-western lands of Asia and to Egypt, which, east of the Nile, was regarded by the ancients, and especially by Herodotus, as belonging to the Asiatic world. Here the national groups began to be classified under the names of Sem, Cham, and Japhet; perhaps also, according to many Orientalists, under those of Sumer and Accad, a contrast which reappears later on in the opposition of Persian and Mede, of Iran and Turan. The various peoples between the Central Asiatic plateaux, the isles of the Mediterranean, and the African deserts, are numbered according to their races, usages, and industries, while on the Babylonian cylinders and prisms are inscribed ethnological and geographical documents of the highest importance. One of the oldest myths relates the dispersion of the peoples at the foot of the Tower of Babel; but despite the confusion of tongues, Chaldean history begins to follow the career of each nation, recording its growth, wars, and conquests.