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Volume 3 (1858-1859) (592 pages)
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Page: of 592
450 HUTCHINGS’ CALIFORNIA MAGAZINE.
pepulous regions of the East, namely:
to carry Kuropean, that is, as it was called in Alexander’s day, Greek enterprise
into Asia, and thereby awaken its decaying kingdoms, and stimulate them to
trade and civilization. No doubt he
wished, at the same time he was thus
arousing them, to make them develop the
riches of their country, and doubiless,
also, he was quite willing, as conqueror,
to take the lion’s share, but in as honorable a way as is practiced in our day.
That such views were entertained by him
is proven from his enlarged ideas of trade,
and his building of cities and highways
of travel and commerce.
These remarks are made, not for the
purpose of indorsing the wars of Alexander the Great, but because it seems to
me, justice has rarely been. done to his
genius and policy. Many cities were
founded by him, and the clearness of his
foresight and the soundness of his judgment af? seen in their continuance to this
day as great seats of trade. And so
great is the popularity of his name even
in our times, that many of the tribes of
the East claimed to be his descendants.
He was a Pagan, and did many very
wicked things, but in his desire to possess Persia, and to advance inio India
from the west, he has been often imitated, and has his successors in our day
among seyeral Christian crowns. Persia was the scene of some of his greatest
exploits. Chinghis-Khan and Timur-lane
also led their plundering hosts over the
same mountains and plains. Roman Emperors and generals and Moslem Kaliphs
were in their day familiar with its cities
and fortresses and battle-plains. As in
Spain, first civilized by the Phenicians
and long possessed by the Moors, we find
Pagan, Roman and Hastern customs long
obsolete elsewhere, turning up at every
step in the cabinet and in the campagne,
in the palace and in the house, field and
church ; so itis in Persia. It is in Persia as much—perhaps more than in any
other land, that we find in our day ancient
customs preserved with the greatest tenacity—especially such as are referred to in
the Bible. The mountain-ranges and rivers and physical features of Persia are
now as they were when Alexander conquered her and Xenophon wrote his classic chapters. No carials have been dug,
no railroads built, and the posts are inferior to those of Cyrus. And the manners of the people are less changed than
in any other oriental nation. The throne
of the Shah is shorn indeed of some of
the bright beams of the ancient dynasties
of Persia, but still it recalls the glory of
Cyrus, and the power of Darius and Sapor.
“Tn Egypt,’ says ‘‘ The Modern Trayeller,” ‘ theintrusive Turk or Mamlouk,
the degraded Copt, or the miserable Fellah, are dwarfed beside the gigantic monuments of the past, and hardly appear to
belong to a scene where art and nature
seem alike eternal and man is nothing;
in Persia it is the living scene, the faded
yet still imposing pageantry, the various
tribes, and the diversified traits of human
character that chiefly occupy attention,
and by these faithful transcripts of the
former ages it is that the imagination is
transported far back into the past.*
Although Persia, in her earliest ages,
seems to have altogether wanted the poet
historian, she was not wanting in royal
scribes. These secretaries, Mirzas, as
they are called in modern times, were
constantly with their kings—at feasts and
councils, and on the field of battle. It
was their duty to note down at the time
his words, and make a record of hisdeeds.
A similar custom prevailed among most
Asiatic nations. The Mogul conquerors
had their scribes. The great Hyder Ali
used to appear in public surrounded by
forty secretaries. Such records doubtless
were the chronicles deposited at Babylon,
Ecbatana, and Susa. The personal an*Vaux’s Nineveh and Persepolis.