ANCIENT Bactra, the mother city of the Aryan race, was situate in the midst of a beautiful valley surrounded on all sides by mountain ranges. It was a fertile valley. Through it rushed the limpid river, Adirsiah, coming down from the distant snow-capped mountains in the east and finding an outlet northward to the Oxus. Though it was summer, the hills were green and the valley was luxuriant with full-leafed trees and blooming gardens. It seemed a paradise indeed to the Prince of Iran and his wayworn guard, marching in from the arid northern plain. Bactra was a great city. Many square miles dotted with ruins at this day mutely tell of its extent. Here the mythical Kaiomur, possibly a son of Japhet, settled, and planted a race from which many nations have sprung. It was not a walled city. The men of Iran relied on their good right arms for defense. Indeed, they were not accustomed to await invasion; they invaded others. In the open, with galloping steed and spear at rest they swept the enemy from their path, or on foot, with bow and arrow they smote him or closed with him in close mortal combat with sword and battle-ax. Their valor made a wall more potent than stones.
Like a hive did the ancient city nourish myriad lives and send forth swarms of sturdy men, who, under the leadership of able men, took with them wives, children, and goods and forcibly possessed new homes in distant climes. One stream passed westward to the lower Caspian and, branching there, flowed northward, westward, and southward. Hellas, Asia Minor, the Saxon woods, Scandinavia, and Western Europe received them, not perhaps in one year or one century, but in successive years, as successive waves with a rising tide ever encroach on the shore. Medea and Persia received them. Ancient records seem to indicate that they dominated the great valley of the Euphrates and Tigris and even planted families in Syria on the shores of the Great Sea; and it is sometimes argued that the ancestors of Abraham, father of the Hebrews, came from Iran bringing their knowledge of one God with them. It is at least true that the monarchs of the Medes and Persians ever favored the Hebrews and acknowledged their Jehovah as the same God they themselves worshiped under the name Ahura-Mazda, or the Life-Giving Spirit. Another swarm crossed the southern mountains and occupied India. But eastward and northeastward, in obedience to some primal instinct that seems to have driven them in all other directions, the Aryans never penetrated. The slant-eyed, yellow races, protected by the vast mountain ranges and desert plains of Tibet, multiplied in peace on the shores of the Pacific Ocean and threw out their swarms northward and eastward into the Americas and the islands of the south seas. Occasionally their hordes, under the general designation of Tourans, pressed upon their western neighbors by way of the plains of Siberia, and later, as Huns, Turks, and Tartars, succeeded in overpowering, by weight of vast numbers, the provinces so long protected by Aryan valor; but not until that valor had been forgotten in the luxuries of an enervating civilization.
Bactra was at the intersection of main highways of commerce. Here the great caravan road from Rhages, to which flowed by different routes the trade of Persia and Medea, of Egypt, Babylonia, Syria, and Europe, intersected the roads from India and Tourania. Here the beautiful wares of Babylon and Nineveh, of Samos and Damascus, of Egypt and the Ionian cities and of Greece were exchanged for the fabrics of India and the products of the northern plains. Here caravans outfitted for trade in distant lands. The great market-place, an open square on the shore of the Adirsiah, near the center of the city, was ever lively with the movement of men of different colors and wearing as many different dresses; of camels ever complaining and groaning; of donkeys, braying; of beautiful horses, exhibiting their points; and of a thousand vehicles for transporting goods. Around three sides were dome-roofed stores, where the wealth of all nations was displayed;, where gold, silver, precious stones, beautiful earthenwares, ivory, rugs, weapons, fruits, grains, and wearing apparel were exhibited for exchange or for sale, and the noisy shouts of traders were heard the whole day. Groups of soldiers swaggered along, keeping the peace. Teachers and priests in long robes walked with solemn pace contemplative; magistrates and nobles rode through with lofty aspect; the countryman, then as ever, wandered about in open-eyed curiosity, loved and respected by all Aryans, but nevertheless simple-minded and apt to be cheated; and the humble laborer of the city, rough-spoken but shrewd, boldly jostled any foreigner who might cross his path.
The royal palace occupied an eminence sloping down to the river, near the eastern limits of the city, its stately walls, and porticos dimly seen through the leafy trees of the park surrounding it. Other mansions of the rich and noble, each surrounded by garden or park, clustered near. The narrow, irregular streets were bordered by the houses and shops of the commercial class. On the outskirts, the humbler cottages of the poor were built. On all sides lay the gardens and fields in which were raised the vegetables consumed by the vast population.
Couriers had brought to Prince Bardya at Bactra news of his father’s death. A period of mourning had been proclaimed. When the funeral car with its guard drew near the city, a decree was issued and proclaimed on all the street corners, commanding all to leave their tasks and to observe a day of special mourning. A great procession marched out of the city to meet the dead king. A thousand horsemen, four abreast, led the way. Prince Bardya, riding a great white horse, rode alone, with bowed head and sorrowful demeanor. Following him were two litters, carried on the shoulders of stout black slaves; these bore the royal daughters of Cyrus, Athura and Artistone. A thousand or more nobles, magistrates, travelers of note, and rich men rode next. Countless multitudes of all classes closed the procession or traveled along the way through the fields, eager to see and to hear.
The Prince of Iran, leaving his camp equipage at a ford of the river a league below the city, advanced slowly with the funeral car and his ten thousand weary, wayworn guards, to meet the procession. Coming to an open field, wherein stood several great oaks, he caused the funeral car to stop beneath the branches of one of the trees and massed his guard in an open square around it, leaving a way open for the royal Prince and his sisters to approach the bier. Then, accompanied by Gobryas, he rode on to meet the procession. The advance guards of Prince Bardya opened to let him pass through, forming in lines on either side of the way.
The Prince of Iran and Gobryas dismounted as they were about to meet the son of Cyrus; and the latter likewise dismounted, and, hastening to them, embraced them affectionately, while tears dimmed all eyes.
“Hail, dear friends!” was his greeting. “It is pleasant to meet you even though sadness comes with you.” He kissed the Prince of Iran and embraced him. “My sisters are here. Let us go to them,” he then said.
The litters drew near and were placed on the ground by their brawny carriers. The curtains of the foremost were parted and from it emerged a young woman, heavily veiled and dressed in rich but somber clothing. As her brother and his two friends approached, she drew aside the veil from her face, and, smiling through tears upon the Prince of Iran, extended to him her hand. He bent knee before her and reverently kissed the extended hand.
“Greeting, Prince of Iran!” she said in a low, sweet voice, wherein gladness struggled with sadness. “Arise! Should a Prince of Iran kneel to any person?”