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i88 A Short History of The World Chau reached the Caspian, and sent emissaries to report upon the power of Rome. But many centuries were still to pass before definite knowledge and direct intercourse were to link the great parallel worlds of Europe and Eastern Asia. To the north of both these great empires were barbaric wilder- nesses. What is now Germany was largely forest lands ; the forests extended far into Russia and made a home for the gigantic aurochs, a bull of almost elephantine size. Then to the north of the great mountain masses of Asia stretched a band of deserts, steppes and then forests and frozen lands. In the eastward lap of the elevated part of Asia was the great triangle of Manchuria. Large parts of these regions, stretching between South Russia and Turkestan into Manchuria, were and are regions of excep- tional climatic insecurity. Their rainfall has varied greatly in the course of a few centuries. They are lands treacherous to man. For years they wUl carry pasture and sustain cultivation, and then will come an age of decline in humidity and a cycle of killing droughts. The western part of this barbaric north from the German forests to South Russia and Turkestan and from Gothland to the Alps was the region of origin of the Nordic peoples and of the Aryan speech. The eastern steppes and deserts of Mongolia was the region of origin of the Hunnish or Mongohan or Tartar or Turkish peoples— for all these several peoples were akin in language, race, and way of life. And as the Nordic peoples seem to have been continually overflowing their own borders and pressing south upon the developing civiliza- tions of Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean coast, so the Hunnish tribes sent their surplus as wanderers, raiders and conquerors into the settled regions of China. Periods of plenty in the north would mean an increase in population there; a shortage of grass, a j^^- M. W'-'- '■'" ' i _^^^^s ^^^> wBBb^. ^SSK' " ~" "^ BE ^^^S ^^M ^^k^^^^M I^E^^ ^^^re^^^w hHH S^^^^^^^^l I^^S ^^W^w'^a^glrl ^S ?™^if A CHINESE COVERED JAR OF GREEN- GLAZED EARTHENWARE Han dynasty {contemporary with late Roman republic and early Empire) {In the Victoria and Albert Museum)