The Greeks in Bactria and India c22.31

c22.31

But the real point is that, apart from its Saca rulers, Chang-k'ien describes Ta-yuan, which he had seen, as a settled country exactly like Ta-hia (Bactria),² with the same soil, climate, productions, and customs,³ which must mean highly organised agriculture like the Bactrian. He says that the people grew not only wheat but rice,⁴ which means irrigation and a hot summer climate (he does not mention rice in Bactria, though he had heard that it grew in Chaldaea),⁵ and that the vine and alfalfa grew well in Ta-yuan,⁶ and that like Bactria the country was full of 'walled towns', whose number he gives as 'fully 70';⁷ the Chinese subsequently planted an agricultural colony there.⁸ Was there really on the Pamirs a highly organised agricultural state with wheat-fields and rice-fields,⁹ clover-fields and vineyards, and seventy walled towns? Any description of the desolate and windswept Roof of the World will suffice to negative the supposition.