At
Bangkok, a city of 400,000 souls, hardly more than one murder a year
is known.
Buddhism has enfeebled the intelligence and sweetened the
character.[27]
FOOTNOTES:
[22] The process is as follows: when a word (or rather a root) is found
in several Aryan languages at once, it is admitted that this was in use
before the dispersion occurred, and therefore the people knew the object
designated by the word.
[23] The Punjab.--ED.
[24] Prayer of the Mahabarata cited by Lenormant.
[25] A spirituous liquor made by the natives.--ED.
[26] A high estimate.--ED.
[27] India is for us the country of the Vedas, the Brahmans, and Buddha.
We know the religion of the Hindoos, but of their political history we
are ignorant.
CHAPTER VI
THE PERSIANS
THE RELIGION OF ZOROASTER
=Iran.=--Between the Tigris and the Indus, the Caspian Sea and the
Persian Gulf rises the land of Iran, five times as great as
France,[28] but partly sterile. It is composed of deserts of burning
sand and of icy plateaux cut by deep and wooded valleys. Mountains
surround it preventing the escape of the rivers which must lose
themselves in the sands or in the salt lakes.
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