Its on gin and early history are unknown or
little known. There was a town there be
fore Alexander, and the modern City stands
on the site of one of the four dties of Arri
an'i "Aria" Artakoana, Aria Metropolis,
Candace and Sousia Akhala. The Persian
chronicles not so very much later speak of
Heri, the capital of Aria, as a place of con
siderable Importance. In 1 157 the Turco-
mans captured and sacked and probably
j... it, ... i leqe n.nch
UHUVJBU , J, mvm " "
Khan took it after a siege of six months,
it was a city of 12,o) shops, 850 schools,
144,000 occupied dwellings and 6000 baths,
caravanserais and water-mills. Of the In
habitants, 1 1)0, 000 are said to bave been
slaughtered at this secmd sack. In 13i8,
Mirau Sliah, aud in 1147, Jehan Shah,
smote it severely, and twice ic the sixteenth
century it was attacked by the L'sbecka
who were once beaten back alter a siege of
eighteen months, and once succeeded in
capturing and pillaging the dty. When
the Persians soon afterwards toot me city,
which thev had always claimed as one of
the four royal places ot the Khoraasan, it
was "not only the nchest city in t-entrsl
Asia, but the resort of the greatest divines,
philosophers, poets and historians of the
a"?'.
African Salutatloae.
