Note 789 — Chapter XII · —Continents And Their Peninsulas

In the same way, the vast Ganges and Indus basins, which constitute the continental portion of India, have received various Tibetan, Scythian, Aryan, Pathan, and Mongol-Tartar ingredients from Central Asia; and by reason of the dense populations supported by these fruitful river plains, it has been able to dominate politically, religiously and culturally the protruding triangle of the Deccan. [See maps pages 8 and 102.] The continental side of Arabia, the Mesopotamian valley which ties the peninsula to the highlands of Persia and Armenia, has received into its Semitic stock constant infiltrations of Turanian and Aryan peoples from the core of Asia. This process has been going on from the ancient Elamite and Persian conquests of Mesopotamia down to the Ottoman invasion and the present periodic visits of Kurdish shepherds to the pastures of the upper Tigris.789 Here we have the same contrast of geographic conditions as in Italy and India, a wide, populous alluvial plain occupying the continental section of the peninsula, and a less attractive highland or mountainous region in the outlying spur of land.