640 Earl Percy [May 17, 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 

 Friday, May 17, 1901. 



Sir James Cbichton-Bbowne, M.D. LL.D. F.R.S., Treasurer and 

 Vice-President, in the Chair. 



The Eight Hon. Earl Percy, M.P. 

 Turkish Kurdistan. 



It is, perhaps, as well that I should preface my remarks by guarding 

 against a misconstruction, which might possibly arise from the title 

 I have chosen for my address. There is, of course, no clearly 

 denned area of Asiatic Turkey to which the name Kurdistan can be 

 applied ; and of the many scattered districts which the Turks 

 designate by that word I propose to deal with only a comparatively 

 small one on the present occasion. 



Eoughly speaking, the whole of the Western area, which we call 

 Asia Minor, the Turks call Anadolu, or Anatolia ; while the eastern 

 districts between the Black Sea and the plains of the Tigris, and 

 extending westwards as far as Diarbekr and Kharput, which we 

 sometimes term " Armenia," the Turks, who refuse to recognise 

 that expression at all, describe as " Kurdistan." The two names arc 

 precisely similar in one respect, that they simply denote the fact that 

 in these regions the Kurds and Armenians, although not a majority 

 of the population, are more numerous than in any of the other 

 Asiatic provinces. And just as Armenians are found outside this 

 area, particularly in the great commercial centres of the interior and 

 along the shores of the Levant, so the Kurds are found scattered over 

 all the mountainous uplands, from the Taurus and the Anti-Taurus 

 in the west to the Dersim, south of Erzingian, and the Alpine ranges 

 along the Persian frontier. Now in theory all these Kurds are 

 Turkish subjects, and amenable to Turkish law ; but in practice the 

 government exercises little or no effective control except over those 

 who have exchanged the nomadic for a settled pastoral life, and have 

 consequently acquired the same status as the ordinary Turkish or 

 Armenian peasant. The roving migratory Kurds still enjoy a 

 large measure of independence under their respective tribal chiefs, 

 and would never come within reach of the civil authority or the tax 

 collector at all, were it not for the severity of the winter climate, 

 which forces most of them every year to leave their hill " Yailas " 

 and to seek pasture for their flocks in the warmer valleys and plains 

 of the south. There are two districts of Asiatic Turkey where this 

 independence survives in its most unlimited form : (1) the " Dersim," 



