1901.] on Turkish Kurdistan. 655 



Turks for allowing lawlessness and crime to go unpunished and un- 

 checked in those remote confines of the Empire, it must in fairness 

 be remembered that not until comparatively recently have we our- 

 selves adopted a forward policy in our own sphere, and abandoned 

 the attempt to check tribal license by means of intermittent puni- 

 tive expeditions. The problem in Asiatic Turkey is in fact more 

 complicated than in India, owiug to the existence side by side of rival 

 Christian and Mussulman populations. The Turks show a laudable 

 freedom from bigotry in subsidising Mar Shimun, much as we sub- 

 sidise the Afridis, and if he fails to keep the peace between his own 

 subjects and the Kurds they are inclined to say, " It is no business of 

 ours. Let the two fight it out and settle their squabbles among 

 themselves." Were they to undertake the responsibility of directly 

 administering the country (and that would be no easy matter con- 

 sidering the facilities for guerilla warfare which such a mountainous 

 country affords to the defenders) many of their European critics 

 would probably be the first to denounce them for crushing the liberties 

 of the Nestorian people. From the point of view of the governing 

 power, the Christians are undoubtedly better worth encouraging than 

 the Kurds. The former is physically a finer man, he is at least 

 naturally more industrious (for the Kurd is incurably lazy), and he 

 has a genuine and intense feeling of patriotism and hatred of foreign 

 control, whereas the average Kurd cares about nothing except his own 

 immediate interests. The real reason why the Turks act as they do 

 towards the Christian is that they cannot make up their minds to 

 trust them. They know that the Kurd is a fool, but they think, and 

 with some truth, that the Christian is often a knave. In spite of all 

 his faults, many of which arise from sheer slowness of intellect, the 

 Turk is at least a man of his word, and in spite of all their virtues, 

 their constant gaiety and affectionate disposition, truthfulness is not 

 a quality which can be predicated of the Nestorians any more than of 

 the Armenians. On the other hand there is, I believe, a possible 

 future for the one which there cannot be for the other. The 

 Nestorian at all events preserves the same corporate loyalty and the 

 same capacity for self-government which for centuries has preserved 

 his natiouality in the face of far greater perils than any which 

 threaten it to-day, and if the Turks act wisely and do not attempt 

 artificially to bolster up the Kurds and turn them into a perfectly 

 useless body of untrained and undisciplined irregulars, the Christians 

 of Hakkiari may serve them as most valuable allies in any war which 

 tempts the invading army to force a passage from the Persian valleys 

 south of Lake Urmi to the fertile plains of the Tigris and the 

 Lesser Zab. 



