FEUDALISM IN PERSIA DE MOEGAJST. 597 



watching the horizon, while the women go for wood and water, or 

 wash their miserable rags. 



In the midst of the groups of tents you easily distinguish the home 

 of the chiefs. Some horsemen emerging from it go and come from 

 one group to another, making endless visits on business. 



In a few days all the herbage of the region is eaten up. Then the 

 tents are struck and the camps reset some miles away; there are left 

 in the plain only the yellow spots on the site of the camps, piles of 

 cut wood, burned sticks marking the fire places, some wooden feed- 

 ing troughs, where the horses and mares of the rich ones had eaten 

 grain brought from the mountain. 



But there are complaints from the neighboring Arabs about water 

 questions or thefts committed by the Seghvends. They dispute 

 without agreement; and shortly shots start in the plain. From one 

 side and the other buffaloes and sheep are stolen; soon the fight 

 becomes general, and all night you hear the fusillade mingled with 

 the barking of dogs, from time to time firearms flash in the darkness, 

 now and then there are some wounded and dead. But these incidents 

 are of hardly any consequence, for one day the chief of a neighboring- 

 tribe brought me to attend his brother and two of his men severely 

 injured, and his mare whose neck was pierced by a bullet. The fate 

 of this beast concerned him much more than that of the men. "And 

 my mare," he kept saying to me incessantly, while I thought of the 

 wounds of his brother. 



The rumor spread that the governor was sending some troops to 

 collect the taxes. In an instant hostilities ceased, the Arabs retired 

 towards Lower Kerkhah. The Seghvends struck their tents, and 

 crossing the ford of the river came into another Province to seek 

 pastures on the frontiers of Mesopotamia far enough from Persian 

 authorities to insure freedom from taxes which they do not wish 

 to pay. 



There they ran their heads against Arab tribes of the Beni-Lams, 

 Bairanvends, and Direkvends, their congeners, and the shots flew 

 again. Finally, hot weather returning, they quit the dry plains, and 

 slowly as they had come retraced the road to Khormabad and the 

 summer pastures. 



The men carry on war, are occupied with their cattle and horses, 

 knit their woolen socks, and smoke. The women are employed in 

 household cares, carry water and wood, prepare the meals, wash their 

 meager possessions of family linen. Between times they spin the 

 wool, weave cloth for the men's clothing, prepare dye for making 

 rugs, a work in which they excel, weave the great haircloth coverings 

 for the tents, make the horsehair ropes, and doing this watch their 

 children, cook the bread, make the curd, chum the butter, etc. 



