CHAPTER X. 

 TURKESTAN, BOKHARA, SIBERIA, AND PERSIA. 



TURKESTAN. 



THE population of this great region is composed of different races, so blended together as 

 to produce a type differing in important characteristics from the primary stocks, both Turki 

 and Iranian. The Turki branch of the great Mongolo-Tartar division of the human species, 

 which is the predominating one, occupies nearly all Turkestan. The population is estimated 

 at 5,500,000, of whom Iranians, of Persian stock, constitute one-fifth, while the Galchis, another 

 distinct people, though related to the Iranians, number about 300,000 in Ferghana, Zarafshan, 

 and the valleys of the Upper Oxus. 



In prehistoric times the Turki 

 races were nomad tribes, wandering 

 over the plains and uplands of 

 their country. "\Yarlike and fond 

 of freedom, they sought only pas- 

 turage for their flocks and herds. 

 Their arable tracts and the cities 

 they built (as, for example, Khiva, 

 Bokhara, Ferghana, and Samarcand) 

 were of old, as they are now, the 

 joint home of men belonging to 

 the Turki and Persian races. For 

 centuries a considerable inter- 

 mingling of these races has been 

 going on, with the result that the 

 original types have become so much 

 modified as to be hardly distin- 

 guishable in the general mass, 

 although some typical features may 

 appear as strongly marked in in- 

 dividuals of the mixed race as in 

 either Turk or Persian of the purest 

 blood. The people of both races 

 are divided into a great number of 

 tribes, and each tribe is again split 

 up into clans or families. 



The principal tribes of Turki 

 stock are the Kirghiz, the Turko- 

 mans, and the Usbegs (described on 

 page 222). The Kirghiz are divided 



into two branches - namely, the tiy ])ermig ^ H of ike Pt0yal Gemld 

 Kirghiz-Kazaks and the Kara- A TURKOMAN. 



217 



