More about the Bujnurd Sheep 195 



nearest Turkoman obah (encampment), and to 

 provide grain and flour sufficient for three weeks 7 

 shooting in the uninhabited no -man's -land that 

 intervened. 



The yuz-bashi, a big, black -bearded, boasting 

 swashbuckler, was, according to his own account, 

 the hero of many scores of fights with the 

 Turkoman ; and no doubt he had seen many 

 affairs of the sort that take place when two 

 savage peoples want each other's blood, and are 

 not particular as to ways and means. The 

 Turkoman tactics, as in the days of their Par- 

 thian forbears, is raid and scuttle ; that of the 

 Kurds, who act entirely on the defensive, surprise 

 and ambush. For various reasons, which students 

 of Persian politics will surmise, the Turkoman 

 had been active lately, one of their most recent 

 exploits being the massacre of a party of Arab 

 pilgrims on the Teheran-Meshed road. The Buj- 

 nurdis had ambushed one party of the raiders 

 with some success, and I was given a photo of a 

 trophy of Turkoman heads, taken by the leader 

 himself, a combination of barbarism with modern 

 " snap-shotism " that would be hard to beat. 

 The grisly tokens were sent to Meshed, to be 

 displayed in proof of the " Persian victory," and 

 subsequently kicked about the bazar. Incident- 

 ally, I have no doubt they made the reputation 



