TOPOGRAPHY, EACES, EELIGIONS, LANGUAGES AND CUSTOMS. 37 



■creed of one or the other, and instead of retaining the name 

 of their ancient nationahties hke the Greeks, Armenians, 

 and Chaldeans, they adopted the rehgious designations of 

 their conquerors. 



The latter, who are doubtless descendants of the ancient 

 Chaldeans, or Assyrians, of Avhom I shall speak more fully 

 hereafter, are now in communion with the church of Rome, 

 and are to be found in Assyria and Mesopotamia. Part of 

 them Avho are commonly called " Nestorians," but who really 

 have never had any connexion with that Greek prelate, 

 Tetain their primitive creed pure and simple. They occupy 

 the highlands of Assyria and that part of Coordistan or 

 ancient Media called Teearee, and also a remnant of them 

 are in Persia. A part of the latter are now Roman Catholics, 

 and the remainder have been taken up for religious and educa- 

 tional culture by the Board of the American Presbyterian 

 Mission and the Archbishop of Canterbury's Mission to the 

 Assyrian Christians. The so-called " Syrians " are of mixed 

 nationality of Assyrians, Cappadocians, and Arameans, com- 

 monly knov/n as Syrians. These also are divided into two 

 sects called respectively Syrian Catholics, in communion with 

 Rome, and Syrian Jacobites, that is to say followers of Jacob 

 Baradeus, the promulgator of their faith in the sixth century, 

 when it was nigh extinction. The Patriarchs of both claim 

 their ecclesiastical titles from the See of Antioch, but neither 

 of these communities has really any more right to the primi- 

 tive hierarchy of Antioch than the Maronites ; as all now 

 differ in their religious professions from that confessed by St. 

 Chrysostom or those bishops before him. 

 ' Of all the nationalities mentioned in the Old Testament, 

 only the Persians hold their own now both in dominion and 

 sway, but the remainder of the other ancient peoples have 

 been brought into subjection under one rule, which is 

 that of the Turk, known in history by the name of Tartar 

 or Scythian. More than nine-tenths of the population of 

 Turkey and Persia are followers of Mohammed, and the 

 remainder are a mixture of Christians, Jews, and nondescript 

 sects, as the latter do not exactly know themselves what 

 they beheve in. They are commonly known as the Guebres, 

 the ancient Parsees or Zoroastrians, Sabians, better known 

 as Christians of St. John, Assassins, Ansarees, Droozes, 

 Yezeedees, or devil worshippers, and Shabbacks. From 

 the constant intercourse and intermixing with their Christian 

 •and Moslem neighbours, more especially from being con- 



