176 EEPORT — 1889. 



Report of the Committee, consisting of Dr. G-arson, Mr. Bent 

 (Secretary), Mr. Pengelly, Mr. Kudler, Mr. Bloxam, and 

 Mr. J. Stuart GtLENnie, appointed to investigate the Habits 

 and Customs and Physical Characteristics of the Nomad 

 Tribes of Asia Minor, and to excavate on sites of ancient 

 occupation. {Drawn up by the Secretary.) 



Our researches into the mannei's and customs of nomad tribes this last 

 spring were carried on in the district known as Azerbeijan, bordered on 

 the west by Lake Urmia, on the south by Kourdestan, on the north by 

 the Russian province of Transcaucasia, and on the east by the Persian 

 province of Irak Adjemi. Azerbeijan repi-esents the ancient Atropatene, 

 the kingdom of Media, and is composed of vast, and in many cases in- 

 accessible, mountain ranges, overrun during the summer months by tribes 

 of Kurds and Tatar-Turks and Arabs who come up from the burnt-up 

 district of the Germseer to find pasturage for their flocks. The low- 

 lyino- ground around Lake Urmia, Urumia, or Lake of the Armenians 

 (darya i Armeni), as the Persians call it, has a settled population, in- 

 habiting such towns as Maragha, Binab, Mianduwab, Urmia, &c., 

 consisting of a mixed population of Persians, Tatar-Turks, Armenians, 

 Nestorians, and the remnants of the ancient race of the Chaldeans. For 

 ethnological study the province of Azerbeijan, therefore, oifers one of the 

 most profitable fields, but owing to the unsettled state of the country it 

 was necessary for us to take a considerable escort with us, and to secure 

 the friendship of the chiefs of the various tribes through whose territory 

 we passed. 



The preparations for our journey were made at the town of Zenjan, 

 the border town of Persia proper, and the first district where the Tatar- 

 Turkish language is spoken ; it has obtained a disagreeable notoriety in 

 later years as the centre of the Baabi conspiracies against the present 

 dynasty in Persia, and has sufiered much from the outbreak of revolu- 

 tionists. We left this town, accompanied by Mirza Hassan Ali Khan, 

 chief secretary of Animi-Sultan, the Persian Grand Vizier, a yuz-bashi, 

 or captain, and several other attendants. 



The first part o£ the country we traversed was very fertile, and at a 

 distance of 12 miles from Zenjan we halted in a garden of the village of 

 Gul-i-Khandi, before commencing the mountainous tracks ; here the 

 inhabitants all spoke Tatar-Turkisb, and Persian ceased to be under- 

 stood. Passing over several ridges of mountains we reached the village 

 of Gul-tepe, close to which were several mounds with ramifications of 

 minor construction, betokening the existence of a town of considerable 

 importance during the Median epoch. Close to here gold has been found, 

 and we were shown several shafts that had been sunk into the mountain 

 side by the late Grand Vizier, but now abandoned, as the results were un- 

 satisfactory. 



At a distance of 28 miles from Zenjan we halted for the night, at the 

 mud village of Dehshir, the first of many villages inhabited by the Afshah 

 tribe, one of the most important of the Tatar-Turkish tribes. These 

 villages during the colder months of the year are inhabited ; when the 

 summer heats come on the inhabitants migrate to the mountains with 



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