1835.] Georgia, Persia, and Mesopotamia. G03 



purpose of nursing sick cranes and storks ; and burying them when 

 dead." — (See Travels of Ali Bey.) 



Meandab is on the frontiers of one of the most remarkable regions 

 in the world — Kurdistan, the Switzerland of the East — an immense 

 succession of hill, valley, dells of exhaustless fertility, and mountains 

 towering to the height of Mont Blanc. The top of the great range 

 of Zagros rises upwards of 12,000 feet above the level of the ocean ! 

 The oppression and cruelties it has endured ; the vengeance it has 

 inflicted upon its Turkish and Persian neighbours ; and, above all, 

 its acquisition of independence : these circumstances together invest 

 this country with a peculiar interest. The geographical division of 

 Kurdistan is nearly as follows : 



Kurdistiln proper, comprising the country lying between the degrees of 



northern latitude 35 and 38, and longitude 43 and 46, . . Inhabitants, 250,000 



Ardelan, Do 150,000 



Adiabene, Do 100,000 



Total, 500,000 



Of this population, at least four-fifths are Kurds ; the rest are 

 Christians and Jews. The mountainous regions have at no period 

 been under the Turks or Persians. The horse and the sword had made 

 them masters of the plain ; they became feudal possessors of the 

 territory under the tenure of service to the Shah, and held the 

 remaining Kurds as cultivators of the soil. But thousands removed 

 to the security of the mountains, and as the Turkish or Persian chain 

 became heavier, they flung it off, and joined their free countrymen. 

 The vacancy produced by this flight has never been filled up, though 

 large emigrations have entered the country ; and in whatever quarter 

 they settled, they have been hardy, active and intrepid. 



Turkish oppression, on the one hand, and Persian, on the other, has 

 been so directly the source of the chief defects in the Kurdish charac- 

 ter, that in proportion as that fatal influence is weakened, so rises the 

 national character. Its nature is so elastic, that it springs up, even 

 in every momentary removal of the pressure ; but its true displays 

 are to be found where the tyrant dares not come. The greatest 

 contrast to the inhabitants of the plains is to be found in those 

 mountainous retreats where there are no foreign inhabitants. Here 

 the Kurds are hardy and heroic, passionately fond of their homes 

 and country, and subsisting on little. The picture has its dark side. 

 They are inconstant, envious, and treacherous. But it must be 

 remembered, that these defects would be the natural qualities of any 

 people leading such uncertain and distracted lives. In his most 



