288 
TABRIZ. 
use of pumps, a knowledge indeed to which alone he attributed the su¬ 
periority of the Russian vessels. 
He told me that the people of Ghilan have a language of their own, 
distinct from both the Persian and the Turkish, and bearing indeed 
no affinity to either; although, on questioning him further on the subject, 
I found that they had no books written in that language, and that 
it was merely a Patois , or corrupted Persian, which the common 
people spoke. 
In continuing our conversation, he mentioned that near the town of 
Ashreff, on the West of Asterabad, is a tribe of people called Goudar, 
in number about one hundred houses, or five hundred souls, who 
inhabit the wild country in the neighbourhood. If my Mazanderan 
informer may be credited, they are of no religion; and in the inter¬ 
course of the sexes, appears to descend low into savage life. A man 
feeling an inclination for a woman, asks her mother’s leave to carry her 
out into the woods, where he passes two or three days with her; and 
then either lives with her himself, or returns her to her mother. Their 
principal food is the flesh of the wild hog, of which there are vast num¬ 
bers in the district. These hogs are killed by the children of the tribe, 
who are exercised almost from the time that they can walk, in the 
bow and the matchlock, and are described, in consequence, as never 
erring shots. 
From him too I received an account of their more celebrated neigh¬ 
bours the Turcomans, the confines of whose territory are close to Astera¬ 
bad. They are Sunnis, and in consequence execrated by the Persians, 
who call them Giaours or Infidels. They live in tribes or eels, being 
subject to no particular master. Each tribe has, indeed, a nominal 
chief chosen by themselves, but possessing no further authority among 
them than that of settling differences, and arranging their civil economy. 
As a people, they have no fixed habitations; but carry about the tents 
in which they live, and which the Persians call Kara Khader, black 
tents. Their general characteristics are those common to all wander¬ 
ing nations; great hospitality within their ow T n boundaries, and 
