IM 
BAKHTIAREE TRIBE. 
riosity and covetousness might lead them to open it after our de¬ 
parture. 
From Deloonezer to this place we were kept in continual alarm by 
our Mehmandar, who informed us that he had certain intelligence that a 
band of robbers of the Bakhtiaree tribe had made every disposition to 
attack us on our march, and to plunder our baggage. At Abadeh we 
had been met by Mahomed Beg, an active man, sent by the Go¬ 
vernor of Ispahan, with a number of tuffenkchees, or fusileers, to serve 
as our guard during this part of the march; but the precautions that 
were taken against the expected attack, far from producing any feeling 
of security, were on the contrary so ordered, that if a party of expert 
thieves had really been determined to rob us, they must have succeeded. 
As we marched at night, the confusion wliich prevailed throughout our 
numerous party, owing entirely to the disposition of our forces, was be¬ 
yond description. The principal object was to keep us all together, and 
to march in one body. This object, though good in itself, was attained 
so mischievously, that when we were all huddled into one mass, there was 
an end to all order and distinction of persons. Every body seemed at 
once to claim the privilege of talking ; and an hundred different voices, 
speaking almost as many different languages, were elevated at one time, 
which joined to the neighing of horses, braying of asses, and the jing¬ 
ling of the bells of mules and camels, worked up the confusion to its 
height. Luckily no Bakhtiarees appeared, and all that we got from our 
Persian guards, were assurances of the prowess which they would have 
displayed if we had been attacked. 
The Bakhtiarees are a brave and hardy tribe of mountaineers, who 
inhabit more particularly the high lands of Louristan, but are also to 
be found in the Yeylahs and Kishlaks, which extend from Kerman to 
Kauzeroon, and from Kom to Shouster. They have various and op¬ 
posite traditions about their origin; for some in a vague manner assert, 
that they came ft'om the eastward; others from Bourn, (the name for 
Turkey common throughout Persia,) and thus at any rate that they are 
not of Persian origin. Their language would tend to contradict this 
last assertion, as it abounds in words of the old Farsee, and has great 
