adic tribes which, from time immemorial, have roamed
over the limitless steppes of eastern and central Asia, and which are
known collectively under the titles of "Uralo-Altaic" or "Turanian"
peoples. The Arabs had been in contact with the Turkish nomads ever
since the Islamic conquest of Persia, when the Moslem generals found the
Turks beating restlessly against Persia's north-eastern frontiers. In
the caliphate's palmy days the Turks were not feared. In fact, they were
presently found to be very useful. A dull-witted folk with few ideas,
the Turks could do two things superlatively well--obey orders and fight
like devils. In other words, they made ideal mercenary soldiers. The
caliphs were delighted, and enlisted ever larger numbers of them for
their armies and their body-guards.

This was all very well while the caliphate was strong, but when it grew
weak the situation altered. Rising everywhere to positions of authority,
the Turkish mercenaries began to act like masters. Opening the eastern
frontiers, they let in fresh swarms of their countrymen, who now came,
not as individuals, but in tribes or "hordes" under their hereditary
chiefs, wandering about at their own sweet will, settling where they
pleased, and despoiling or evicting the local inhabitants.

The Turks soon renounced their ancestral paganism for Islam, but Islam
made little change in their natures. In judging these Turkish newcomers
we must not consider them the same as the present-day Ottoman Turks of
Constantinople and Asia Minor. The modern Osmanli are so saturated with
European and Near Eastern blood, and have been so leavened by Western
and Saracenic ideas, they that are a very different people from their
remote immigrant ancestors. Yet, even as it is, the modern Osmanli
display enough of those unlovely Turanian traits which characterize the
unmodified Turks of central Asia, often called "Turkomans," to
distinguish them from their Ottoman kinsfolk to the west.

Now, what was the primitive Turkish nature? First and foremost, it was
that of the professional soldier. Discipline was the Turk's watchword.
No originality of thought, and but little curiosity. Few ideas ever
penetrated the Turk's slow mind, and the few that did penetrate were
received as military orders, to be obeyed without question and adhered
to without reflection. Such was the being who took over the leadership
of Islam from the Saracen's failing grasp.

No greater misfortune could hav