ned, he tells us
that[17] "they are tall and robust, with square flat faces, as well as
the western; only they are more swarthy, and have a greater resemblance
to the Tartars. Some of them have betaken themselves to husbandry. They
are all Mohammedans; they are very turbulent, very brave, and good
horsemen." And of the Western, that they once had two dynasties in the
neighbourhood of Armenia, and were for a time very powerful, but that
they are now subjects of the Turks, who never have been able to subdue
their roving habits; that they dwell in tents of thick felt, without
fixed habitation; that they profess Mahomedanism, but perform its duties
no better than their brethren in the East; that they are governed by
their own chiefs according to their own laws; that they pay tribute to
the Ottoman Porte, and are bound to furnish it with horsemen; that they
are great robbers, and are in perpetual warfare with their neighbours
the Kurds; that they march sometimes two or three hundred families
together, and with their droves cover sometimes a space of two leagues,
and that they prefer the use of the bow to that of firearms.

This account is drawn up from writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. Precisely the same report of their habits is made by Dr.
Chandler in his travels in Asia Minor in the middle of the last century;
he fell in with them in his journey between Smyrna and Ephesus. "We were
told here," he says, "that the road farther on was beset with Turcomans,
a people supposed to be descended from the Nomades Scythae: or Shepherd
Scythians; busied, as of old, in breeding and nurturing cattle, and
leading, as then, an unsettled life; not forming villages and towns with
stable habitations, but flitting from place to place, as the season and
their convenience directs; choosing their stations, and overspreading
without control the vast neglected pastures of this desert empire.... We
set out, and ... soon after came to a wild country covered with
thickets, and with the black booths of the Turcomans, spreading on every
side, innumerable, with flocks and herds and horses and poultry feeding
round them."[18]

I may seem to be making unnecessary extracts, but I have two reasons for
multiplying them; in order, first, to show the identity in character of
the various tribes of the Tartar and the Turkish stock, and next, in
order to impress upon your imagination what that character is; for it is
not easy to admit into the