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214 214 ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA.

Irak and Seistan. It is said that they even dared, in parties of twenty or thirty, to molest the dwellers in the suburbs of Isfahan. But in the last years of the century they incurred the enmity of the Persian ruler, Aga Mahomed Khan, not, indeed, through their marauding propensities so much as by an act of personal hostility. Although the Turcomans had been on sympathetic terms with Aga Mahomed and his father, they murdered the former's brother when he fled to them for refuge from the pursuit of Zuckee Khan, brother of the Shah Kurrum Khan. For that act Aga Mahomed resolved to exact the most ample reparation, and he accordingly collected a large army at Astrabad, in the neighbourhood of which place the offending Turcomans dwelt. His operations were completely successful, and the Turcomans — who were probably either Groklans or Yomults — paid bitterly for their treachery. So severe were the retaliatory measures adopted by Aga Mahomed, and so resolutely did he carry out his plan of revenge, that the Turcomans were thoroughly cowed, and for a long time afterwards the frontier near Astrabad was more settled than it had ever been before since the days of Nadir. Aga Mahomed carried a large number of prisoners into captivity, and in addition obtained hostages for the future behaviour of the tribe. But the lesson which was then read the Turcomans was only an exceptional occurrence, and has never been repeated. For a time it tranquillised the border, but in order to have been permanently effectual it should have been followed up.