Page:Historyofpersiaf00watsrich.djvu/27

 door, and no window or chimney. This is the Turkoman tent, which is used by the Shahsevend and other tribes, but the Eelyats in central Persia make use of tents of another construction, with flat or slightly-sloping roofs. The provinces near the Persian Gulf contain many Arabs and men of Arab extraction. Such are for the most part the inhabitants of Laristan, and of the country lying to the left of the Shat-el-Arab and of the lower part of the Tigris. The Bakhtiari mountains, between the valley of the lower Tigris and the plain of Ispahan, are the dwelling-place of tribes of another race, and of whom and their country very little is known. The mountains of Kurdistan give birth to a warlike people, who are attached to their own tribe-chiefs and who never go far from the borders of Turkey and of Persia, sometimes proclaiming themselves subjects to the Porte and sometimes owning allegiance to the Shah. At the foot of one part of these mountains, on the borders of the lake of Uroomiah, there is a plain on which dwell twenty-five thousand Christian families, who hold the tenets of Nestorius. At Ispahan, at Tehran, at Tabreez, and in other parts of Persia, there is a more or less considerable population of Armenians. At Hamadan, at Ispahan, at Tehran, at Meshed, at the town of Demavend, and elsewhere in Persia, Jews are found in considerable numbers. The province of Gilan is inhabited by a race of men peculiar to itself, the descendants of the ancient Gelae. The people of Mazenderan speak, as do the Gileks, a dialect of their own. The province of Astrabad is partly inhabited by Turkomans; and in the districts claimed by Persia, which border on Affghanistan and