'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎558] (621/714)

668
PERSIA
disposed of elsewhere. When Captain Napier was here in 1875
he found a surplus produce from the preceding harvest of 110 000
Products t0nS ' wllich the owners were Prepared to sell at'five
shillings per Icharvar (649 lbs.). It is also a famous
locality for the breed of horses and of mules. The Kurdish carpets
which figure so largely in the bazaars of Constantinople and other
Oriental cities come largely from this neighbourhood, and are
woven m the tents or in the open air by the women on a frame of
rude stakes fixed in the ground. The tents, which are the sole
habitation of the nomad tribes, are made of black goats' hair
blankets stretched upon poles, and are often very considerable
structures, divided by reed-partitions into several compartments,
used as the cliwan-lihaneh, or reception chamber, the men's and
the women's quarters, the kitchen, the stables, and the cowshed
The majority of the sedentary Kurds of Ardelan and Kerman-
shah, who have long been settled in villages, have completely
abandoned both the national instincts and the national dress, and
are not at first sight to be mistaken from Persians. 1 It is'said
that the revenue exacted in Persian Kurdistan is 1Z. per house or
tent, as against 1?. G.s. in the Ottoman dominions.
The capital, Kermanshahan, with about 40,000 inhabitants,
is a place of central position and consequent importance!
Kerman- Almost equidistant, between 250 and 300 miles, from
Tabriz, leheran, Isfahan, and Baghdad, it commands
roads to each of those places, and is, therefore, invested with
considerable strategical value. Being on the high road of the
great pilgrim route to Kerbela, it is said to be visited yearly by over
100,000 pilgrims. Founded by Varahran IV., son or brother of
Shapur III., who was known as Kerman Shah, from having been
ruler of Kerman, it has not played the part in history that might
have been expected, being overshadowed by its neighbour Hamadan
(Ecbatana). It was fortified by Nadir Shah, but the walls, though
repaired in this century, are now in ruins, and the ditch is choked
with rubbish. In the early part of the century Path Ali Shah
conferred the Governorship of this province and city upon his
eldest son, Mohammed Ali Mirza, whose jealousy of Abbas Mirza,
the Heir Apparent, plays so large a part in the pages of contem
porary writeis. He, and his son Imam Kuli Mirza, who succeeded
1 For an account of the life of the Persian Kurds vide H. Binder, An Kurdis
tan, pp. 350-353.