'Kurdistan and the Kurds' [‎3r] (5/122)

3
CHAPTER I.
KURDISTAN AND THE KURDS.
§ 1 .—The Country and its Boundaries.
Kurdistan embraces a wide tract of mountainous country, which
hounds the fertile plains of the Euphrates and the Tigris on the north,
almost from Aleppo to Lake Urmiyah, and on the east from LakeUrmiyah
across the Persian frontier at Mendali to Pusht-i-Kuh. On the inner side
of this half-circle the frontiers of the country almost always coincide with
the fringe of the low-lying plains and the skirts of the mountain-ranges ;
for the vast majority of the Kurdish tribes are mountain-dwellers and
only descend to the plains at certain seasons of the year. On the outer
^dge, however, to the north and east, the limits of the country are less
easily defined ; an almost countless horde of nomad and semi-nomad tribes
move ceaselessly to and fro from mountain to valley and hack again ;
small, unknown, tribes are settled more or less permanently wherever a
piece of land can be found suitable for cultivation ; and all these Kurds
are inextricably mixed up with Turkomans, Circassians, and Aymenians;
while religious differences form no less distinct divisions of these peoples
than racial or national characteristics. Though, therefore, no definite
frontier can he traced, it can be said that Kurds predominate in all the
country which is bounded on the south by the plains, and extends from
Birijik, its westernmost extremity, northwards past Malatia almost to
Erzingan ; thence the frontier runs along an ill-defined line to the river
Araxes near Mount Ararat; from there it follows a southerly course past
Lake Van to the north-west corner of Lake Urmiyah, and, skirting all the
western shores of the lake, it passes down by Mundab to Khorsabad, and
from there to Kermanshah ; and, finally, it bends round towards the east
and strikes the plain of the Tigris at Mendali, on the Persian frontier,
about 90 miles east-north-east of Baghdad. In the northern reaches of
Kurdistan, however, w^e must except several clearly-marked stretches
which are inhabited by peoples of a different race; Kharput is surrounded
on the north, west, and south, entirely by Turks and Armenians; another
large portion of Armenian territory encircles the town of Mush, though
the city itself is occupied entirely by Kurds; round Lake Van is a wide
belt of country populated exclusively by Armenians, and the western shore
of Lake Urmiyah belongs equally to Turks, Armenians, and Kurds; and,
lastly, another body of Armenians are settled in Julamerk and in the
country west of the town, between these two lakes. Outside this area
there are only a few unimportant colonies of Kurds, who have wandered
away or been deported to Asia Minor or the Caucasus.