'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎97] (130/714)

FROM ASHKABAD TO KUCHAN
97
sovereigns of the world, with the Czar, quite double the size of the
rest, in the centre; and the old Emperor of Germany and the
Emperor of Austria, of size No. 2, on his right and left. Queen
Victoria, in a red silk dress, occupied the central position in a row
of the third dimension. Along with these embellishments were
nailed up a number of brightly coloured and gilded chromos of
religious subjects, such as the Virgin Mary, Christ, and different
saints of the Greek calendar, contrasting curiously with the
uniformed royalties and the smiling coquettes. The decorations
of the room sufficiently indicated the foreign influences to which
the Khan is most amenable, and must originally have been devised
for guests of another nationality than my own. Huge trays laden
with pink and white sweetmeats now arrived from the Khan, who
renewed his apologies, asked when I would come to see him, and
inquired whether I would be willing to remit the punishment of
the red-bearded emissary from Imam Kuli on the ground that,
being a Kurd, he had imperfectly understood the explanations
of my interpreter. I named five o'clock as the hour of meeting,
and gladly acquiesced in the pardon of the offender.
And now, having arrived at Kuchan, let me, before proceeding
further, give some idea of the character and inhabitants of this
General important frontier province, and of the personality of
description ^0 Kurdish chieftain whose guest I was, and whom I
was about to interview.
Three hundred years ago the north-eastern border of Persia
was as subject to Tartar inroads as, till ten years ago, it was to
Plantation the olamans of the Akhal Tekkes. Collecting in the
of Ld the OWer desert on the north, they burst through the mountain
Kurds gorges and defiles, burnt, harried, massacred, plundered,
and retired with as much swiftness and as great impunity as
they had come. It was characteristic of the dispositions of a great
monarch that, recognising the inability of so timid a people as the
Persians successfully to resist the invaders themselves. Shah Abbas
looked elsewhere for his frontier garrison. Just as he transported
an entire Armenian community from his north-west provinces to
Isfahan, in order to teach trade and attract prosperity to his
newly founded capital, so he now transferred an entire com
munity of warlike Kurdish tribesmen from the same quarter, and
planted them in the mountainous glens and uplands of Khorasan.
By this judicious act he served a double purpose; for he both
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