'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎515] (574/714)

THE NORTH-WEST AND AVE STERN PROVINCES 515
Britain. Here, too, are to be found the ubiquitous Armenians and
their inseparable and irrepressible concomitant, the Armenian
Question. Surely in these jarring elements, which would appear
to have as much in common as the contents of the several vessels
that compose a cruet-stand, there is material enough and to spare for
the ' questions' of diplomatists or the crises of politicians. If we
add that the vast majority of the inhabitants of this part of the
Shah's dominions are not Iranian but Turkish in descent, and
that the language of Azerbaijan is not Persian bat Turki,
we augment rather than diminish the interest already excited ;
whilst the facts that from this province are drawn the most reso
lute and warlike elements of the entire population of Persia, that
it contains the commercial capital, Tabriz, and that its fertility
of resources entitles it to be called the granary of Northern
Iran, justify the claim that it should be examined and regarded
with no careless or superficial eye. 1
My readers will long ago have gathered that Persia is a land
of mountains and plains, in which the former are rarely out of
Mountain sight, and the latter play the part of thresholds to the
system successive ranges. Azerbaijan does not differ from the
rest of the country in this respect. But whereas we have hitherto
remained in close proximity to the main or lateral branches of a
single great system, running from the south-west of the Caspian to
the confines of Meshed, we here encounter a separate and detached
mountain group, not directly connected with the Elburz. The
orographic system of North-Western Persia is part of the lofty high
lands of Russian and Turkish Armenia on the north and north
west, and of Kurdistan on the south, which have been called
by Ritter the Medic Isthmus, connecting the Iranian with the
1 For information relating specially to Azerbaijan, vide John Bell (1716),
Travels from St. Peterslmrij, vol. i.; P. Tancoigne (1807-1808), Lettres sur la
Perse, vol. i.; A. Dupre (1807-1809), Voyage en Perse, vol. i.; Sir J. M. Kinneir
(circ. 1810), Geographical Memoir-, J. P. Morier (1809), First Journey, caps, xiv.,
xv.; J. P. Morier (1812), Second Journey, caps, xv., xvi., xviii., xix., xx., xxii.;
St. Martin (1818), Mcmoires sur VArmenie, 2 vols.; Colonel W. Monteith (1826),
Journal of the It.G.S., vol. iii. p. 1 ; General F. R. Chesney (1885-1837), Expe
dition for the Survey of the Euphrates, vol. ii. cap. x.; Colonel W. K. Stuart
(1835), Journal of a Residence in Northern Persia ; Ch. Texier (1839), L"Arnienie y
la Perse, et la Mesopotamie ; M. von Thielmann (1872), Journey in the Caucasus,
vol. ii.; Dr. G. Radde (1879-80), PetermanrCs Mittheil. 1881, pp. 47-55, 169-176,
261-270; M. Orsolle (1882), Le Caucase et la Perse-, Mme. Dieulafoy (1881),
La Perse, caps, ii.-v.