'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎553] (616/714)

THE NORTH-WEST AND WESTERN PRO\ INCES 553
flaunting scarves, they presented a very martial and formidable
appearance. They are an extraordinarily ignorant and an extra
ordinarily stupid people, with neither education, schools, nor books,
and it has been said of the whole race that not one in 10,000 can
read. They have the black hair and eyes, the dark complexion,
and the sullen swagger (so characteristic, too, of the Afghans), that
are usually associated with picturesque ruffianism; and the sym
pathies or the fears of travellers have variously represented their
features as strikingly handsome, or repulsively ugly.
In 1880 occurred a serious, but abortive, Kurdish rebellion m
Persia, which afforded at once a measure of the strength and of the
weakness of the Kurdish organisation. A chieftain
o^Sheikh named Sheikh Obeidullah, whose father, Sheikh lahar,
Obeiduikh had been a fanatic of local note , hailing from a moun
tain village south of Van in Turkish Kurdistan, where he was
head of the small tribe of Oramar, acquired a great reputation tor
personal sanctity and administrative ability, and gradually came to
be looked upon as the leader of Kurdish nationality. He affected
almost royal style, entertained from 500 to 1000 visitors daily in his
diwan-hhaneh, ruled with a strong hand, and was in fact a sort of
petty monarch among the Kurds. There is not a doubt that he
dreamed of an independent Kurdistan as a stepping-stone to an
attack upon the detested Shiah kingdom of Persia, which, had he
been successful in his prior object, he might have thrown into very
considerable confusion. There is also no doubt that the Turks,
whose subject he was, at first smiled upon his aspirations, not so
much because of the arriere jpensee with regard to Persia, as be
cause in the erection of an independent Kurdish principality they
saw an effective set-off and checkmate to the Armenian agitation.
Encouraged by these symptoms. Sheikh Obeidullah struck, and
struck, as it first appeared, to some purpose. He crossed the
border into Persia at the head of several thousand men, and his
son, Abdul Kader, seized the town of Suj Bulak and advanced
upon Maragha, from which the Persians fled with characteristic
precipitation. A massacre of 3,000 persons was perpetrated by
the victorious Kurds at Miandoab. Soon the Kurdish army,
joined by most of the local tribes, was heard of on Mount Seir
outside the walls of Urumiah, which, while beleaguered for ten
days, is said to have been saved chiefly by the negotiations of Dr.
Cochrane, one of the American Mission, who was on friendly terms