Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Question by George Curzon, with Inserted Papers [‎394r] (790/1814)

549
nstians ; and
erally
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an
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■ ID 1
THE NORTH-WEST AND WESTERN PROVINCES
each has qualities and merits fitting it for some nobler part than
that of combatants in an international brawl. Kurdistan, which
is a name in very common use upon the titlepage of travellers’
books, is no more than a convenient geographical expression for
the entire country, estimated at over 50,000 square miles, that is
inhabited by the Kurds. This region has no natural or political
boundaries ; it includes both Turkish and Persian territory, and
it contains many other elements, Turkish, Persian, Chaldaean, and
Armenian, in the population as well. It may be said to extend
from Turkish Armenia on the north, to the plains of the middle
Tigris and the Luristan mountains on the south, and through the
greater part of this length to overlap the Persian border . 1 2
The origin and ancestry of the Kurds is too large, and, I may
add, too uncertain a question to be debated at length here.
Origin Whether they are of Iranian or of Turanian origin, whether
and ins- they are the descendants of Medes, or of Parthians, or
tory ot the ^ 1
Kurds whether they are the Gardu or Gurdu, or Gutu, who, in
the remote times when Hittites and Accadians were great in the
land, held the mountains north of Assyria, and after the fall of
Nineveh became Aryanised by the overwhelming Aryan migra
tions of the period—are questions which no one has hitherto
1 I have compiled the following list of authorities for Kurdistan, and more
especially the Persian Kurds : Sir J. M. Kinneir (1813), Journey through Kurdis
tan', J. S. Buckingham (1816), Travels in Assyria, etc., caps, vi.-ix.; C. J. Rich
(1820), Narrative of a Itesidence in Koordistan, vol. i. caps, ii.-xi.; Hon. G.
Keppel (1824), Personal Narrative of a Journey, etc., caps, xii., xiv.; Sir H.
Willock (1829), Assassination of Professor Schultz in Kurdistan (Journal of the
R. As. Soc., vol. i.); G. Fowler (1831, 1836), Three Years' 1 Residence in Persia,
vol. i. p. 134, vol. ii. cap. ii.; Capt. R. Mignan (1830), Winter Journey through
Russia to Koordistaun, 2 vols.; (Sir) J. Sheil (1836), Journal of the R. G. S., vol.
viii. p. 54 ; J. B. Fraser (1834), Travels in Koordistan, etc., vol. i. letters iii., iv.,
v.; vol. ii. letters viii., ix., x. ; (Sir) H. Rawlinson (1838), Journal of the R. G. S.,
vol. x. p. 1 ; J. Brant (1838), Journal of the R. G. S., vol. x. p. 341; Com.
J. F. Jones (1844), Narrative of a Journey through part of Kurdistan (No. 43
of Bombay Records, 1857); M. Wagner (1843), Travels in .. . Koordistan',
Scheref Nameh, Prince de Bitlis, Histoire des Kourdes, 2 vols. 1860-1862;
D. W. Marsh (1864), The Tennesseean in Persian Kurdistan ; J. G. Taylor (1864),
Journal of the R. G. S., vol. xxxv. p. 21 ; F. Millingen (1868), Uild Life among
the Koords ; J. C. Me (Joan (1879), Our New Protectorate, TurTtey in Asia, 2 vols. ;
Colonel R. E. Carr (1879), ‘The Kurdistan Mountain Ranges’ {Journal of the
R. U. S. I., vol. xxii. pp. 135—184); J. Creagh, Armenians, Koords, and lurks,
2 vols., 1880 ; Major H. Trotter (1881), ‘ Report on the Kurds ’ (No. 134 of Par
liamentary Papers, Turkey, No. 6 , 1881); H. Binder (1886), Au Kurdistan,
cap. v.; Mrs. Bishop (1890), Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan, vol. ii.