"دليل بلاد فارس، الجزء III، وهو يتضمن محافظة فارس، لورستان، عربستان، خوزستان، يزد، كرمانشاه، أردلان، كردستان" [و‎‎٢‎٣‎٨] (٦٨٦/٤٨٠)

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up for many defalcations. Mirza Buzurg, therefore, introduced an
extensive system of fees and fines; and, where robberies and murder
were of almost daily occurrence, he did not want opportunities of
exaction; indeed, he is said to have realised about 20,000 tumans
annually in this manner, and that, too, without cruelty or injustice.
Lur-i-Kuchak is far more capable of sustaining a heavy taxation
than the* Bakhtiaris, for, though agriculture is equally neglected, it
has other valuable sources of profit. The principal of these is its
breed of mules, which are esteemed by far the best in Persia. It
certainly exports, on an average, 1,000 of these animals annually;and,
taking the mean price at 20 tumans, this alone will give a sum of
20,000 tumans of yearly produce. The Iliyat drive a considerable
traffic also in carpets, packing-bags, and all descriptions of horse-fur
niture ; they exclusively supply the towns of Hamadan, Nahawand,
and Burujird with charcoal, and their flocks and herds likewise afford
them a considerable profit.
The great tribes of Pfsh-Kuh have no single chief like the Bakhtiaris;
neither indeed have the subdivisions in general. Some four or five
tnshmals are usually associated in the government of every subdivision,
and on great occasions all these tushmals meet as equals and consult;
so that their internal constitution more nearly assimilates to the spirit
of a confederate republic than of a great feudal aristocracy. The Wall
of Plsh-Kuh alone retains the kingly power of his ancestors.
Among the Lurs most of the offices of labour are performed by
women ; they tend the flocks, till the fields, store the grain, and tread
out that which is required for use. The men content themselves with
sowing and reaping, cutting wood for charcoal, and defending their
property against the attacks of others. The carpets, the black goat-
hair tents, and the horse-furniture, for which Luristan is famous, are
almost all the work of the women. The men seem to consider rob
bery and war their proper occupation, and are never so well pleased as
when engaged in a foray.
The language of the Lurs differs but slightly from that of the
Kurds of Karmanshah, and a person conversant with one dialect will
perfectly understand the other. These dialects of the mountaineers
of Zagros have been' hitherto assumed by all writers as remnants
of the ancient Pahlavx, but apparently on insufficient grounds, as they
are probably derived from the old Farsi, the Farslkadlm as it is
called, which was a co-existent, but perfectly distinct, language from
the Pahlavl in the age of the Sassanian monarchs. Certainly the
Pahlavl, as we read it at the present day upon inscriptions and in books,
does not possess any analogy with the Kurdish, and it is doubtful if any
dialect of it now exists as a spoken language, except among the Gabr
colonies, and in a few detached villages of Azarbaijan.
The religion of the tribes of Lur-i-Kuchak is very curious, and well
merits to be attentively observed; for, although the foundation of all
'All Xlahism is the same, consisting in the belief of a series of succes
sive incarnations, yet they have superinduced a number of local super
stitions, apparently of remote antiquity. The Lurs do not affect the
slightest veneration for Muhammad and the Kuran ; their only general