In continuing our conversation, he mentioned that near the town of _Ashreff_, on the West of _Asterabad_, is a tribe of people called _Goudar_, in number about one hundred houses, or five hundred souls, who inhabit the wild country in the neighbourhood. If my _Mazanderan_ informer may be credited, they are of no religion; and in the intercourse of the sexes, appears to descend low into savage life. A man feeling an inclination for a woman, asks her mother’s leave to carry her out into the woods, where he passes two or three days with her; and then either lives with her himself, or returns her to her mother. Their principal food is the flesh of the wild hog, of which there are vast numbers in the district. These hogs are killed by the children of the tribe, who are exercised almost from the time that they can walk, in the bow and the matchlock, and are described, in consequence, as never erring shots. From him too I received an account of their more celebrated neighbours the _Turcomans_, the confines of whose territory are close to _Asterabad_. They are _Sunnis_, and in consequence execrated by the Persians, who call them _Giaours_ or Infidels. They live in tribes or _eels_, being subject to no particular master. Each tribe has, indeed, a nominal chief chosen by themselves, but possessing no further authority among them than that of settling differences, and arranging their civil economy. As a people, they have no fixed habitations; but carry about the tents in which they live, and which the Persians call _Kara Khader_, black tents. Their general characteristics are those common to all wandering nations; great hospitality within their own boundaries, and universal depredation abroad. The _Turcomans_ make incursions into Persia; frequently crossing the wide intervening desert of sand, and surprising and carrying away from the centre of towns and villages men, women, and children. They, even now, extend their inroads as far as _Koom_, _Kashan_, _Langarood_, _Nusserabad_; and the ruined villages about _Koom_ were destroyed by them. These Raids, which are called _Chappow_, are performed on horseback by parties of twenty or thirty with incredible speed and activity. Their horses (renowned over the East for swiftness and hardiness) support them admirably in these expeditions, as like their riders they undergo immense fatigue with a very small portion of food. They are, therefore, bought by the neighbouring nations at vast prices; which, (with the sale among other tribes of their captives, and of their camels, sheep, &c.) supply the chief source of the _Turcoman’s_ wealth, and accumulate immense sums in ready money. The captives lead a wretched life: if young, they are sent into the interior to tend the cattle; but when they grow old and unfit for service, they are killed by their masters; who comfort their consciences by placing the skin of the deceased at the threshold of their door, in the belief that he approaches Paradise in proportion as