What was said above concerning Islam as the hereditary faith of the Ottoman Turk does not hold true of the other Moslem races of Turkey. Koords, Circassians, Albanians—nearly half as many, all together, as the Turks—are, at best, but half Mohammedan. To a large extent the profession of Islam by Koords and Circassians is purely outward and formal, while their esoteric faith is a mixture of Mohammedanism, Christianity and heathenism. In grouping and generalization we cannot go farther than the statement just made. Take the Koords alone. There is almost infinite variety in their religious beliefs and superstitions. It is well known that there are whole villages among them ready to declare themselves Christians, could they be assured of protection in so doing. The Moslem Albanians—somewhat more than half the race—are more bigoted and violent Mohammedans than the Turks, just as the Janissaries, likewise of Christian origin, who were compelled from childhood to embrace Islam, out-Heroded Herod in the fanaticism of their anti-Christian zeal. With the exception of the Albanians, Islam has, in all the centuries of the reign of the Ottoman Power over these lands, made very slight gains from the Christian races. The number of Greek, Armenian, Bulgarian, Roumanian, Servian, Bosnian, or Montenegrin Mohammedans is insignificant. Of these seven races, for hundreds of years under Moslem sway, the number to-day free from Ottoman control is nearly equal to the entire population, Moslem and Christian, now directly under Turkish domination. —From “The Mohammedan World of To-day.” THE KOORDS Besides the Turks and Armenians, no race in Turkey has commanded more attention during the past two decades than the Koords. They have attracted the notice of the world by their large part in the Armenian massacres in 1895-96 as well as by their relations to the sultan himself through the organization and arming of the Hamidich cavalry within the last quarter of a century. They were almost unknown and unheard-of except locally until they came into prominence at the time of the siege of Erzerum by the Russians in 1876, when the Koords were used by the Turks in defense. They rendered little real service, however. Whatever else may be said, this race has now to be reckoned with in all plans for propagating Christianity in any form in Eastern Turkey and western Persia, as well as in all questions of order in that region. Sometimes they are in open conflict with the Turks, and troops are mobilized and sent against them in their mountain fastnesses. Again they are provided with arms by the government and sent out to subdue and suppress revolutionary bands of Armenians who are more ambitious than discreet in their endeavors to obtain liberty.