miss, in intercourse, that sprightliness and activity which he meets everywhere among the lively West Iranians under the same situation of climate. It can hardly be doubted, that many will be surprised that this relative difference should exist between such tribes as those in question,--of common origin, language and religion, for hundreds of years, nay, for thousands of years, of one and the same political connection. This circumstance would be with difficulty explained through an analagous case in other lands. We shall, however, recognise the cause directly, when we take into nearer view the following points:-- 1st. The whole portion named of East Iran has been spared from all times the influence of the Semitic as well as Turanian nations, since the first extended themselves only toward the western side of the desert; the last, on their march westward, only at intervals passed from the high road, Merv, Nishabur, and Rei to the southern slope of the Djagatay Hills. 2nd. East Iran herself, in an earlier period, remained separated through the great desert, when the Shiite sect, the chain of solid union, embraced the Persian population of Iran; and, despite all the wildest sect-hatred, the traffic now is as great with the Sunnite Afghans and Heratis as with their western brethren. It is true that, despite all the fatigue of travel in the desert, despite all fear of the Beloochees, caravans go annually from Shiraz, Isfahan, over Yezd, Tebbes up to holy Meshed. Yet Khaf and Bihrdjan, situated south-east, are never touched upon; and then, as now, it was always the case. In the mutual intercourse of nations, language assumes foreign elements easiest and preserves them the longest. The Persian dialect of modern Iran is overloaded with Arabian-Turkish words. Fars in the south, as well as Mazandran in the north, is in this only a little distinctive. In East Iran, nevertheless, the borrowed richness of language is certainly less; and we find in much that Persian in which Firdusi, with a premeditated rejection of Arabic, wrote his great epic. In what concerns the use of old forms and words, the Persian of Bokhara is of that character, and especially we may name the Tadjiks in the first place; yet these last have too much lexicographical and grammatical material borrowed from the Turks; and this circumstance it is that has produced the conviction in our minds, that _in East Iran the purest and oldest Persian is spoken_.