As for the language, I should be inclined to cite the Khafi or the Sigistani as the primitive tongue of all the Iranians, yet, in regard to their ethnographical position in relation to the whole Iranian race, I would not venture to attribute that position to them in which the Buruts stand to the whole Turko-Tartar race. What branch of the East Iranian families may be the primitive is one of those questions to which no one could deny a high degree of importance, yet is the reply much more difficult as to the Turko-Tartar race. For the appearance of the latter on the stage of historical events is comparatively fresh, whilst the former stepped forward in a period of which we can hardly form a conception. We must, therefore, again repeat that the Sigistani or Khafi are named as the first among the East Iranians, only in consequence of their geographical position, and not from induction on the more primitive character of their branch. TCHIHAR AYMAK.[51] These are the four people or races which, from the time of the conquest of Herat, have been thus named by the Mongols. They consist of the Timuri, Teimeni, Firuzkuhi, and Djemshidi. The whole are of Iranian origin and Persian speech, and enough so to distinguish them from the Hezareh,[52] who, though they speak Persian, yet show their pure Mongolian type, their Turanian origin without a doubt. On the spot itself there is but a confused understanding as to its name Tchihar Aymak, because many appropriate to themselves the same, and are again opposed by others. Our travellers have most contradictory statements concerning these races, and especially this erroneous idea, that the Hezareh are to be reckoned among the Tchihar Aymak, who appeared at the Southern part of Central Asia, at a time when the latter were already indicated by the name in question. [51] Aimak is a Mongolian word, and signifies a people. [52] Khanikoff seems to be in error when he considers the Hezareh, as formerly Œzbegs; viz., as the Berlas tribe. "Memoire sur la Patrie Meridionale de l'Asie Centrale." Paris, 1842, pp. 112, 138. I must against this cite the following arguments:--1st. Their own assertion,--that they were the remainder of the army of Djingis, and, moreover, from the statement of Abul Fazl of a troop of Mangu Khan. 2ndly. That a portion, now named the Gvbi Hezareh, which retired into the hills in the neighbourhood of Herat, and has been spared by the Persian elements, speaks a Mongolian dialect, as is proved by _Von der Gabelenz_, in a periodical of the German Asiatic Society,--vol. xx. p. 326.; and Baber affirms that in his time many Hezareh spoke Mongolian. 3rd. There is nowhere among the Œzbegs such a decided Mongolian type to be found as among the Hezareh, which is the more striking, because the first remain near their old home in more compact masses, while the latter have dwelt under a foreign climate and foreign elements.