among all the Iranian races of the East, as well as of the West, have most truly retained the warlike spirit of old Persia, yet they are in proportion less rough in their customs and intercourse with strangers than the neighbouring Turkomans, with whom they have had relations for a long time; and, notwithstanding his wild exterior, the Djemshidi, even in the lowest class, is polite in word and manner:--the light and shade of the Iranian character are not recognisable in him, and we must not be surprised if in the customs of this nomadic people we meet with the most lively marks of the pre-Islamite time. Islam with them has taken still less root than among the other Turanian nomads, and the greater part of them use it as a veil, under which lurk concealed many features of the religion of Zoroaster; thus, for instance, fire among them is in higher estimation than among the Tadjiks; the door of the tent is always facing the East, and the idea of the good and evil spirit is so universal that the lowest class of the people, especially the women, when a sheep or goat is slaughtered, never neglect to throw certain parts of the animal which are considered by other nomads as delicacies, to the bad spirit as _kende_, "unclean;" and they are only eaten by the dogs. It is worthy of remark, that among the ruins of Martchah the same stories are in circulation, as among the Yomuts of the old remnants of the ruins at Meshdi Misrian. Martchah was in olden times the Kaaba of the whole region until the wicked Turkomans appeared there, and destroyed the whole. This is all that I can say in respect to the Tchihar Aymaks. I can, notwithstanding all inquiries, learn nothing of their name before their last appellation. According to all probability they were reckoned among the Tadjiks, yet now they are distinct from these latter, and form the second gradation of the Iranian race in its extension to the North-East. TADJIKS.