THE FIRST GROUP, consisting of Armenians, Greeks, Turks, Jews, and some few Kurds, lives in the plains, chiefly as agriculturists, merchants and traders, but their staple means of livelihood is undoubtedly agriculture. During the short summer months they till the fields, and in the winter retire to their towns and villages. They are a hard-working, thrifty and prosperous race. THE SECOND GROUP, the semi-nomads, are Kurds. They migrate with their flocks along the valleys in the spring, the slopes in summer, and the mountain tops in autumn. They sell wool, butter, goats’ hair, skins, and animals for slaughter to the traders in the plains, and in return purchase domestic necessaries such as barley, petroleum and sugar for their own use, and hay for their herds. Thus provided they move, as winter approaches, to the mountain villages, there to await the coming of the following spring. These Kurds are a truculent, warlike, yet simple, generous and industrious race. They live in separate tribes or communities under their own chieftains. The character of the tribes varies considerably, some being fiercer than others. Some regard all strangers with suspicion and repel them, while others welcome and confide in them. In this respect, and in fact in many other characteristics, they very much resemble the Scotch Highland clans of some two hundred years ago. Like these they at times war with one another, the usual cause for dispute being either the ownership of the ground on which the flocks are grazed, or the proprietorship of a well. Mr. Grattan Geary, who travelled through Asiatic Turkey in 1878, describes the Kurds as “fine, strong fellows, with well marked features, which are, however, often marred by a sinister expression and a furtive glance, for which it is not easy to account in the descendants of a race of martial mountaineers who have never bowed the neck to any yoke. They have a reputation for treachery and cruelty, which I am afraid is not undeserved.” Mr. Geary during his journey found that the outlying Christian and Moslem villages were again being plundered by the Kurdish mountaineers although the raids and disturbances which distracted the country before the Sultan’s authority was made real in the more hilly parts of Kurdistan, had been reduced to very small dimensions before the war with Servia, and afterwards with Russia, caused the Turkish troops to be withdrawn. but in the opinion of those with whom he spoke on the subject