Von Luschan means by Persians, the round-headed Medic element, which has always been in the majority and which has, at the present day, practically submerged the once powerful, dominant Nordic class, which he says is still seen not rarely in some old noble families. 225 : 20. Until rather recently nothing much was known about the wild Kurdish tribes living in southeast Anatolia, and what reports there were, were frequently conflicting. There are two kinds of Kurds, dark and light. More data has gradually accumulated, however, and it seems that the true Kurds are tall, blond people, who resemble very much the inhabitants of northern Europe. Ratzel, _History of Mankind_, says, quoting Polak: “The Kurds are, in color of skin, hair and eyes, so little different to the northern, especially the Teutonic breed, that they might easily be taken for Germans. There is nothing to contradict this racial affinity in the reputation for honor and courage, which in spite of their rapacious tendencies, the Kurds enjoy wherever it has been found possible to compel them to labor or to the trade of arms. In Persia the Shah entrusts the security of his person to Kurdish officers rather than to any others. Their loyalty to their hereditary Wali, which neither Turks nor Persians have been able to shake, is also noted with praise. The Kurd prefers to wander with his herds and in the winter lives in caves like Xenophon’s Carduchi.... The Kurds are a highly mixed race of a type chiefly Iranian, which has been compared with the Afghan but is not homogeneous. The eastern Kurds must have received a larger infusion of Turkish blood than the western. ‘Husbandmen by necessity, fighters by inclination.’ says Moltke, ‘the Arab is more of a thief, the Kurd more of a warrior.’ They are a vigorous, violent race, running wild in tribal feuds and vendettas.... Their women hold a freer position than those of the Turks and Persians.” The quotation is from vol. III, p. 537. Von Luschan, _op. cit._, p. 229, describes them thus: “[They] have long heads and generally blue eyes and fair hair. They are probably descended from the Kardouchoi and Gordyæans of old historians. They live southeast of the Armenian mountains. The western Kurds are dolichocephalic and more than half of them are fair. The eastern Kurds are little known but are apparently darker and more round-headed.”