The Jaf tribe is an ancient one, and has from the earliest history of Kurdistan been powerful, and renowned for the manner in which its chiefs agree and hold together. This trait of character--coherency--so rare among the greater Kurdish chieftains, has won for the tribe wealth and power, so that now various chiefs own such important towns as Panjwin, Halabja, and Qizil Rubat, besides numerous villages and lands, which they have acquired by purchase. These, the property of individuals, are not connected in any way with the “Jaf land”--that is, the country over which the migratory tribe has the right of passage, domicile, and cultivation, and which is theirs by ancient right, gift, and conquest, belonging to the tribe as a whole. [Sidenote: JAF HISTORY] From the time when Bagdad returned to the hands of the Turks in the 17th century, the Jafs have been in contact upon the west with that nation,[63] and have for about two hundred years recognised the Sultan as their overlord, as well as the Khalifa, or spiritual head of Sunni Islam, to which section they belong. They have, however, as a tribe, maintained more than semi-independence up to the present day, Mahmud Pasha holding himself responsible only for a yearly sum payable to the Sultan. In the 18th century, when the bulk of the tribe left their old lands in Juanru of Persia, two sections of the tribe seceded and took up their quarters with the Persian Guran tribe, with whom they still remain. These are the Jaf-i-Qadir Mir Waisi, and the Taishi. Within more recent times, another section--under one, Fattah Beg--separated and retired to Persia, in the Kermanshah province. Except for these insignificant sections, the great Jaf tribe is as united as it ever was. From time to time it is called upon to undertake the chastisement of smaller tribes who may misbehave, and act for the Turks as Wardens of the Marches, unmolested by their sovereign ruler. The tribe itself--that is, the people who wander every spring from Qizil Rubat to Panjwin and Saqiz--are under the immediate supervision of Mahmud Pasha, who accompanies them. His elder brother, Uthman Pasha, is, as mentioned before, appointed by the Sultan’s ruler, or Qaim Maqam, of the district of Shahr-i-Zur. This is a government of some considerable importance, and is a frontier one, necessitating the possession of armed power upon the part of the ruler. Uthman Pasha, who can call upon the tribe, of course possesses this. But here we must make a slight digression to bring in Lady Adela, who comes from over the border. The Persian province whose land runs up to the borders of Shahr-i-Zur is Ardalan. This Ardalan was formerly a kingdom under a dynasty of petty Kurdish princes who, though they were virtually independent, yet acknowledged the suzerainty of the Shah of Persia. For five hundred years these princes reigned, holding court at Sina, which is still the capital of Ardalan.