Let me conclude this short account of the Turkomans with a still briefer review of their history, in which I shall confine myself to what, in these particulars, I have heard regarded as traditions still commanding credit amongst them. 'We all spring,' said to me my learned friend Kizil Akhond, 'from Manghischlak. Our ancestors were Szön Khan and Eszen Ili. Yomut and Tekke were the sons of the first, Tchaudor and Göklen of the second. Manghischlak was in the most ancient times called Ming Kischlak (a thousand winter quarters), and is the original home, not only of those of our race who have separated and migrated to Persia, but of the Ersari, Salor, and the rest of the tribes. Our saints of the olden times, as Ireg Ata [Footnote 102] and Sari-er, repose within the confines of Manghischlak; and especially fortunate is he who has been able to visit their tombs.' Khandjan told me that, so late as one hundred and fifty years ago, the Turkomans had very rarely any other dresses than those which they prepared of sheepskins, or the hides of horse or wild ass; that nowadays this was all changed, and the only thing that remains to remind us of the old national costume is the fur cap. [Footnote 102: Ireg Ata means 'the great father' in Hungarian; Oreg Atya, 'old father.'] The animosities prevailing amongst the different tribes often lead to the reciprocal insulting reproach of 'descendants of slaves.' The time when they left their common country cannot be fixed with exactitude. Ersari, Sarik, and Salor were already, at the time of the Arabian occupation, in the eastern part of the desert, on this side of the Oxus. Tekke, Göklen, and Yomut took possession of their present country at a {326} later period, perhaps in the time of Djinghis Khan and Timour. The change of abode of these last-mentioned tribes took place only by partial emigrations, and, indeed, cannot even at the present day be said to be more than half complete, for many Yomuts and Göklens still loiter about their ancient seat with singular predilection. During the middle ages, the Turkoman horsemen were for the most part to be met with in the service of the Khans of Khiva and Bokhara; often, also, under the banners of Persia. The renown of their bravery, and particularly of their furious charges, spread far and wide; and certain of their leaders, like Kara Yuszuf, who took part with the tribe Salor in the campaigns of Timour, acquired historical celebrity. The Turkomans contributed much to the _Turkecising_ of North Persia, at the epoch when the family of the Atabegs ruled in Iran; and beyond all dispute it is they who contributed the largest contingent to the Turkish population on the other side of the Caucasus, to Azerbaydjan, Mazendran, and Shiraz. [Footnote 103]