Its geographical outline is one of bold and rugged mountains which in winter are covered deep in snow. Narrow valleys run far into the flank of the towering hills, and it is here, taking advantage of these natural barriers, that the villages cluster and the inhabitants attempt to keep warm during the long, bitter, and often fireless, winter months. A nonsense rhymester who evidently knew something of the proclivities of the Kurds once scored a palpable bull's-eye on the target of truth when he wrote: "The hippo's a dull but honest old bird; I wish I could say the same of the Kurd." The Kurds themselves have more traducers than friends outside their own country. As the great majority of them are Sunni Moslems, it has been pointed out, and with a certain element of truth, that the root of the Persian-Kurdish Question is the religious hatred between Sunni and Shi'ah, just as the root of the Turkish problem is the undying hatred between Moslems and Christians. Kurmanji, the main Kurdish language, has been incorrectly described as a corrupt dialect of Persian, whereas it is really a distinct philological entity, tracing an unbroken descent from the ancient Medic or Avestic tongue of Iran. I had a good deal to do officially with several of {229} the principal Kurdish tribes, such as the Mukhri, Mandumi, and Galbaghi, while I was stationed at Bijar, and I cannot agree with the generally accepted estimate of their character as "a lazy, good-for-nothing set of thieves." They are admittedly fierce and intractable, of noted predatory habits, and ready to prey with equal impartiality upon Persian or Christian neighbour. On the other hand, I found that they were neither cruel nor treacherous; they are never lacking in courage, and possess a rude, but well-defined sense of hospitality and chivalry. Unarmed, save for a riding-crop, and accompanied only by a few Sowars, I have gone into their villages in search of raiders--not always a pleasant task amongst Asiatic hill tribes--and the inhabitants would be amiability itself. Here one saw the happier side of these wild, free people who, revelling in the unrestrained life and the health-giving ozone of their native mountains, find the trammelling yoke of modern civilization about as irksome and fearful an infliction as a bit and saddle are to an unbroken colt.