On the other hand, Mazenderan is wholly Persian; and so is Ghilan Proper. The Talish, however, to the north of that province, are, possibly, of another stock. Asterabad, as stated above, is a frontier province.
I think that there is good reason for believing Ajerbijan to have been, originally, other than Persian.
In Balkh and Bokhara, the older—but not necessarily the oldest—population appears to be Persian under recently immigrant Uzbek masters. Beyond these countries, the Persians reappear as the chief population, i.e. in Badukshan and Durwaz.
Here the proper Persian population ends—but not either wholly or abruptly.
Three modifications of it occur—
- 1. In Biluchistan to the south-east.
- 2. In Kurdistan to the west.
- 3. In Afghanistan to the east.
Besides which, there are Persians encroaching upon the Armenian and Caucasian area in Shirvan, Erivan, and Karabagh—in all of which countries, as well as in Ajerbijan, I believe it to have been intrusive.
The Biluch.—East and south-east of the proper Persians of Kerman come the Biluch, of Biluchistan. There is certainly a change of type here. Physically, the country is much like the table-land of Kerman. India, however, is approached; so that the Biluch are frontier tribes. To a certain extent they are encroachers. We find them in Sind, in Múltan, and in the parts between the Indus and the Sulimani Mountains, and in the middle part of the Sulimani Mountains themselves. They style themselves Usul
or The Pure, a term which implies either displacement or intermixture in the parts around. Their language is a modified (many call it a bad) Persian. Philologically, however, it may be the older and more instructive dialect—though I have no particular reasons for thinking it so. Hindu features of physiognomy now appear. So do Semitic elements of polity and social constitution. We have tribes, clans, and families; with divisions and sub-divisions. We have a criminal law which puts us in mind of the Levites. We have classes which scorn to intermarry; and this suggests the idea of caste. Then we have pastoral habits as in Mongolia. The religion, however, is Mahometan, so that if any remains of the primitive Paganism, available for the purposes of ethnological classification, still exist, they lie too far below the surface to have been observed.
Captain Postans distinguishes the Biluch from the Mekrani of Mekran; but of this latter people I know no good description. They are, probably, Kerman Persians. The hill-range between Jhalawan and Sind is occupied by a family which has commanded but little notice; yet is it one of the most important in the world, the Brahúi.