| Armenians, Koords, and Turks II
THE KOORDS
Journeying alone along the wild mountains between Kars and Bayazid, I first became acquainted with the celebrated Koords, whose feudal system of government and aristocratie mann ers assimilate them to a great entent with the Bosniak Mussulmans, living at the very opposite aide of the Ottoman Empire.
It appears to me that the modern Koord differs very little from the swarms of light horsemen who resisted so successfully the arms of the Crusaders.
He is mounted on a hardy, spirited, and well-bred horse, capable of enduring the extremes of both fatigue and hunger. His saddleis decorated with every imaginable kind of caparison or ornament, which dangles down towards the ground.
His flowing garments of the brightest and most fantastic hues, his voluminous turban of a sombre colour, his long flowing locks reaching half-way down his back, his immense moustachios, black and piercing eyes, insolent expression and proud display of pistole, knives, yataghans, scimitars, blunderbuss, long gun, and sword, besides an enormous spear about twelve feet long, ornamented (instead of a flag like that of an European lancer) with a bundle exactly resembling in size and chape an ordinary football, from which several strings or streamers are dependent—give him a truculent and aggressive aspect ; quite justifying the remark of an Armenian, who, looking after one of them and getting easier as the distance increased between them, said in a very solemn and impressive toue : " You may laugh if you please, but moere you to meet that fellow alone, all your courage would evaporate.'
Nobody has ever attempted to write a history of the Koords, because they are as destitute of annals as the wolves and jackals among whom they have lived in the high mountains from immemorial time.
Although some of them have made permanent settlements in villages, which they generally share with Armenians, the great body of the nation is nomadic, and wanders about in order to procure pasture for their large herds and according to the variations of the yearly seasons.
In summer they are to be found living under black tents in the highest of the mountain ranges, which they leave when the temperature becomes too cô1d, and when the snow falls thickly on the places where they have spent the warm weather.... | 
