[Footnote 103: There are even now four or five of the smaller Turkish tribes living a nomadic life in the district around Shiraz. Their Ilkhani (chieftain), with whom I became acquainted in Shiraz in 1862, told me that he can raise from them 30,000 horsemen, and some, as the Kashkai and the Allahverdi, had been transplanted hither by Djinghis Khan. In Europe this fact has not been appreciated; and even Burnes, in other respects well informed, thinks he has found, in a place of like name in the vicinity of Samarcand, the _Turki shirazi_ mentioned by Hafiz in his songs.]
It is remarkable that in spite of the bitter hostility reigning between the Turkomans and their Shiite brethren in Persia, the former still always especially name Azerbaydjan as the seat of a higher civilisation; and whenever the Bakhshi is asked to sing something more than usually beautiful and original, Azerbaydjanian songs are always called for: nay, even the captive Irani, if of Turkish origin, may always expect more merciful treatment, for the Turkoman says, 'He is our brother, this unbeliever.' [Footnote 104]
[Footnote 104: 'Kardashi miz dir ol Kafir.']
The last risings of the Turkomans in mass occurred under Nadir Shah and Aga Mehemed Khan. Nadir, helped by these tribes and by the Afghans, at the commencement of the last century, shook Asia out of her slumber; and the second conqueror above mentioned availed himself of the sword of the Turkomans to found his dynasty. Nomads are well aware of the fact, and make the ingratitude of the Kadjar a subject of frequent complaint, who, since the time of Feth Ali Shah, have, they say, entirely forgotten them, and even withdrawn the lawful pensions of several of their chiefs.
To form an idea of the political importance of the nomads, we need only cast a glance at the map of Central Asia. We there see at once that they have become, from their position, the guardians of the southern frontiers of the entire Asiatic Highlands of Turkestan, as they name it themselves. The Turkoman is, without any possibility of contradiction, next to the Kiptchak, the most warlike and savage race of Central Asia: in his rear, in the cities of Khiva, Bokhara, and Khokand, we find the seat of cowardice and effeminacy; and had he not constituted himself as it were into a barrier of iron, things would never have remained, in the three countries just mentioned, in the condition in which they were after the time of Kuteibe and Ebu Muszlim, [Footnote 105] and in which they still continue.