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The Horsemanship of the Kurds

AVING travelled through all On the second day of our sojourn at parts to Palestine, a celebrated Ossa, a chase was arranged in our honor, explorer relates, and intending and then, at a distance from the city, we to visit Bagdad and Hillah reached a Kurd village of more than one and the ruins of Babylon, I hundred tents. It happened that, just at conceived the desire of paying a visit to that time, the chief of a friendly tribe the northern neighbors of the Arabs in had paid a visit to this village, and to Mesopotamia, the Kurds or Koords, who this visit we were indebted for a sight inhabit the mountain-ranges dividing which but seldom is enjoyed by Euro- Asiatic Turkey, Russia and Persia. But peans-a fantasia, at which the most there were many difficulties to overcome; prominent members of the tribe show first, and above all, I was not in possession their wonderful skill in handling their of a single letter of recommendation that weapons and their horses. could smooth my way. Robbery and After dinner, we passed through the assassination run riot in that part of the village and reached a barren plain, where world. a most extraordinary and surprising view I then remembered having visited a offered itself to our eyes. We saw a cavschool at Paris in company with the son alcade of nearly one hundred horsemen, of a wealthy merchant of Damascus, in their picturesque uniforms, armed to and that this intelligent young man had the teeth, exercising their horses on a often entreated me to visit the Orient and gently rising and undulating plain. Their his own home. I now made use of this uniforms consisted of jackets of red, blue, invitation, and, after a sojourn of a few yellow or white cloth, or velvet, with wide days at the paradise-like Damascus, under open sleeves, richly embroidered with the hospitable roof of my friend Omar, I gold and silver, and trimmed with silk started in his company, with many Arabs cord and tassels; also of wide, richlyand servants, for Mosul. We travelled decorated trousers, high, red boots, and a along the picturesque slopes of the Leb- large, gorgeous turban. Nearly every anon range, through plains partly in an rider was armed with a long lance or excellent state of cultivation, partly javelin, which he handled with great dexwaste and barren, until we reached the terity and apparent ease, and a large, fortified town of Ossa. Here it was I curved sword and large pistols, which he first had occasion to study this intelli- carried in his sash or belt. gent, nomadic nation, and to see, among While I was still looking at these other things, the horsemanship of the strange warriors, a sudden commotion Kurds, which excels everything to be was noticed; the next moment the men seen in other parts of the globe. ran full tilt to the spot where we stood;