The Turk, wherever met with, is ever heavy and lethargic in his mind and body, but in his resolves firm and stedfast, not from principle, but from apathy and aversion to change. And it is from these characteristics that his appearance is earnest and solemn,—a profound seriousness, a marble, cold expression of countenance, with a great inclination to pomp and magnificence. An Uzbak or Turkoman has a proud bearing, as if possessed with a self-consciousness of greatness and power. The Osmanli Tnrk'g love of independence is bound less. He considers himself born to rule, and that hunting and war alone are worthy of him, and husbandry is considered ignominious. In Central Asia, agriculture is exclusively in the hands of the Persian slaves, commerce and busi-• news with the Tajak, Hindu, and Jew. The Turk is intellectually the inferior of the Iranian and Semitic nations. This defect is noticed by other nations, who apply the terms Turkluk (Turkdom), Kabalik (coarseness), and Yogunluk (thickness), Sadeluk (simpleness); and with these qualities, as the Osmanli is easily taken in by the Armenian, Greek, and Arab, the Turk is as easily so by the Tajak and Hindu. In transactions the Turk are regarded as possessing more honesty, frankness, and confidence, plainness, simplicity, and uprightness. Compared with the Persians, the Turk is a faithful servant, attached soldier, and upright man. They are more brave, persever ing, and love more to rule than any other Asiatic people. They are unpolished, wild, and unculti vated, but seldom cruel out of malice. They crave riches, but only to expend them. They exact much labour from their subordinates, but protect and deal liberally with them. The Turk is innately a nomade, and, like others, is distin guished for hospitality. The Burnt is the wildest and most savage and most superstitious of them, but less malicious than the Kirghiz and Turko man. The Burnt has not wholly abandoned shamanism, and knows little of Islam.
The Kazak Kirghiz are less brave and warlike, though readily engaging in a pillaging expedition. They form the bulk of the Turkish nomades, and are for the most part devoted to a wandering life. In very few instances have they settled.
The Kara Kalpak, are considered dull and foolish. They are even less warlike than the Kirghiz. They have seldom appeared as conquerors, and are even less employed as mercenaries. They are largely occupied as cattle-breeders, and they are active, benevolent, and faithful.
Many of the Turkoman dwell in a half-settled state along the left bank of the Oxus as far as Char Jui, and in Khiva. They are notorious
amongst all the races of Central Asia as the most restless adventurers. Throughout the whole globe it would be difficult to find a second nation with such a restless spirit and untameable licen tiousness as these children of the desert. To rob, to plunder, to niake slaves, is to the Turkoman honourable. They are always poor, and are dirty and avaricious. Their country is the wildest and most savage, where even keeping a few cattle gives only a scanty income.
The Uzbak are honest, upright, with much Turkish open-heartedness, and are proud of their education, and represent all the best aide of the natural character of the Turks.
The nomadic races of High Asia are so essentially predatory, that, according to Abul Ghazi (p. 106), they have a proverb, Atang yortin jan Chapsa'—If the enemy attack thy father's tent, join him and share the plunder. The people are chiefly gathered about the fertile tracts. Merv, destroyed in 1784 by the Amir of Bokhara, is now a mere collection of mud huts. Khiva, in 1874, had only 5000 in habitants. Urgaii) is near it. Bokhara, in 1830, had 140,000 inhabitants, but in 1880 only 7000, of whom two-thirds are Tajak ; the loss of water from the Zar-afshan is the cause of its decay. Samar cand, on the other hand, has risen from 8000 in 1834 to 30,000 in 1880.
The double-bumped camel belongs properly to high Central Asia south of the Gobi desert, and would even appear still to exist there in a state of nature. Its western boundary, where bred, seems to be among the Kazak (or Cossacks), north of Bokhara. Lieutenant Wood, of Sir A. Burnes' party, who explored the Oxus to its source in the Sir - i - Kol lake in Pamir, in Wakhan learned that it is bred only among the Kirghiz of Pamir and Khokand. Burnes remarks that the Bactrian camel, which has two humps, abounds in Turkestan ; they are bred by the Kazak of the desert north of Bokhara. In its proper and more elevated habitat, this animal is employed together with the yak, as observed in an easterly direction by b1111. Hue and Gabet.—Porter's Travels, i. p. 112; Fortnightly Review, 1868 ; Dr. Jackson in Transactions of the Beng. As. Soc. iii. ; Russians in Central Asia, Captain Valikhanof and M. Vemukof ; .11Ialcolm's Persia, i. p. 20 ; Staunton's Narrative ; Vainbery, Sketches in Central Asia, pp. 283-312 ; Vambery, Bokhara, p. 247 ; Asia, by Mr. Keane and Sir Richard Temple.