YEZIDI have a tradition that they originally came from Basrah, and from the country watered by the lower part of the Euphrates ; and that, after their migration, they first settled in Syria, and subsequently took possession of the Sinjar Hill and the districts they now inhabit in Kurd istan. Their principal strongholds were visited by Mr. Layard, at the Jabal Sinjar, a solitary mountain rising in the centre of the Mesopota mian desert to the north of Mosul. Below the cluster of buildings assigned to the people of Semil is a small white spire, springing from a low edifice, neatly constructed, and, like all the sacred edifices of the Yezidi, kept. as pure as repeated coats of whitewash can make it. It is called the sanctuary of Shaikh Shams, or the Sun, and is so built that the first rays of that luminary should as frequently as possible -fall upon it. Near the door is carved on a slab an invocation to Shaikh Shams ; and one or two votive tablets, raised by the father of Husain Bey, and other chiefs of the Yezidi, are built in the walls. The interior, which is a very holy place, is lighted up by a few small lamps. At sunset, as Mr. Layard sat in the alcove in front of the entrance, a herdsman led into a pen- attached to tbe building, a drove of white oxen. He asked a Cawal, who was near, to whom the beasts belonged. They are dedi cated,' he said, to Shaikh Shams, and arc never slain except on great festivals, when their flesh is distributed amongst the poor.' The dedication of the bull to the sun, so generally recognised in the religious systems of the ancients, probably originated in Assyria, and the Yezidi may have unconsciously preserved a myth of their ancestors. So far from Shaikh Adi being the scene of the orgies attributed to the Yezidi, the whole valley is Leld sacred, and no acts, such as the Jewish law has declared to be impure, are permitted within the sacred precincts. Nc-other than the high .priest and the chiefs of the sect are buried near the tomb. Many pilgrims take off their
shoes on approaching it, and go barefooted as long as they remain in its vicinity. The Yezidi recognise one Supreme Being, but, so far as Layard could learn, they do not offer up any direct prayer or sacrifice to him. When they speak of the devil, they do so with reverence, as .Malik Taos, King Peacock, or Malik-ul-Kuwat, the mighty angel. Shaikh Nasr distinctly admitted that they possess a bronze, or copper figure of a bird, which, however, ho was careful in explain ing was only looked upon as a symbol, and not as au idol. They believe Satan to be the chief of the angelic host, now suffering punishment for his rebellion a,gainst the divine will, but still all powerful. They frequently pass their hands through the flame, kiss them, and rub them over their right eyebrow, or sometimes over the whole face.
They dwell in black tents of cloth made of goat's hair, which they surround with hurdles of reeds and thorns closely twisted together. The tents are square, or of the form of a. parallelo gram, the Turkoman tent being round and turret shaped at top. Like the Arabs, the Yezidi move about in tribes for greater safety, and pitch their tents iu a circle when they encamp, leaving its interior open for their cattle and flocks. Part of them dwell ou the banks of the Tigris, in the pashaliks of Mojul and Baghdad. One large tribe occupies the valleys in the Sinjar mountain, -which rises directly S. of Mardin, in the middle of an immense plain, and stretching towards the S.E., nearly parallel with the river Khabour, the ancient Chaboras, terminates a little to the cast of Sakkat-ul-Abbas. They are cruel and inhospit able. — D'Anville, Geographic du Tigre et de l'Euphrate; Layard, Nineveh; Burton's Scinde; Macdonald Kinneir's Memoir ; Latham, National ities of Europe.