'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎364] (417/714)

864 PERSIA
convince myself that there is any genuine distinction between the
two. Fraser, the most competent authority to follow, said that he
had expected to find the inhabitants wretched,puny, and diseased;
but that, on the contrary, they were stout, well-formed, and hand
some, the children being particularly beautiful. Of the two, he
reported the Mazanderanis as the darker and swarthier. Holmes
said that the sedentary population near the sea were sallow and
sickly ; and I am sure it would be surprising if they were anything
else. Ihe Mazanderanis have been commonly denounced as the
Boeotians Persia, and the taunt of Mazanderani yabus, or pack-
horses (for which, too, the province is famous), has been levelled at
their heads. Here too, however, Fraser comes to their rescue,
reporting them as quiet and inoffensive, but brave and good soldiers,
at least in their own climate, outside of which they are now never
employed. J lie population of the two provinces suffered terribly
from theplague of 1830-31, in which itwas estimated that two-thirds
were swept away. Epidemics of small-pox and other diseases have
ravaged the district since, and it is only latterly that it has begun
again to hold up its head. The totals for each of the two provinces
are variously estimated at from 150,000 to 250,000; but I doubt
it the data for correct enumeration have ever been collected. The
natives are said to be descended from the ancient Medes, and speak
a dialect of Persian, which differs slightly in the two provinces,
and a third form of which, with more Pehlevi words than in either
of the others, is spoken in the highlands of Talish. 1
Like their surroundings, and like themselves, the costume of
the peasantry in Gilan and Mazanderan differs from that which is
worn in the cities and plains of the interior. Their
Dress , 1
shuhvars, or pyjamas, are frequently made of a woollen
stuff called chalcah, which is better adapted than cotton to resist
the thorns. On their legs they wear bands of webbing rolled
round and round, called pcu tava, or tua, the counterpart, and perhaps
the eponymous forerunner of the Kashmir putti. Their sandals,
or charuJis, are made of raw hide fastened over the instep and ankle
by a thong. On the head they wear, not the felt egg-shell of the
Persian peasant, but a shako of sheepskin. Their costume, in
fact, is not unlike that worn by the Kurds in the mountain -border
1 As longf ago as the tenth century El Istakhri said: ' In Taberistan they have
a peculiar dialect, neither Arabick nor Persian; and in many parts of Deilman
(Dilem) their language is not understood.'