3-053-669 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Nations of Western Asia: Poor Kurd family, 1873. Engraving from a photograph by Mr. Levites. 'It is enough here to mention that all these nations - Armenians, Georgians, Mingrelians, Circassians, and Tartars, as well as the Kirghizes, Turkomans, Usbeks, and Bashkirs, on the opposite or eastern shores of the Caspian - have been shaken up together, in extreme geographical and ethnological confusion, by mutual warlike incursions, and by intrusive migrations hither and thither, since the beginning of authentic history. They present even a stranger medley than the diverse mixed peoples of Hindostan under British rule, from the Cashmere frontier to the Bay of Bengal or to the Malabar coast. This political experience of our own might teach us to understand the difficult problem of Russian Imperial Government in the West of Asia, and likewise in the East of Europe'. From "Illustrated London News", 1873.