Arameans In Kurdish Highlands

"The Kurdish element only appears sporadically in the true Mesopotamian plain; but the Yezidis, who form the population of the Sinjar range, may be referred to this stock. He who encounters the uncanny figure of one of these people will hardly be able to restrain a slight shudder, esjjecially if he remembers the graphic descriptions of the Yezidi robbers in Morieris Ayetlia. Of the old Aramaean peasantry there are no longer any important remains in the plain the Aramaeans having withdrawn farther into the Kurdish highlands, where, in spite of their wild Kurdish neighbours, they are more secure from exactions of every kind. The plain of the northern country of the two rivers was at one time richly cultivated, and owed its prosperity to this industrious people, who formerly played so distinguished a part as a connecting link between the Persians and the Eoman empire and afterwards between the Western and the Arabian world, and whose highest culture was developed in this very region. Quite otherwise is it now. In the plain there are almost no remains of the common Aramaean tongue. Apart from the scattered areas in which Kurdish prevails, the ordinary language is a vulgar Arabic dialect ; but both Kurdish and Aramaean (Syriac) have exercised an influence on the speech of the Arab peasant. Finally it must be mentioned that certain Turcoman hordes roam about the Mesopotamian territory."