and to have constituted*, in various parts of Tdrkistan,.the
industrious population of towns, it has been supposed by
Klaproth, and other Chinese scholars, that the T&jiks of the
Mongolians are the. Tiao-tschi, a people cèlebrated in
the annals of the Han dynasty, and in the compilation
of Ma-tuanlin. The Tiao-tschi are said to have-„dwelt qn
the banks.jofthe Si-Hai, or Caspian, and the description of
their country in" the ancient Chinese books begins with
Persia.* But the appellation of Tajik is not unknown fo
the ancient Persians themselves. Hyde.recognised Tajyik
as an ancient name of Persia.fi It occurs among other
designations of tribes in the Boundehesli. Lastly, a very
similar name is found in the works of one classical writer.
Dionysius; the geographer, mentions the Tacncoi, or Taski,
among the . tribes who inhabited Persia, as dwellers in
the neighbourhood of the Pasargadse,J
Ilp cS ra 2a$m} /*fT& Toi>e Se Tlaadpya^ai, ^i*Ta&koi, -
aXKoi v ot ^pUovat^Si&>Stxa Mepi^iSm^c&av.^
It has been supposed 'by some, that thé Tajiks" are a
mixture of various races, who were forced
querors of Iran to adopt Isldm; but by Sir John Malcolm
and other well-informed writers they are admitted to bii
the only genuine descendants of the old indigenous population,
who, amidst all thé conquests and revolutiohs which
the country has undergone, have preserved their ancient
language and their original stock. They speak every
where an old Persian dialect, which is different from the
cultivated Persian of the higher orders, but is much
more different from the idioms of the nomadic tribes.
The" eastern parts of Iran had been divided, long before
the Mohammedan conquest, between mountaineers and fine
inhabitants of the plains and cities. The.mountain tribes
were'the Affghhns, whom we shall hereafter describe. The * §
* Klaproth; Äs. Polyglott, p. 143.
f Hyde, Historia Religionis Veterum Persarum, cap. 25.
$ Neumann, Asiatische Studien.—Ritter Erdkunde you Asien.—Bd. v i.‘
s/716-717.
§ Dionys. Perieg/* 1074. TAtr/coi, s9vov£ TLtpffinov ftvopicu Eustath.
Comment, in Dionys.—ad locum.
people óf the plains were, according to Elphinstone, Tajiks.
The mountaineers held out against the Arabs, who conquered
the plains ' and forced the inhabitants to embrace
Islam. The name of,Tajik and Parsewhn are now used indiscriminately
; as ^ designation ( of the native inhabitants
throughput Affghhnistan and Turkistan.*
The T&jiks are likewise the inhabitants of the towns
and cities of Affghhnistan. To them belong, according
t@ Elphinstope and' other travellers,- the trading castè,
thëiVtalrtisans,sbbj)*kèepers, in all the western parts
Kabul; whilef in the1 èastërir parts, their .place is occupied
by the Hindki, a tribe related'to the Hindoos;-nearly as
thé Tajiks are to the-'Persians? The Tajiks are not,
J^öv^ever, confined * to Afghanistan. They are spread
through the-lbuntry of theUsbeks in like tmanner. Mr.
Elphinstone y says,- that “ thë^fik^l inhabitants of Persia
are called' Taujiks, in | contradistinction to .their Tartar
invaders*; and also to thp§e, moying tribes who are , of
Persian* origin. They* are eyen fo.und in Chinese Tur-
kisthn,*&^fthèy possess'^independent governments ini the
mountainous countriesrof Karateg'èèn", Durwauz, Wukkekhe,
and Badakshan.” Mr. Elphinstone supposed the name
of Thjik to be of Pehlvi extraction.
“ The Taujiks,” says ‘Mr. JElphinstong/i “ are most
numerous in and-near, towns < They compose- thé. chief
population round Kabul, Kandahar, Grhazna, Herat, arid
Balkh. In the wild and mountainous parts of the country
there is scarcely a Taujik to fie found. From this remark
we must except the ‘separate communities of Taujiks, who
possess, by themselvés, some inaccessible tracts in the
mountainous country near the Hindoo-Khush, as the
valley of Kohistan, which are inhabited entirely by Taujiks.
There they live, by agriculture, but chiefly, as ii is reported,
on bread made from the fruit of the mulberry tree.”fi
It appears that the same distinction of inhabitants into
two separate classes belonging to different races, prevails
* Account of C&ubtil, by the Honorable Mountstuart Elphinstone, p. 310.
t "Elphinstone, ubi supra, 313.,