V

 (1) See Dr. Kiepert, "Man. Anc. Geog." (Mr. G. A. Macmillan) iv. 47.
    The Karduchians or Kurds belong by speech to the Iranian stock,
    forming in fact their farthest outpost to the west, little given
    to agriculture, but chiefly to the breeding of cattle. Their name,
    pronounced Kardu by the ancient Syrians and Assyrians, Kordu by
    the Armenians (plural Kordukh), first appears in its narrower
    sense in western literature in the pages of the eye-witness
    Xenophon as {Kardoukhoi}. Later writers knew of a small kingdom
    here at the time of the Roman occupation, ruled by native princes,
    who after Tigranes II (about 80 B.C.) recognised the overlordship
    of the Armenian king. Later it became a province of the Sassanid
    kingdom, and as such was in 297 A.D. handed over among the
    regiones transtigritanae to the Roman empire, but in 364 was again
    ceded to Persia.

After hearing these statements, the generals seated apart those who claimed to have any special knowledge of the country in any direction;