sanctified by faith that is in him; and how shall they believe in
him of whom they have not heard? Our theme, then, confines us to the
Nestorians, who number about one hundred thousand souls. About two
thirds of these live in Turkey; but the following pages relate
principally to those residing in Persia, and hence the title of the
volume.

This people inhabit, along with Koords and other races, the
territory extending from the western shore of the Lake of Oroomiah
to the eastern bank of the Tigris. It includes the Persian province
of Oroomiah, and both the eastern and western slope of Central
Koordistan. The most inaccessible recesses of the Koordish Mountains
have been their refuge for centuries. The whole region extends
across four degrees of longitude, with a varying breadth of from one
to two degrees of latitude. Attention will be called especially to
the city of Oroomiah and the villages around it. The plain of that
name is seventy-five miles long and from twelve to twenty miles in
width, containing more than a thousand square miles. It is dotted
with perhaps three hundred villages, the population varying,
according to the size of the village, from less than one hundred to
more than a thousand inhabitants.

The frontispiece gives a view of this plain, from the roof of the
mission premises at Seir, one thousand feet above the city. The
lofty Wolf mountain appears on the right, and the high range west of
the narrowest part of the lake on the left. The lake itself is seen
beyond the plain at the foot of the mountains which rise abruptly
from its eastern shore. The distance makes it seem much narrower
than it is, for while one hundred miles in length, it is not far
from thirty miles in breadth. Its surface is forty-one hundred feet