ABSTRACT
IN the last three chapters I have been describing the ethnology of the three great parts of Asia which, with the exception of Japan, are best known to Europe. This chapter I propose to devote to a study of the people who inhabit the region which lies at the meeting-point of the regions already discussed. This can be done the more briefly because the inhabitants of this area are naturally related to those who inhabit the peripheral lands. Much of the region is desert and all of it is sparsely inhabited, but although comparatively few individuals make up the groups described in this chapter, the peculiar nature of their environment has rendered them of particular interest to ethnologists.
