CHAPTER XIII.
THE SLAVE TRADE AND SLAVE LIFE IN CENTRAL ASIA.
The last cannon-shot fired by the victorious champions of the Union against their seceding brethren, although it has not entirely put an end to the slave trade in the Western hemisphere, has nevertheless dealt it a very severe blow. The flag of Great Britain in the waters of Eastern Africa and the recent conquest of the whole Caucasus by the Russians have, to a great extent, crippled the same abominable traffic among the Mohammedans of Western Asia. The indolent, enervated Orientals may still regard with bitter resentment and rancour the efforts of Europe in the cause of humanity; but the sale and purchase of human beings is everywhere practised with a certain reserve arising from a sense of shame, or, to speak more correctly, of fear of European eyes. This trade is now to be found unfettered and unembarrassed only in Central Asia. Here, in the ancient seat of Asiatic barbarism and ferocity, thousands every year fall victims to this inhuman trade. These victims are not negroes, occupying the lowest place in the human race, but belong to a nation celebrated now, as of old, for its culture and civilisation. These not only exchange freedom for slavery, but at the same time the comforts of comparative civilisation for the miseries of semi-savage life, and are torn from their smiling homes to pine away in the desert. The lot of such captives is even harder than that of the negro. Inasmuch as to this day Europeans have had very little information with respect to the miserable state of things which prevails in the distant regions of Central Asia, it may not be out of place if I here recount my own experiences of them somewhat in detail.
What the Portuguese slave traders and the Arabian ivory merchants are in Central Africa, that are the Turkomans in the north-eastern and north-western portions of Iran, indeed we may say in all Persia. Wherever nomad tribes live in the immediate neighbourhood of a civilised country, there will robbery and slavery unavoidably exist to a greater or less extent. The poverty-stricken children of the desert are endowed by nature with an insatiable lust for adventure, and frames capable of supporting the most terrible privations and fatigues. What the scanty soil of their native wilderness denies them, they seek in the lands of their more favoured neighbours. The intercourse between them, however, is seldom of a friendly character. As the plundered and hardly used agriculturist cannot, and dare not, pursue the well-mounted nomad across the pathless deserts of sand, the latter, protected by the nature of the country, can carry on his career of plunder and rapine without fear of chastisement. In former times the cities on the borders of the Great Sahara and of the Arabian desert were in the same plight. Even at the present day the caravans in the latter country are exposed to the greatest dangers. But Persia has to suffer from these evils to a still greater extent, as the deserts which form her northern boundary are the most extensive and the most savage in the world, while their inhabitants are the most cruel and least civilised of nomads.
The wars of hoary antiquity between the Iranians and Turanians, sung by the master singer of the Shah Nameh, "the Book of the Kings," seem to have had their origin in acts of violence perpetrated by the latter. It is true that the combatants of that period are represented in the poem as belonging to one and the same race, but we find that at the period of the expedition of Alexander the people of northern Iran called on the great Macedonian to afford them protection against their northern neighbours, whom they described as terrible beings of inhuman aspect—probably they were of the true Mongolian type, which differs widely from that of the Iranians. Alexander built a great wall from the Caspian Sea to the Kurdistan mountains. This immense work, however, did not come up to the expectations of its founder. Like the Great wall of China, built for a similar purpose, it could not permanently keep out the barbarians. Their impetuous fury burst through such feeble obstacles, and nothing could check their devastating, incursions except the energetic rule of some exceptionally vigorous sovereign, who instead of protecting his subjects by a stone wall, did so with a well-disciplined army. This is the case at the present day. The Turkomans and Œzbegs direct their forays according to the peaceful or disturbed state of the adjacent provinces, or the energy or indolence of their respective governors. During the disorders which attended the establishment of the Kadjarish dynasty, individual bands of Yomut Turkomans pushed their predatory incursions as far as the neighbourhood of Ispahan, although the greater number of them were serving under the banner of Aga Mohammed Khan. At the same period the Tekkes pressed forward on the north-east as far as Seistan. At the present day it is the two provinces of Khorassan and Mazenderan which suffer most. The Turkomans first of all inquire into the character and administration of a newly appointed governor, and if they find in him signs of cowardice or neglect of duty (which is often the case), they make repeated incursions with terrible speed on the defenceless province committed to his care. On the other hand, they hardly dare to show themselves in those places where a vigorous and active officer is at the head of affairs. At the time of my journey through Khorassan the roads were so safe that travellers could go alone through districts which were formerly so fraught with danger, that the largest and best appointed caravans could pass there only when accompanied by a body of troops and a battery of cannon. At that time the governor, Sultan Murad Mirza, kept the nomads in check. Every movement of theirs was reported to him by his spies, and, as soon as they showed themselves, they were attacked in their own haunts, and received severe punishment. In Astrabad, on the contrary, where a fool was entrusted with the administration, the neighbourhood was so unsafe that the Yomuts carried off Persians captive from the very gates of the town.
There are several tribes of Turkomans both on the edge and in the interior of the desert, who consider the robbery of human beings so indispensable a means of livelihood as to deem their existence in the steppes impossible, if they were to be deprived of this productive source of wealth. As other nations talk about "the prospects of a good harvest," so they talk about "the prospects of open roads to Iran." The time which elsewhere is employed in ploughing, irrigating, and sowing the fields, is spent by them in training their horses, burnishing their arms, and in mock combats. Custom has raised their detestable occupation to the rank of a recognised trade. It is looked upon as a Djihad, or religious war, against the Shiite schismatics, who are declared to be no better than infidels. As the heroes set out on their adventure they are publicly dismissed with the blessings of the ministers of their religion; and in case of any one of them paying with his life for his enormities (which very seldom occurs), he is at home declared to be a martyr, a mound of earth adorned with flags is heaped over his remains, which are seldom left in the hands of the enemies, and the devout make pilgrimages to the holy place, where they implore with tears of contrition the intercession of the canonised robber.
The terrible extent to which the most exposed provinces suffer from these excursions is explained by the courage and resolution of the Turkomans. No war, no devastation caused by the elements, can be compared to the misery which their depredations occasion. Not only is all trade and commerce on the highways crippled, but even the husbandman must provide himself with a tower in which he can take refuge, when suddenly attacked by them during his labours in the fields. The smallest village is surrounded by a wall. Even these measures do not suffice, for the robbers often come in large bands and lay siege to such fortified places, and not seldom carry the whole population, men, women, and children, into captivity with all their moveable property. I have seen in Eastern Khorassan villages whose inhabitants, although in the immediate vicinity of large forests, pass the winter without fires, because none dare venture out to cut wood beyond the walls. Others suffer hunger, as their water-mills are outside the village. Travelling is, of course, regarded as a most desperate venture, which no one undertakes save in cases of the most urgent necessity, or under the protection of an armed force.
The readers of my book on Central Asia will have already formed some idea how far this fear of captivity among the Turkomans is well-founded. The lot of the negro, confined in the close hold of a ship during his passage from Africa to America, is sufficiently hard, yet it is not less hard to be bound behind the saddle of a nomad with the feet tied under the belly of the horse, to be insufficiently supplied with food and water, and to be thus transported for days across the weary desert, far from one's dear country and the bosom of one's family. These privations of savage life in the tent of the rude nomad and under an inclement sky are the harder for the Persian to bear, as at home he is accustomed to cooked food and the comforts of civilised life. In addition to these sufferings he is loaded with heavy chains, which are not removed by night or by day. He is continually the object of the revilings, curses, and blows of his tyrannical master. Indeed the first stage of his slavery is the most grievous.