So much for good-tempered and obedient slaves. Where the contrary qualities show themselves, Œzbeg barbarity and cruelty make themselves felt in all their force. It is enough to make one's hair stand on end to read the list of punishments used to compel a refractory slave to obedience. The master has legal right of life and death over his slave. It very seldom happens, however, that he actually kills him, as he thereby loses the whole of his purchase money; but the miseries which he inflicts on him are worse than death itself. Many are kept for years together on mere bread and water in the midst of the lonely deserts; others, a few days before their seven years have expired, are sold again—not, however, in the Khanats, where, their character being already known, they would be unsaleable. In such cases of imposition the victim is generally a Kirghiz, unversed in the tricks of the slave trade. Thus the Persian passes from the city into the northern desert, whence, even if emancipated, he seldom, if ever, returns home.
It is certainly striking that, out of the large number of slaves of Persian origin who are continually brought into Central Asia, only half of those who obtain their freedom go back to their native country. Such as do return are induced to do so either by the necessity of setting their family affairs in order, or by extraordinary home-sickness. He who has lived eighteen years in Turkestan will seldom change it for Iran. The slaves, as observed before, are for the most part originally poor; and when they have secured in Turkestan a certain means of gaining their livelihood, or have got together some property, they in few cases think of returning to their native land, where, on account of general habits of industry and activity, existence is much harder to support; where the necessaries of life are more expensive, and the luxury and splendour of the wealthy excite many ungratified desires in the breasts of the poor, which are not aroused in the midst of the barbarous simplicity of the Khanats. Still, it is to be observed that the emancipated slave can never get rid of the disgrace implied in the word kul (slave), however great may be the wealth he may have accumulated, or however high the post to which he may be promoted. Although he may be living in the utmost splendour and magnificence, the kul can never hope to obtain the hand of a free Œzbeg, the poorest of whom would reject his proposals with scorn. I know an instance in which an Œzbeg refused his daughter to a freedman, although the latter's suit was backed by the command of the khan; he preferred rather to encounter the anger of his sovereign than to call one who had once been a slave his son-in-law. Even the khanezads[20] (children of slaves), who are not allowed to be sold, are treated in the same manner, and can only marry the daughters of other emancipated slaves, or sarts. Only in the fourth generation is the disgrace attached to the word kul somewhat softened down, but by no means quite obliterated. In a country like Central Asia, in which courage is looked upon as the highest virtue, the slave is regarded as the ne plus ultra—a man who, for want of a contempt of death, allows himself to be put in chains; and it is this vice which is so difficult to be forgiven. This way of looking at the subject is further strengthened by the boundless feeling of aristocracy which distinguishes the Tartars, whether settled or nomad, in which not even the wildest Tories or the proudest marquis of the Faubourg St. Germain can surpass them—a feeling which is entertained not only against the foreign Iranian, but even the native Tadjiks, the eldest inhabitants of the land.
It will be understood that it is only the moral stigma of slavery which the freedman has to suffer from. In his civil rights he is as well protected as any one else. Thus, as the Oriental is even more a creature of habit than we are, I found it very easy to understand how the Persian soon finds himself completely at home in Turkestan, which country he once so despised and dreaded, and dwells contentedly in a foreign land, only occasionally solacing himself with a visit to his relations or to the shrine of some Shiite saint in Iran.
Unfortunately, it is the material comfort and prosperity of the slave which the Central Asiatic, like other Mohammedans, alleges in his defence, when we express our abhorrence of the disgraceful traffic in human beings. As in Turkestan, so in Turkey we may often hear this argument:—"The sons and daughters of the wild Circassians were in their native land poor people, who in their free mountains could hardly get bread enough to eat; here with us they become rich government officials, pashas, nay, even princesses, whose powerful influence affects the policy of government." They further point out how kindly the slaves are treated in the houses of persons of distinction, where they are put on the same footing as the members of the family. But they forget that these cases are exceptional, and that such good fortune depends for the most part on the personal beauty of the favoured few. What becomes of the greater number, whose charms are not such as to gain the favour of their master? What shall we say of this majority, exposed as they are to the oppression and cruelty of a tyrannical master, and constantly employed in the hardest labour?
Such things are of course not taken into account, any more than the original cruelty of the slave merchant, who tears his victims from their homes and their friends. On the banks of the Bosphorus, as on those of the Oxus, few persons care to picture to their minds the horrors of that first moment of separation. How many orphans, how many widows, how many aged and helpless parents, are left behind to wring their hands in sorrow for their bread-winner, who is carried into captivity! It is impossible to count them, it is impossible to describe the miserable condition of so many villages and districts which are exposed to the terrible scourge of the slave trade. The traveller in those regions stumbles at every step over the most melancholy traces of the devastation which it causes. However certain he may feel of the splendid destiny which awaits this or that individual captive, he must still exclaim: "This is the most execrable occupation that has ever defiled the hands of man, and its suppression is the first and holiest duty which our western civilisation has to perform for the cause of humanity!"
The suppression of the slave trade in Central Asia is, moreover, much easier than many might at first sight suppose. The root of the evil is to be sought, not so much in the Turkomans as in the inhabitants of the cities. All nomad tribes were and are ready for such a trade, if they only find settled tribes who will buy their captives of them. The Bedouins of the Arabian desert could never addict themselves much to the traffic, inasmuch as the markets of the surrounding cities were closed by the religion of Islam against the sale of their booty. In the same way the Turkomans would soon abandon the practice, if the sale of Persians, Afghans, &c., in the Khanats were declared illegal. The Djemshidis, the Firuzkuhis, and Hezares, afford the strongest proof of this. As the transport of their captives to Bokhara is rendered unsafe by the intermediate Turkoman tribes, while at the same time their sale is forbidden in the Afghan town of Herat, they have either to suppress their slave-trading propensities altogether, or come to a compromise with the Turkomans, much to the advantage of the latter.
Sultan Murad Mirza, an enlightened prince, and the governor of Khorassan, once expressed to me his surprise that England, which spends so many thousands in checking the slave trade in African waters, can look on unconcernedly while the same trade in the middle of Asia lays waste such a country, whose ancient civilisation was of profit to Europe itself. In like manner I, too, cannot conceal my astonishment at the apathy which Europe, and especially that State whose flag is in the East ever the harbinger of the dawn of a newer, a happier era, has displayed on this question. Sentimental newspaper writers, in their political rhapsodies, may yet for a long time take under their protection the feelings of independence of many a savage Asiatic tribe, to whom freedom means nothing more than anarchy, plunder, and murder. But the dreams of Rousseau have had their day, and we can with the fullest confidence say, that whenever Europe shows herself in the East, whether in the peaceful garb of the missionary, or in the terrible panoply of her warlike power, she brings only blessings in her train, and scatters the seeds of a new order of things. The more light is poured from the West upon the East, the sooner will the evil customs of the old world be eradicated, and our brother men be made happier.