The slave exposed to sale is, when a male, made the subject of public examination: the seller is obliged to guarantee that he has none of those moral or bodily defects, which constitute to his knowledge latent unsoundness: that is to say, where, though they are not discernible to the eye, they exist in a rudimentary state.
To the slave himself, the happiest hour is when he passes out of the hand of the slave-dealer; for no treatment, however hard, which awaits him with his eventual master can be so oppressive and painful as that which he has to pass through whilst he remains an article of commerce exposed for sale in the shop.
The price varies with the political circumstances of the Turkomans, according as they find (for upon such does the production of the article depend) greater or less facility for their Alaman in the adjoining district. For instance: at the present day the highest price of a man in the maturity of his strength is from 40 to 50 Tilla (about from £21-£36); after a victory, when 18,000 Persian soldiers had been made prisoners at one time, a man was to be had for a sum of 3 or 4 Tillas.
[Departure from Bokhara, and Visit to the Tomb of Baha-ed-din.]
After having stayed twenty-two days in Bokhara I found it impossible any longer to delay my friends, and it was arranged that we should at once start for Samarcand. Our living in Bokhara, as no one here, however liberal with his shakings of the hand, gave us a single farthing, had very much impaired our [{194}] finances. What we had been able to make in Khiva was all exhausted, and, like many of my companions, I had been forced to dispose of my ass, and henceforth our journey was to be continued in a hired two-wheeled cart. Particular members of our karavan, who belonged to Khokand or Khodjend, had already parted from us, and gone their own several ways alone. Those who had hitherto remained together were natives of Endighan or Chinese Tartars. These, however, in proceeding to Samarcand, selected different routes. Hadji Salih, Hadji Bilal's party, and myself determined upon following the straight road; the others, who were on foot, were anxious to undertake a pilgrimage, by way of Gidjdovan, to the tomb of the Saint Abdul Khalik. [Footnote 59]
[Footnote 59: Khodja Abdul Khalik (named Gidjovani, died 1601) was contemporary with the famous Payende Zamini, and stands in high repute for learning, asceticism, and sanctity.]
Many Bokhariots, on my return, intimated a wish to accompany me to Mecca. I, therefore, was obliged to employ much delicate diplomacy, for certainly their company would have been a source of great embarrassment in either case, whether we found ourselves before the Kaaba or on the banks of the Thames!
I took leave of all my friends and acquaintances. Rahmet Bi gave me letters of introduction for Samarcand, and I promised to wait upon the Emir there. The Khokand vehicle, which we had hired to convey us as far as Samarcand, had been previously sent on to wait for us at the village Baveddin, to which place of pilgrimage we had now, according to the custom of the country, to pay our second visit--our visit of adieu. This village is distant two leagues from Bokhara, and is, as before said, the place of [{195}] interment of the renowned Baha-ed-din Nakishbend, founder of the order bearing the same name, and the chief fountain of all those extravagances of religion which distinguish Eastern from Western Islamism. Without entering into more details, suffice it to mention, that Baha-ed-din is venerated as the national saint of Turkestan, as a second Mohammed; and the Bokhariot is firmly persuaded that the cry alone of a 'Baha-ed-din belagerdan' [Footnote 60] is sufficient to save from all misfortune. Pilgrimages are made to this place even from the most remote parts of China. It is the practice in Bokhara to come hither every week, and the intercourse is maintained with the metropolis by means of about 300 asses that ply for hire. These stand before the Dervaze Mezar, and may be had for a few Pul (small copper coins). Although the road, in many places, passes over deep sand, these animals run with indescribable speed on their journey to the village; but, what is considered very surprising, they cannot, without repeated blows, be induced to return. The Bokhariot ascribes this circumstance to the feeling of devotion that the saint inspires even in brutes; for do they not run to his tomb, and evince the greatest indisposition to quit it?
[Footnote 60: 'O Baha-ed-din, thou avevter of evil!']
The tomb is in a small garden. On one side is a mosque. This may be approached through a court filled with blind or crippled mendicants, the perseverance of whose applications would put to shame those of the same profession in Rome or Naples. In the front of the tomb is the famous Senghi murad (stone of desire), which has been tolerably ground away and made smooth by the numerous foreheads of pious pilgrims that have been rubbed upon it. Over [{196}] the tomb are placed several rams' horns and a banner, also a broom that served a long time to sweep out the sanctuary in Mecca. Attempts have also been made upon several occasions to cover the whole with a dome, but Baha-ed-din, like many other saints in Turkestan, has a preference for the open air, and every edifice has been thrown down after a lapse of three days from its first erection. Such is the tale told by the Sheikhs, descendants of the saint, who keep watch in turn before the tomb, and recount, with impudence enough, to the pilgrims that their ancestor was particularly fond of the number seven. In the seventh month he came into the world, in his seventh year he knew the Koran by heart, and in his seventieth he died. Hence also the contributions and gifts laid upon his grave are to have the peculiarity that they must not be anything else than multiples of seven or the number seven itself.