You have heard a great deal of the Tartars, and you have been told that
they are a quiet and peaceable nation. But not _all_; there is a tribe of
Tartars called the Toorkmans, of a very different character. They wander
about in the country between Bokhara and Persia, and their chief
employment is to steal men from Persia, and to sell them in Bokhara as
slaves. A whole troop, mounted on horses, rush sword in hand upon a
Persian city, and return to the camp with hundreds of beasts and human
creatures as their captives.
Some English travellers once met five men chained together, walking with
sad steps in the deep sands of the desert. They were Persians just caught
by the Toorkmans, and on their way to Bokhara. When the Englishmen saw
these poor captives, they uttered a sorrowful cry, and the Persians began
to weep. One of the travellers stopped his camel to listen to their sad
tale; and he heard that a few weeks before, while working in the fields,
they had been seized and carried off. They were hungry and thirsty; for
the Toorkmans cruelly starve their slaves, in order that they may be too
weak to run away. The traveller gave them all he had, which was a melon,
to quench their thirst.
But the worst part of the Toorkmans' conduct remains yet to be told. When
they have taken many captives, they usually _kill_ the old people,
because they would not get much money for them in Bokhara; and they
choose _one_ of their captives to offer up as a thank-offering to their
god!! Who is their god? The god of Mahomed. But though they are
Mahomedans, they have no mosques, and are too ignorant to be able to read
the Koran.
Robbery is their whole business. For this purpose they learn to ride and
to fight. They understand well how to manage a horse, so as to make him
strong and swift. They do not let him eat when he pleases, but they give
him three meals a day of hay and barley, and then rein him up that he may
not nibble the grass, and grow fat; and sometimes they give him no food
at all, and yet make him gallop many miles. By this management the horses
are very thin, but very _strong_, and able to bear their masters eighty
miles in a day when required; and they are so swift that they can outrun
their pursuers.
It is not surprising that the Toorkmans do not eat these thin horses,
though other Tartars are so fond of horse-flesh. They prefer mutton. When
they invite a stranger to dinner, they boil a whole sheep in a large
boiling-pot; then tear up the flesh,--mix it with crumbled bread, and
serve it up in wooden bowls. Two persons eat from one bowl, dipping their
hands into it, and licking up their food like dogs. The meal is finished
by eating melons.
These coarse manners suit such fierce and wild creatures as the
Toorkmans. It is their boast that they rest neither under the shadow of a
TREE nor of a KING: meaning that they have neither trees nor kings to
protect them in the desert.
The men wear high caps of black sheep-skin, while the Women wear high
white turbans. The tents are adorned with beautiful carpets, not only the
floors, but the sides, and it is the chief employment of the women to
weave them. As for the men, they spend most of their time in sauntering
about among the tents; for the fierce dogs guard the flocks. But when
their hands are idle, their thoughts are still busy in planning new
robberies and murders.
It was by such men that the earth was inhabited when God sent the flood
to destroy it. It is written, "The earth was filled with VIOLENCE."
Is there any man brave enough to go to these men to warn them of the
judgment to come, and to tell them of pardon for the penitent, through
the blood of Jesus?[9]
[8] Taken from Sir Alexander Burnes, and from Kanikoff, the
Russian, and from Rev. Joseph Wolff.
[9] Extracted from Sir Alexander Burnes' "Bokhara."