[Illustration: PRISONERS OF THE AMIR OF BOKHĀRĀ]
Slavery is another practice which has lost its terrors since the advent of the Russians. Bokhārā was once the greatest market in Asia for the produce of Turkoman and Kirghiz raids. Eighty years ago 40,000 Persians and more than 500 subjects of the Tsar were detained there in bondage. There was a regular tariff for these human cattle. A labourer fetched £29, a skilled artisan £64, and a pretty girl nearly £100. The treatment meted out to them by Bokhāran taskmasters was more atrocious than anything recorded by Mrs. Beecher Stowe. Meyendorff met a Russian who had endured unheard-of tortures, inflicted in order to make him reveal the route by which a comrade in affliction had escaped.[717] Half a century later the effect of European precept and example was already evident. Mr. Schuyler found the traffic in human flesh conducted with some approach to secrecy, but, after much bargaining and intrigue, he was able to purchase the freedom of a Persian lad for a sum equivalent to £25. It would be saying too much to aver that the “peculiar institution” is extinct in Bokhārā. The needs of the harem and the profound mystery with which wealthy families enshroud their domestic life render it impossible that slavery should be stamped out in any Mohammedan country. India itself is not free from the canker-spot, though every possible means have been taken to eradicate it. But the great source of supply was cut off when the Turkomans were forbidden to raid into Persia, and the lot of those who have been held in slavery is rendered endurable by the vigilance of the Russian Resident. His influence has been limited to the correction of flagrant abuses, and Bokhārā is the only Mohammedan state in Russian Asia which has been permitted to retain intact its own system of administration.
The sovereign, whose official style and title is Khān of Bokhārā and Commander of the Faithful,[718] is nominally absolute master of his realm and of the lives and fortunes of his subjects. In practice his power is subject to considerable limitations. As a Mohammedan prince he is bound to obey the injunctions of the Koran and the canonical law of Islām.[719] The clergy were all-powerful under the last independent Amīr, and their influence is still widely felt, the more so in that it is occult. The ruler is surrounded by greedy and venal followers, and his Court is a centre of intrigues. His prime minister, answering to the vezīr of the Turkish monarchy, is here styled Kushbegi, and stands next in rank to the sovereign. He is official guardian of the state jewels, which, to judge by the display made by the Amīr on state occasions, must rival the figments of the Arabian Nights.[720] He is responsible for the collection of taxes and customs duties, and is master of the palace, where he always resides, and keeps the keys of the city gates. Beneath him is a vast hierarchy of executive and Court officials, whose rank is bestowed by patents under the Amīr’s seal, or symbols such as horse-tails, hatchets, flags, and maces.[721] The struggle for these baubles amongst the crowd of courtiers versed in all the arts of fawning and flattery would arouse our pity and contempt, were we not conscious that such sordid aims are still the levers of human action nearer home.