What surprised me most during my sojourn amongst this people, was my inability to discover any single man among them desirous of commanding, or any individual inclined to obey. The Turkoman himself { 310} is wont to say, 'Biz bibash khalk bolamiz (We are a people without a head), and we will not have one. We are all equal, with us everyone is king.' In the political institutions of all the other nomads, we occasionally discover some sign, more or less defined --some shadow of a government, such as the Aksakal amongst the Turks, the Rish Sefid amongst the Persians, or the Sheikh amongst the Arabs. Amongst the Turkomans we find no trace of any such character. The tribes have, it is true, their Aksakals; but these are, in effect, merely ministers to each particular circle, standing, to a certain degree, in a position of honourable distraction. They are liked and tolerated so long only as they do not make their supremacy felt by unusual commands or extravagant pretensions.
'How, then,' the reader will enquire, 'can these notorious robbers'--and the savageness of their nature is really unbounded--'live together without devouring each other?' The position in which they stand is really surprising; but what shall we say to the fact that, in spite of all this seeming anarchy, in spite of all their barbarism, so long as enmity is not openly declared, _less robbery and murder, fewer breaches of justice and of morality_, take place amongst them than amongst the other nations of Asia whose social relations rest on the basis of Islam civilisation? The inhabitants of the desert are ruled, often tyrannised over, by a mighty sovereign, invisible indeed to themselves, but whose presence is plainly discerned in the word 'Deb'--_custom, usage_. [Footnote 98: ]
[Footnote 98: 'Deb' is a word of Arabian origin, derived from 'Edeb' (morality).]
Among the Turkomans the 'Deb' is obeyed; everything is practised or abominated according to its injunctions. Next to the 'Deb' we may refer also, in exceptional cases, to the influence of religion. The latter, however, which came to them from Bokhara, where so much fanaticism prevails, is far from being so influential as has been said. It is generally supposed that the Turkoman plunders the Persian because the latter belongs to the detested sect of the Shiites. It is a gross error: I am firmly convinced that the Turkoman would still cling to his plundering habits, which the 'Deb' sanctions, even if he had for his neighbours the Sunnite Turks instead of the Persians. What I advance derives the strongest confirmation from other considerations--from the frequency of the attacks made by the Turkomans upon the countries belonging to Sunnites, upon Afghanistan, Maymene, Khiva, and even Bokhara. Later experience, too, convinced me that the greater number of the slaves in Central Asia belong to the religious sect of the Sunnites. I once put the question to a robber, renowned for his piety, how he could make up his mind to sell his Sunnite brothers as slaves, when the Prophet's words were, 'Kulli Iszlam hurre (Every Musselman is free)'? 'Behey!' said the Turkoman, with, supreme indifference; 'the Koran, God's book, is certainly more precious than man, and yet it is bought or sold for a few krans. What more can you say? Yes, Joseph, the son of Jacob, was a prophet, and was himself sold. Was he, in any respect, the worse for that?'