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]