124 Of the Checks to Population Bk. i. 



concile himself to obtaining by labour what he 

 can hope to acquire by rapine. When the annals 

 of Tartary are not marked by any signal wars 

 and revolutions, its domestic peace and industry 

 are constantly interrupted by petty contests and 

 mutual invasions for the sake of plunder. The 

 Mahometan Tartars are said to live almost en- 

 tirely by robbing and preying upon their neigh- 

 bours, as well in peace as in war,* 



The Usbecks, who possess as masters the king- 

 dom of Chowarasm, leave to their tributary sub- 

 jects, the Sarts and Turkmans, the finest pastures 

 of their country, merely because their neighbours 

 on that side are too poor or too vigilant to give- 

 them hopes of successful plunder. Rapine is- 

 their principal resource. They are perpetually 

 making incursions into the territories of the Per- 

 sians, and of the Usbecks of Great Bucharia; and 

 neither peace nor truce can restrain them, as the 

 slaves and other valuable effects which they carry 

 off form the whole of their riches. The Usbecks 

 and their subjects the Turkmans are perpetually 

 at variance; and their jealousies, fomented often 

 by the princes of the reigning house, keep the 

 country in a constant state of intestine commo- 

 tion.! The Turkmans are always at war with 

 the Curds and the Arabs, who often come and 

 break the horns of their herds, and carry away 

 their wives and daughters.^ 



* Geneal. Hist. Tart. vol. ii. p. 390. 

 t H. P- 430, 431. 

 X Id. p. 426. 



