430 Mr. Bell on the growing power of Russia. 
and suppose she should finally obtain her end in their subjugation, 
it cannot surely be matter of regret to a liberal mind. The con- 
quest will be a service to humanity, as these nomadic states have 
carried on a constant war of plunder, whether with each other, or 
with the provinces subject to Persia or Russia. Such a conquest 
would put an end to that extensive trade in slaves which has con- 
tinued for centuries in Middle Asia, even before the arrival of the 
Usbecks. Khyvah and Bokhara are the great slave-markets, and 
to these places captives are brought by the Kirguis and Karakal- 
paks from the Russian dependencies, and by the Toorkmans and 
Usbecks from Persia, Badakshan, and the Afghan territories, for 
sale, where slave-merchants from all quarters attend to buy the 
captives, and many merchants at Khyvah and Bokhara go regu- 
larly twice a-year through the Toorkman camps and villages te 
purchase their prisoners. It is the universal practice of all the 
Mohamedans, to consider all unbelievers as slaves, when ence taken 
prisoners, be they Christians or Pagans. Not less than 150,006 
Persians were in slavery in the dominions of Khyvah ; for as the 
Usbeck Tartars are all Sonnites, they think it meritorious to catch 
as many Shuahs as possible, and either keep them for slaves, or 
sell them as such. Hardly a house in Khyvah or its dependencies 
but has 12 or 15 slaves, all Persians. In Bokhara alone the num- 
ber of Russian slaves in 1796 was about 60,000, and a large but 
untold number at Khyvah; and Frazer was assured that there 
were from 12,000 to 15,000 Russian slaves at Khyvah in 1622. 
The empress Catherine, a little before her death, sent to Khyvah 
and Bokhara to require the khans to restore her Russian subjects ; 
but they contemptuously told her to come and take them. And 
when Mouravief, the Russian envoy in 1820, made a similar re- 
guest to the khan of Khyvah, desiring him to restrain the wan- 
dering tribes under his contreul from taking Russians captive 
and selling them for slaves, he teld them that the Russians were 
all unbelievers, and that the practice was lawful, and that he would 
not hinder it. More lately there were estimated 40,000 Russian 
slaves in Bokhara, and Mouravief stated that in Khyvah were 
30,000 Persian and 3000 Russian slaves. All the Toorkman tribes 
that ream to the north of Astrabad and Khorassan, are constantly 
employed in making inroads into these previnces for slaves, and 
have rendered them almost a desert waste, and the Persians are 
not able, from the insufficiency of their government, to repress 
them ; and they and the Usbecks have been the destruction of al- 
most all the north-east part of the empire for more than three cen- 
turies. Now would it not be a blessing to the miserable inhabi- 
tants of Khorassan, if these plundering hordes were reduced to a 
state of complete subjection by whatever power? Would it not be 
a benefit to the industricus cultivators of the scil,—to the inhabi- 
trnts of the towns and villages, who prosecute trade and commerce, 
such as they are,—to the poor Bucharians, the aborigines of South- 
ern Toorkistan, who have from time immemorial been an indus- 
