It is difficult to estimate the number thus carried year by year into captivity, because, as I have explained above, it varies according to the state of things in Persia. Nor is it easier to estimate the number of those at present living in slavery in Turkestan. Not all persons who fall into the hands of the Turkomans are sent to the Khanats for sale. Taking into consideration the distribution of property in Iran, we may reckon that about one-third of those captured in Mazenderan and along the shores of the Caspian are ransomed. This is a clear gain to the nomad robber, as he, in the first place, saves the expense of keeping his merchandise for a long time on hand; in the second place, he is not exposed to the risk of the market, for should his captive prove physically deficient in some important respect, he will not be able to sell him at all. Still, however, the proportion of those who are thus ransomed is not everywhere the same. The greater part of those who fall into the hands of the robbers are poor men, who are most exposed to this danger during their work out in the fields. These, of course, can rarely be ransomed. But if, in the case of those who are captured in Mazenderan, we may estimate those who are ransomed at a third, we cannot assume the same of those who are seized in the much poorer provinces of Khorassan and Seistan. I have heard, out of the mouth of a slave dealer who had grown grey in his trade, that from these districts scarcely a tenth part are ransomed, the remaining nine-tenths being forwarded for sale in the markets of the Khanats. The Turkoman never retains a slave for his own use, except (1) when his captive is old or crippled, and yet not so much so but that he works enough to earn his meagre sustenance; if he cannot, he is at once mercilessly cut down; (2) infants who are brought up as Turkomans to become the wildest of robbers; (3) when Cupid makes some pretty brunette of an Iranian so dear to him that he cannot make up his mind to part with her. This last case, however, happens but seldom, as the Turkomans are notoriously the greatest misers in the world. As, besides, they are wanting in that feeling of delicacy for which the Circassian Huri-dealers are so renowned, the harems of Khiva and Bokhara receive many flowers which have lost their freshness in Turkoman hands. The only Persians who are to be found among the inhabitants of the steppes are such as in their own country would not be much better off, or else escaped criminals who have to continue their former courses of misdoing, of murder and robbery, in conjunction with the nomads.