As regards male slaves the case is quite different. This yearly contingent of human arms has become for centuries necessary to the support of the Œzbegs, who have a horror of steady agricultural labour. Indeed without their slaves they could hardly obtain from the ground enough to support life. The truth of this assertion is shown by the fact, that the price of cereals in the Central Asiatic markets is determined not simply by the rise and fall of the waters of the Oxus, but also by the greater or smaller number of slaves sold during the year. The use to which slaves are applied is principally agriculture, and in the next place care of cattle; and the larger the estate of an Œzbeg landlord, the larger the number of slaves which he requires. In a land like Turkestan, where the military element preponderates, and every free man, either from instinct or from political necessity, lays hold of the sword rather than the plough-tail, it is necessary that the arms, thus subtracted from profitable labour and employed in murder and devastation, should be replaced by others accustomed to labour. That this is so, is best shown by the fact, that in those districts in which the population are most addicted to war and robbery, there the number of slaves is greatest. In this respect Khiva stands first of the three Khanats, Bokhara second, and Khokand third. In Khiva the greater part of the population is Œzbeg, and, as they are surrounded on all sides by nomad tribes, they are continually engaged in war, and anarchy prevails among them more often than in the two other Khanats. In Bokhara, where the population is strongly mixed with peaceable Tadjiks, things have been rendered more stable by an older established and better organised government. In Khokand, which also contains many Tadjiks, wars are infrequent, owing to the notorious cowardice of its inhabitants, and when they do occur they are by no means so destructive in their character. A small proportion of the slaves are employed as private servants by the government officials (Sipahi) as also by the sovereigns themselves. For such purposes, however, only such are used as were brought in their earliest youth to Central Asia. These receive a thoroughly Œzbeg education, and beyond the opprobrious title of _kul_ (slave), bear few traces of the servile condition. Like the Circassian slaves in Turkey, they often attain the highest posts in the administration, as their innate Iranian quick-sightedness enables them to supplant their Œzbeg competitors. Thus, many who have now under their rule whole provinces, were brought into the Khanat as slaves. In Bokhara, where the Œzbeg aristocratic is of little moment by the side of the predominant Persian element, the sovereigns often take slaves for their lawful wives. Such was the mother of the present Emir, such is one of his wives, both of them of Iranian origin.