One thing which surprised him among the Turkomen was to see that if all are too proud to obey, no one seems ambitious to command. "We are a people without a head," they say; "and we wish no head. Every one is king in our country," Yet, notwithstanding the absence of all restraint, of all authority, these savage robbers, the terror of their neighbors, live together amicably, and we find among them fewer robberies and murders, and more morality than among the majority of the Asiatic people. {204} This is explained by the action of an all-powerful law, which exercises over the inhabitants of the desert more empire than religion itself; we speak of the _Deb_, that is to say, the custom, the traditions. An invisible sovereign, obeyed everywhere, it sanctions robbery and slavery, and all the prescriptions of Islam fall to the ground before it. "How," asked Vambéry one day of a Tartar famous for his robberies and his great piety, "how can you sell your Sunnite brother, when the Prophet has said expressly: Every Mussulman is free?" "Bah!" he replied, "the Koran, this book of God, is more precious than a man, and yet you buy and sell it; Joseph, the son of Jacob, was a prophet, and yet they sold him, and was he ever the worse for it?" The influence of Deb extends throughout central Asia; in converting themselves to the worship of Mohammed, the nomad tribes have taken only the exterior form; they adored formerly the sun, the fire, and other natural phenomena--they personify them to-day under the name of Allah. Many ancient and singular customs are found everywhere in central Asia; marriage is accompanied by characteristic rites. The young girl, in her rich bridal costume, bravely bestrides a furious courser, whom she urges to his utmost speed; with one hand she holds the rein, with the other she presses to her bosom a lamb just killed, which the bridegroom, mounted also on a fast horse, endeavors to take from her. All the young people of the tribe take a part in the eager pursuit, and the sandy desert then becomes the theatre of this fantastic contest.