The situation of the boys themselves, considered under the same reservations, was almost wholly favorable. They were taken at an age when they would not feel the parting as they might have felt it in earlier or later years, when their attachment to things and places would be at its weakest, and before their religious convictions were likely to have become fixed. They were taken from the narrow mountain valleys and the labor-hungry plains. They were taken at the age when the bounding pulse and the increasing strength of youth suggests great hope and promises great achievement. They were taken to opportunities as great as their utmost abilities, greater often than they could possibly imagine. They might still have to labor for a time, but a distinct career lay ahead. The best military education in the world would certainly be theirs. If their abilities lay in that direction they could have a finished and thorough, though specialized, education of the mind. They could look forward to travel, wealth, power, and all else that human ambition desires. In that land and that age of the world, the question of the religious and social systems being laid aside, an unprejudiced observer could hardly imagine a more brilliant opportunity than that which lay before the tribute boys. THE SLAVE STATUS Whether captured, purchased, presented, or levied, the young men who entered the system were the slaves of the sultan, the personal property of a despot. They were his slaves for life, and, though they felt honored by the title,[119] they were never allowed to forget the responsibilities of their condition. They must to the end of their days go where the sultan chose to send them, obey his slightest wish, submit to disgrace as readily as to promotion,[120] and, though in the highest office of state, they must accept death by his order from the hands of their humblest fellow-slaves.[121] If one of them was executed, all his property went to his master. The time had not yet come when heads would be removed for the sake of the owner’s possessions; yet Suleiman profited greatly by the death of several of his slaves, in particular from the estates of the _Defterdar_ Iskender Chelebi and the grand vizier Ibrahim.[122] When one of the sultan’s slaves died leaving sons or daughters, the master sealed up his property, and took the tenth part for himself before distributing the rest to the children;[123] the nine-tenths was, indeed, given to the children rather by the favor of a bountiful and wealthy master than as a right. If the slave had no sons or daughters, the sultan took his whole estate;[124] and a day was to come when his empty treasury would demand the whole estate under all circumstances.[125] Thus in all essential respects the eighty thousand _kullar_ of the sultan constituted one great slave-family. THE HAREM, THE EUNUCHS, AND THE ROYAL FAMILY