I Remember Sitting With A Dozen Of Them Round A Bason Of Sour
Milk, Which We Dispatched In A Few Minutes Without Any Person, Except
Myself, Having In The Least Soiled His Fingers.
The Turkman women do not hide themselves, even before strangers, but the
girls seldom enter the men’s room, although they are permitted freely to
talk with their father’s guests.
I was much struck with the elegance of
their shapes and the regularity of their features. Their complexion is
as fair as that of European women; as they advance in age the sun browns
them a little. As to their morals, chastity becomes a necessary virtue
where [p.639] even a kiss, is punished with death by the father or
brother of the unhappy offender. I could mention several instances of
the extreme severity of the Turkmans upon this subject; but one may
suffice. Three brothers taking a ride end passing through an insulated
valley, met their sister receiving the innocent caresses of her lover.
By a common impulse they all three discharged their fire-arms upon her,
and left their fallen victim upon the ground, while the lover escaped
unhurt; my host Mohammed Ali, upon being informed of the murder, sent
his servant to bring the body to his tent, in order to prevent the
jackals from devouring it: the women were undressing and washing the
body to commit it to the grave, when a slight breathing convinced them
that the vital spark was not yet extinguished; in short the girl
recovered. She was no sooner out of immediate danger, than one of Ali’s
sons repaired to the tent of his friends, the three brothers, who sat
sullen and silent round the fire, grieving over the loss of their
sister. The young man entered, and saluted them, and said, “I come to
ask you, in the name of my father, for the body of your sister; my
family wishes to bury her.” He had no sooner finished than the brothers
rose, crying: “if she was dead you would not have asked for her, you
would have taken the body without our permission.” Then seizing their
arms, they were hurrying out of the tent, in search of the still living
victim; but Mohammed Ali’s son opposed the authority of his father and
his own reputation of courage to their brutal intentions; he swore that
he would kill the first who should leave the tent, told them that they
had already sufficiently revenged the received injury, and that if their
sister was not dead it was the visible protection of the prophet that
had saved her: and thus, he at last persuaded them to grant his request.
The girl was nursed for three months in Mohammed Ali’s family, and
married after her complete recovery to the young man who had been the
cause of her misfortune. Notwithstanding such severity the young
Turkmans boast of their intrigues, and delight in all the dangers of
secret courtship; and I have been assured, upon indisputable authority,
that there are few men among them who have not enjoyed the favours of
their mistresses before the consumnnation of their nuptials.
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