THE page of the MS. selected for reproduction in Plate I. contains several words which I have found difficult, and concerning which explanation will be welcomed. It and Plate No. II. make silent protest against printing, and plead that the sun best shows the grace and beauty of manuscript.
With the exception of the first illustration, all the plates are photographic reproductions from a splendidly illustrated Persian MS., entitled the Tārīkh-i-khāndān-i-tīmūriya, which is the choicest volume in the library with which Maulvī Khūda-baksh Khān Bahādur has enriched the city of Patna.*
The Emperor Shāh-jahān appears to have paid R.8,000 for the illustrations in the volume. The MS. itself is of older date, and Mr. Beveridge has found in it some portions, at least, of the Tārīkh-i-alfī. The title-page is wanting.
The volume has a further distinction, inasmuch as it bears on an opening page an autograph note of Shāh-jahān. This is reproduced (as Plate No. II.) on the opposite page, and by its charm and grace is worthy of that royal fount of creative beauty.
The pictures of Bābar's devotion of himself and the triad connected with the birth of Akbar are admirable; they repay close attention and enlargement under a glass.
I am indebted for these pictures, first to Mr. Beveridge who, when he examined this Tārīkh in 1899, thought of my book, and, secondly, to Mr. Bourdillon, the then Commissioner of Patna, who most kindly photographed them for us.