The Chaghatāi Tūrki, as contained in the Memoirs of Bābur, is evidently not the same language which was brought from the wilds of Tartary by the Turkomāns in the ninth century, or by the Tūrki tribes who accompanied Chingiz Khan in the thirteenth. It has received a very strong infusion of Arabic and Persian words, not merely in the terms of science and art, but in its ordinary tissue and familiar phrases. These words are all connected by the regular grammar of the Tūrki; but so extensive is the adoption of foreign terms, that perhaps two words in nine in the Chaghatāi dialect may be originally derived from a Persian or Arabic root. The language itself is, however, remarkable for clearness, sim­plicity, and force; the style far less adorned than that of the modern Persian, and as free from metaphor and hyper­bole as that of a good English or French historian; and on the whole the Tūrki bears much more resemblance to the good sense of Europe than to the rhetorical parade of Asia. The style of all Tūrki productions that I have ever happened to meet with, is remarkable for its downright and picturesque naïveté of expression.

It is not difficult to discover how these Persian words flowed into the Tūrki language. The cities of Samarkand, Bokhāra, Akhsi, Andejān, and Tāshkend, as well as the other towns to the north of the Oxus and Jaxartes, were chiefly inhabited by Persians, the Tūrks long retaining their aversion to the life of a town, and refusing to submit to the drudgery of agriculture for the sake of supporting them­selves on the top of a weed, as they call wheat in derision. The cities and market towns in Māweralnaher were there­fore chiefly peopled, and the grounds were cultivated solely by the old inhabitants, the Sarts or Tājiks, who had used, and continued to retain the Persian tongue. The courts of the Kings and Princes were usually held in the great cities, which necessarily became the resort of the chief­tains and head men of the tribes that still kept the open country. The Tūrks, some time after leaving their deserts, had exchanged their former superstition for the religion of Muhammed. All religious, moral, and literary instruction proceeded from their priests and Mullas, men trained to Arabic literature, and whose native language was Persian. It became necessary for every Tūrk to know something of Persian, to enable him either to conduct his purchases or sales in the public markets, or to comprehend the religion to which he belonged; and the course of five hundred years, from the days of the Samanian dynasty to the birth of Bābur, gave ample space for that corruption or improvement of the language, which a daily and regular intercourse with a more refined people in the common business of life must necessarily produce.

Bābur does not inform us, nor do we learn from any other quarter, at what period of his life he began to compose his Memoirs.* Some considerations might lead us to suppose that he wrote them after his last invasion of India. That they must have been corrected after that period is certain, since in the first part of them he frequently refers to that event, and mentions some of his Begs as holding appoint­ments in Hindustān. Perhaps, too, the idea of writing his Memoirs was more likely to have occurred to him after his success in India, than at any previous time, as he had then overcome all his difficulties, was raised to eminence and distinction, and had become not only an object of wonder and attention to others, but perhaps stood higher in his own estimation. His Memoirs may be divided into three parts, the first extending from his accession to the throne of Fer­ghāna, to the time when he was finally driven by Sheibāni Khan from his paternal kingdom, a period of about twelve years; the second reaching from his expulsion from Fer­ghāna to his last invasion of Hindustān, a period of about twenty-two years; and the third containing his transac­tions in Hindustān, a period of little more than five. The whole of the first part, and the three first years of the second, are evidently written chiefly from recollection; and the style and manner in which they are composed, appear to me far to excel that of the rest of the work; not only from the clearer connexion given to the various parts of the story, and the space given to incidents in proportion to their importance, but from the superior unity and rapidity of the narrative. This is, perhaps, in other respects also, the most agreeable portion of the Memoirs. During a great part of the period to which they relate, he was unfortunate, and often a wanderer; but always lively, active, and bold; and the reader follows him in his various adventures-with that delight which inevitably springs from the minute and animated recital of the hazardous exploits of a youthful A.D. 1519. warrior. The narrative, when renewed in the year 925 of the Hijira, after an interval of twelve years, partakes too much of the tedium of a journal, in which important and unimportant events find an equal space, and seems to be in a great measure the copy of one kept at the time. The same remark applies perhaps even more strongly to the greater part of the concluding portion of the work. In the earlier portions of the Memoirs we have a continuous narrative of details, such as a lively memory might furnish at the distance of many years. In the latter parts, trifling incidents are often recorded, which, if not committed to writing at the time, would soon have met the oblivion they merited. We are informed of minute particu­lars which can interest even the writer only by recalling particular events or peculiar trains of association—how often he ate a maajūn, or electuary—how often he got drunk, and what nameless men were his boon companions. These incidents, however curious as illustrative of manners or character, are repeated even to satiety. Yet these parts also contain the valuable accounts of Kābul and of Hindustān; he gives an occasional view of his aims and motives, of the management of some of his expeditions, and particu­larly of his conduct during the alarming mutiny of his troops; while the concluding portion of his Memoirs, where the form of a journal is resumed, appears to be hardly more than materials for his private use, intended to assist him in recalling to his memory incidents as might have enabled him to furnish a connected view of the transactions of that period. Still, however, all the three parts of his Memoirs, though the two last are evidently unfinished, present a very curious and valuable picture of the life and manners of a Tartar Prince, and convey an excellent idea of Bābur’s policy, and of his wars in Māweralnaher, Afghānistān, and India, as well as of his manners, genius, and habits of think­ing; and perhaps no work ever composed introduces us so completely to the court and council, the public and private life of an Eastern Sultan.

A question may arise whether we have the Memoirs of Bābur at the present day as perfect as he wrote them; and in spite of the various hiatus which they exhibit, one of which extends to a period of twelve years, I am inclined to believe that they never were much more perfect than we now possess them. This opinion I entertain first from the fact that all the copies and translations which I have seen or heard of, are deficient in the same important passages; and next, from the remarkable fact, that the narratives of the different authors who treat of Bābur’s reign, are more or less particular, exactly where the Memoirs, as we now possess them, are more or less minute. In many instances there are chasms in his history which no succeeding writer has supplied. This would not have been the case had he written and published the whole events of his reign in a continuous narrative. It is remarkable too, that, in commencing his fifth invasion of India, he makes a sort of recapitulation, which would have been unnecessary, had the events alluded to been explained immediately before, as they must have been, had he written an unbroken history of his reign.

Bābur himself seems to have been satisfied with his labours, for, towards the close of his life, we find him sending a copy of his work from Hindustān to a friend in Kābul. The Memoirs continued to be held in the greatest veneration at the Courts of Delhi and Agra after his death. From some marginal notes which appear on both copies of the transla­tion, as well as on the Tūrki original, it appears that the Emperor Humāiūn, even after he had ascended the throne, and not long before his death, had transcribed the Memoirs with his own hand. In the reign of Akber, they were trans­lated from the original Tūrki into Persian by the celebrated Mirza Abdal-Rahīm, the son of the Bairām Khan, who acted so conspicuous a part in the reigns of the Emperors Humāiūn and Akber.* reign. His father, who was thus connected with the imperial family, and who was unfortunately too powerful for a subject, after having been goaded into rebellion, was killed in Gujerāt when on his way to perform the pilgrimage of Mekka. Abdal-Rahīm, his son, then only four years of age, was conveyed in safety to Ahmedābād by his faithful attendants, who sustained repeated attacks of the assailants up to the very gates of that city. He was carried from thence to Lahore and Agra. When he came of age, Akber bestowed on him the title of Mirza Khan, and married him to Mahbānu, the sister of Khan Azīm Goge, an officer of high distinction. At the age of twenty-one, he got the government of Guzerāt, and in his twenty-fifth year was promoted to the office of Mīr Arz (or Master of Re­quests). When twenty-eight years of age, he was made Atālik, or Governor, of Sultan Selīm, the Emperor’s eldest son, who afterwards mounted the throne under the name of Jehāngīr; and in the same year was sent into Gujerāt against Muzaffer Shah, the King of that country, who, after being compelled to take refuge among the Katti with the Jām at Jūnager,* had collected an army of forty thousand men, defeated the imperial generals, and seized Ahmedābād. The Mirza’s army consisted of only ten thousand, and he had received instructions not to hazard the safety of the province by engaging in battle. But he did not decline an engagement, and the armies having come close upon each other, Daulat Khan Lodi, a very gallant officer, told him, that now was the moment either to make himself Khān i Khānān,* or to fall in battle. Abdal-Rahīm attacked the enemy at Sarkaj,* four or five miles from Ahmedābād. The conflict was bloody, and maintained with various success. At one period the battle seemed to be lost, and Abdal-Rahīm found him­self obliged with three hundred men to face a firm body of six or seven thousand. Some of his friends seized the reins of his horse to carry him from the field; but he refused to retreat, and stood his ground with such bravery and conduct, that he changed the fortune of the day. Muzaffer in the end was defeated, and fled to Cambay,* whence, after plundering the merchants of the place, he sought refuge among the mountains of Nadot.* Muzaffer soon after again ventured into the field, but, being once more defeated, fled to the Rājpīpli* hills, on the south of the Nerbudda. Where disobedience is eminently successful, the disobedience is generally forgotten, and the success only remembered. Abdal-Rahīm, according to the prediction of Daulat Khan, was promoted to the rank of an Amīr of five thousand horse, with the high title of Khān i Khānān. It is said, that on the day of battle, after he had distributed all his jewels and property among his troops, a soldier having come to him and complained that he had had no share in the division, the Mirza, to satisfy him, took out and gave to him his enamelled inkstand, richly adorned with jewels, being the only article which he had retained. In the thirty-fourth year of his own age, and of the reign of Akber, he translated the Memoirs of Bābur, which he presented to the Emperor, by whom he was highly complimented. We are told by Abulfazel, that they were translated at the desire of Akber when he was on a progress to Kashmīr and Kābul. The same year he was raised to the distinguished rank of Vakīl-e-Sultanet, or Lord Lieuten­ant of the Empire, a title very rarely conferred. It would be tedious to follow him to the governments of Jaunpūr, Multān, and Sinde, which he successively held. He completely defeated the Hākim (or chief) of Sinde, obliged him to cede Sehwān and some other districts, and married his son Mirza Irej to the Hākim’s daughter. A revolt having ensued, Abdal-Rahīm obliged the Hākim and all his family to repair to Agra. The long wars that followed in the Dekhan, particularly that against Ahmednagger, gave him great opportunities to signalize his military talents. During the whole reign of Akber he was employed in the most important commands, and the relation in which he stood to the imperial family was drawn closer by the marriage of his daughter Jāna Begum to Daniāl the Emperor’s son. His influence continued under the Emperor Jehāngīr his former pupil, and he was selected for the chief direction of affairs wherever great talents were required, in the wide range of country from the Dekhan* to Kanda­hār, to which last place he was sent with Sultan Khurram, afterwards the Emperor Shah Jehān, to repel the invasion of Shah Abbās the Persian King. The history of his life would be a history of the public affairs of the empire of Delhi during half a century. He died at Delhi in the year 1626 or 1627, at the age of seventy-two, with the highest reputation for talents, valour, generosity, and learning.*