PREFACE TO RE-ISSUE.

A FEW words seem to be needed in putting forward this new issue of the Tarikh-i-Rashidi. In the first place it must be pointed out that it is in no sense a new edition, but merely a fresh issue under a more convenient and intelligible title, with the addition of an Appendix on existing Moghul settlements in Khorasan, an Erratum, &c. The full title has not been changed, but merely reversed, for it was found that the Persian name of the original work, though the only real one, conveyed no meaning when attached to an English translation, and became, moreover, a serious disadvantage in classing and cata­loguing. A tempting title would have been the simple one of “History of the Moghuls,” but, seeing that the name of “Moghul” has been so commonly applied to the rulers of India descended from a branch of the Moghuls of Central Asia, this would have been a misleading appellation, and would have pointed to a dynasty with which the book is, in reality, very little concerned. As it stands at present it may be hoped that the title sufficiently describes the scope of Mirza Haidar's work and is also sufficiently accurate.

N. E.

January, 1897.

PUBLISHERS' NOTE.

THE above lines were written by the Author a few weeks before his death in the spring of 1897, and, with the additions which he mentions, are printed just as he left them in MS.

We'll lead you to the stately tent of war,
Where you shall hear the Scythian Tamburlaine
Threatening the world with high astounding terms.

Marlowe.