Tārīḫ-i Rashīdī - The History of the Moghuls, Editor's Introduction

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.

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.

ALTHOUGH this is the first time that a translation of the Tarikh-i-Rashidi, into English, has been presented to the public, it is necessary to explain that translators and historians have already used the book, to some extent, as a source from which to draw facts for their writings. Not only has its scope and its general purport, as a history of the Moghuls, been familiar to Orientalists for some fifty years, but much of its contents has also been made known, in a more or less scattered way, while its name is frequently found quoted in support of one historical passage or another. And if this is the case in English writings, it is the same when we refer to the works of Continental authors who have occupied themselves with the annals of Central Asia. Yet, though the value of the book has been acknowledged in this indirect manner, no complete translation into any European language has hitherto been made.

The nearest approach to an adequate translation, so far as I am able to ascertain, was that made by the late Mr. W. Erskine of the E. I. Company's service, more than half a century ago, and some fourteen years after the publication of the Memoirs of Baber. Mr. Erskine's work, however, has never been put into print, and seems, indeed, to be very little known outside the MS. department of the British Museum. It appears to have been taken in hand in 1840, after his retirement from the Company's service, and to have been completed at the beginning of the next year.^va It consists of 221 folio pages closely written, and, in one form or another, includes the greater part of the Tarikh-i-Rashidi. But the work varies greatly in character; in some places the author has set himself to translate fully and accurately from the text, and has been at pains to produce a rendering that would seem to be intended for publication; in other places lengthy passages—sometimes whole folios—are summarised more or less briefly; and in others, again, mere memoranda, or headings, are given to show the drift of the author's narrative; while, finally, considerable sections of the book, at various places, are omitted altogether.

The document, therefore, valuable though it is, can scarcely be regarded as a translation of the Tarikh-i-Rashidi. Rather, it appears to me, after a close acquaintance with it, to have been prepared less with a view to producing a complete English version of Mirza Haidar's history, than for some other and more special purpose. Whether Mr. Erskine ever contemplated publishing the Tarikh-i-Rashidi in an English dress, there is nothing to indicate, but there are several circumstances connected with the MS. at the British Museum, which lead me to conjecture that it was intended rather as a preparatory study for the compilation of his second important work—The History of India under the Moghuls—of which the first and second volumes (the only ones ever completed) appeared in 1854. In the first place, the passages, or sections, of the Tarikh-i-Rashidi devoted to the dynastic history of the Moghul Khans and their transactions, are usually those which are translated in full in the manuscript. Secondly, the Tarikh-i-Rashidi is not only frequently cited in the two volumes of the history, but, in many parts of them, passages from the MS. are found transcribed word for word, while the author mentions, in his preface, that he has based his knowledge of the Moghuls and their chronicles chiefly on Mirza Haidar's evidence. Indeed, the greater part of Mr. Erskine's introduction is a summary of the Moghul annals as put forward by Mirza Haidar, and by Mirza Haidar alone, for no other Asiatic author deals with the subject in any but a merely incidental way. A third circumstance pointing to the same conclusion is, that bound up in the same volume of MSS. with the fragmentary translation of the Tarikh-i-Rashidi, we find a second document, which consists of a similar condensed translation, in Mr. Erskine's handwriting, of the third volume of the Ikbál Náma Jahángiri of Mutamad Khan, a work that seems to have been studied with a view to another—probably the fourth—volume of the History of India. Thus it seems very likely that the précis (if it may be so called) of the Tarikh-i-Rashidi, was drawn up as a preliminary study for the historical works the author was at that time planning; and if this is the case, no better proof could be offered of the care and thoroughness he devoted to the task, for this document alone seems to have needed nearly a year of labour, while the Tarikh-i-Rashidi is only one among many Oriental authorities whom Mr. Erskine studied, in the original, and made use of—a fact to which the footnotes of his History clearly testify.

Besides serving the purpose of its own author, the précis translation has also been made to contribute much that is valuable to the works of Sir H. Howorth, whom little escapes that is authentic and original, however difficult of access. In his History of the Mongols more especially, Sir H. Howorth gathered much information regarding the tribes of Central Asia and the genealogy of Moghul Khans, and was able to throw light on some of the most obscure chapters of Asiatic history, from Mirza Haidar's data, as found in this document. Had it only been more complete, and had the geography and ethnography of Central Asia been known in Mr. Erskine's day as well as they are known now, the History of the Mongols would no doubt have contained all the essential parts of the Tarikh-i-Rashidi, and little would have been left to occupy the editor of the present translation. But it is precisely during the last fifty years that much has been learned on these subjects, so that a great deal of what was unintelligible to Mr. Erskine, and consequently left untranslated or in obscurity, is now easily filled in, by the light of more modern knowledge.

The only English writer besides Mr. Erskine who has made any extensive use of the Tarikh-i-Rashidi, in the original Persian, is the late Surg.-Gen. W. H. Bellew. In 1873 Dr. Bellew accompanied Sir D. Forsyth's mission to Kashgar, and compiled, as a contribution to the official report of the mission, a history of Eastern Turkistan, which is largely drawn from Mirza Haidar's data, for the period covered by the latter's narrative. Dr. Bellew had not set himself the task of translating the Tarikh-i-Rashidi, nor was he concerned with any part of it that did not bear directly on the country to which the mission report had reference. His history, therefore, is a compilation, only, from certain portions of Mirza Haidar's work, and though in some places it contains much detail, it cannot be compared, even as a précis of the book, with Mr. Erskine's MS. at the British Museum. In some respects—as for instance, the names of places and geographical notices—it is, perhaps, more valuable than that document, for the writer's local knowledge, and opportunities for deriving information from the natives of the country, gave him a distinct advantage over the earlier translator.

In the same way, Mr. R. B. Shaw, while on duty in Yarkand and Kashgar, took up a section of the book and translated some passages from it, which were published in the Geographical Society's Journal for 1876. These do not touch on the history, but relate exclusively to the geography of Eastern Turkistan and its neighbouring regions on the south and south-west. They contain translated extracts from Mirza Haidar's opinions, which are fully and accurately elucidated by Mr. Shaw, according to modern knowledge of the subject and local information.

Another short section of the Tarikh-i-Rashidi is found in Elliot's History of India told by its Own Authors—a work that consists of extracts (by various translators) from Asiatic writers, only when these relate to the history of India. The translation, in this instance, is by Professor Dowson, and comprises the one episode of the battle of Kanauj in 1540, when the Afghans, under Shir Shah, won for a time the so-called Moghul Empire of Hindustan. But even this has not been given in full: only the actual account of the battle being thought necessary, by the editor, as an illustration of the events of the period, while some rather lengthy passages, containing the author's views of the policy to be adopted by the Moghuls at that critical moment, have been omitted.

Whether Moorcroft used the book, is not clear from the posthumous narrative of his travels which has come down to us, through Professor H. H. Wilson. He mentions Mirza Haidar's name on one occasion only, and ascribes a statement to him connected with Kashmir, without directly citing his work. If, however, Moorcroft did know the Tarikh-i-Rashidi, he would be, probably, the first Englishman to become acquainted with it, for his reference to it dates from 1822.

In Russia, I believe Professor Grigorieff used the Tarikh-i-Rashidi in editing the Russian version of Ritter's Erdkunde, and it may be that other Orientalists in that country have also reproduced portions of it in their own language; but in French and German Oriental literature, I do not know that the book is more than referred to, and even that very rarely. I make this statement, however, with reserve, for it is quite possible that extracts may have been published, though I have not met with them.

As regards texts in the original Persian (for Mirza Haidar wrote in Persian), though not particularly rare in Europe, they are seldom to be obtained, as far as my experience goes, in any Asiatic country. In England, there are three copies at the British Museum, one in the possession of Professor Cowell, at Cambridge, and it would appear that three or four more, at least, are in the hands of private persons. But these are not all of equal value: one, at any rate, of those in the British Museum being a modern Indian copy, marred by many corruptions, while another is not quite complete. The British and Foreign Bible Society own two partial translations into Turki, which they were good enough to place at the disposal of the British Museum, to be used for purposes of collation in preparing the present English version. Neither of these, however, is complete; one of them consists of the Second Part only, and the other of merely a portion of that Part. In the public libraries on the Continent, I am informed that examples are often to be met with, but whether in the original or in Turki, I am not aware.

It appears, in any case, that European collectors have, in a great measure, exhausted the supply that might be thought to be available in one part of Asia or another. In India, I believe that copies exist in some of the libraries of Calcutta and perhaps elsewhere, but a search among the native booksellers, which was made for me in 1891, resulted in finding nothing. In Persia and Afghan Turkistan I have never been able to hear of the Tarikh-i-Rashidi, while in the country to which it chiefly refers, and where it would be most likely to be in request, there is reason to think that scarcely any examples are now left; at any rate, all the inquiries that I was able to make from 1880 to 1885, at Yarkand and Kashgar, produced only the Turki fragment alluded to above, as consisting of a portion of the Second Part of the book. In Kashmir, no copy was ever procurable by native inquirers, who endeavoured, at different times, to obtain one for me; yet it seems probable that the more perfect Turki copy in the Bible Society's library, may have been acquired, some twenty or twenty-five years ago, by a civil officer in Kashmir.

For the present translation, Mr. Ross made use, chiefly, of the Persian text numbered Add. 24,090, of the British Museum Catalogue, and with this he collated the one marked Or. 157, that of Professor Cowell (who very kindly lent it for the purpose) and, in the Second Part, the more perfect of the two Turki versions belonging to the Bible Society. This last proved a valuable aid in clearing up obscure passages, and in deciphering ill-spelled and badly written names of places and tribes. It is the work of an intelligent man, who knew the countries his author wrote about, and who read what he translated with judgment and discrimination. He constantly interpolates a word or two, or a sentence, in order to make the meaning clearer, and frequently spells the names of places in Turki-speaking countries, with vowel points, and in so clear a way that they can be recognised, if not identified. This is a service few Asiatic translators, or copyists, are able to render to the modern European reader; and the only pity is that the anonymous scholar was unable to do for the Tibetan names, what he accomplished for the Turki ones. He nowhere gives his name, but the end of his work is subscribed by a line as follows: “I completed this translation in the year 1263, Jamád II. 22nd, in the town of Khotan”—i.e., in the year 1845 A.D.

A few words may be necessary to explain how this English version has come to see the light, and how it is that it should have been undertaken by one who has not enough Persian to be his own translator. My attention was first called to the Tarikh-i-Rashidi as far back as 1877, by my friend the late Mr. R. B. Shaw, who had used portions of it when he himself was living and travelling in the countries it describes. He was enthusiastic in his admiration of the author's intelligence, and of the value of the work as a “guide book” to Eastern Turkistan and the surrounding regions. He had intended, as I always understood, to take up the translation of it after completing his Turki vocabulary; but in June 1879 he died, while on service in Burma, leaving the vocabulary only just finished.^xa

For some years after this, I endeavoured to find a copy, believing that, with the help of native Munshis, my small knowledge of Persian might be sufficient to produce a practical, working, English version, though by no means a scholarly translation. But where, and when, I could avail myself of native assistance, no text was forthcoming, and it was only on returning to England in 1893, that I became acquainted with Mr. Erskine's partial translation among the MSS. of the British Museum. My first impression was that by filling up the gaps in this document, and rectifying the names, etc., a version might be obtained, which would be sufficiently complete to publish under Mr. Erskine's name. It soon became apparent, however, that the bulk of the MS. was only a summary of the text, and in some places was so brief, that the word “translation” could in no way be made to apply to it. It was also found that in addition to many other omissions— some long, some short—the whole of the lengthy extracts from the Zafar-Náma of Sharaf-ud-Din Ali, Yazdi, which the author embodies in the First Part of the Tarikh-i-Rashidi, to tell the story of Timur's times, had been left untouched; while certain marginal notes showed that Mr. Erskine had, in many passages, been uncertain of the author's meaning. In these circumstances, there seemed no course open but to make a new translation. Accordingly I sought advice in the only quarter where a knowledge of Mirza Haidar's original work was to be found. Dr. Charles Rieu, in compiling his catalogue of the Oriental MSS. in the British Museum, had thoroughly examined the Tarikh-i-Rashidi, and had described its contents; he knew its difficulties and saw, also, how imperfect would be the result of trying to expand and piece together Mr. Erskine's document. It was owing to his advice therefore, and through his good offices, that I obtained the assistance of his former pupil, Mr. Ross, to undertake a new translation; and I believe that although Mr. Ross holds a diploma for Persian from the Ecole des Langues Orientales Vivantes of Paris, and has won the Ouseley scholarship, no better guarantee for his proficiency is needed than Dr. Rieu's recommendation. It need hardly be added that in the new translation Mr. Erskine's précis was extensively used, and that Mr. Ross derived from it much light and assistance.

The work of translation was begun with the year 1894 and took seven months to finish. The method followed was for Mr. Ross to put sections of about five folios at a time into English, generally leaving out obscure or uncertain passages. Each of these sections was then gone through, in company with Mr. Ross and, usually, with one of the texts at hand. The uncertain passages were then discussed and filled in, or marked off for further investigation; but the revision of the English, and the addition of footnotes, together with the solution of the puzzles in which the book abounds, were subjects left for me to take up at a later opportunity. In editing the English version, my object has been to render the language fairly clear and readable, without so changing the translation as to alter the author's meaning. But this has proved to be not always an easy task, for numerous passages occur where the translation will only bear slight amendments, without impairing its accuracy. As a rule, indeed, the latitude that could be allowed was small, so that it has been necessary to leave many sentences and paragraphs standing in rather awkward phraseology, which it would have been easy—and was even tempting—to improve, had the author's words permitted the license.

As regards the spelling of proper names, it was at first intended that all should be reproduced according to the system in use at the British Museum—i.e., an exact transliteration, where each Persian and Arabic letter which has no single equivalent in English, is distinguished by some accent or diacritical sign. This design, however, could not be followed out for various reasons. Indeed, the work of translation was scarcely finished, when Mr. Ross left England to pursue his Oriental studies on the Continent, and the task of attempting to harmonise the spelling fell to me. I found it impossible, with the time at my disposal, to carry out the original intention, seeing that many of the names would have had to be searched out, afresh, ?? the vernacular texts—an undertaking that would have involved frequent attendance at the British Museum. I decided, therefore, to write all according to the simple method of Sir W. Jones, or that adopted by the Government of India in their official documents and publications. This system may be, to a certain extent, imperfect, for it does not, in every instance, show exactly what was the Persian or Arabic spelling of the word represented, and therefore is not a complete guide to re-conversion; but it gives, as nearly as possible, the correct pronunciation, while it secures a degree of accuracy sufficient for practical purposes.^xiia It has moreover the advantage of simplicity, and avoids that air of pedantry which readers who do not occupy themselves with Oriental languages, usually discern in the more perfect system, and which they find repellant. On the other hand, those who are proficient in the languages concerned, do not require to be informed how the great majority of names are written by the original authors. A small number of new and unfamiliar place-names form the only exception to this proposition, but these are usually so carelessly and incompletely written in the original texts, that a critical transliteration can have no great value, even when it is possible to give one.

In endeavouring to throw light on the narrative, and to illustrate the author's statements on subjects connected with the people or the geography of the countries he speaks of, I have used, as far as possible, the authority of writers whose information may be cited, and verified, from works already before the public. Though I am personally acquainted, more or less, with all the tribes and races Mirza Haidar introduces, and with most of the localities, the reader will probably find it more satisfactory to be referred to a published authority, than to rely on the editor's own reminiscences. This remark, however, only applies to a portion of the footnotes and of the Introduction. For all historical matters, reference to acknowledged authorities would, in any case, be needed.

It may be observed that in reproducing Mirza Haidar's lengthy extracts from the Zafar-Náma, at the beginning of the book, his transcription was not relied upon. Mr. Ross translated these sections directly from the texts of the work in the British Museum, and only added the Mirza's interpolation (which is repeated in several places) that the country called “Jatah,” by the author of the Zafar-Náma, was one and the same with “Moghulistan.” Neither was the very free version of the Zafar-Náma, by Pétis de la Croix, used for any purpose beyond the comparison of names, and Mr. Ross's translation will be found, I believe, to be much more perfect than the French one of two hundred years ago. It has been embodied in the text without any break in the numbering of the chapters, as Mirza Haidar embodies it in his original manuscript, but it has been printed in somewhat smaller type than the rest of the text, in order to distinguish the difference of authorship.

A few words, only, are needed in explanation of the map. In the first place, its object is to show all the places mentioned in the Tarikh-i-Rashidi, which can surely be identified, and the positions of which can be established. In the second place, it was obviously necessary to lay down all the localities alluded to, on a basis of the best data available, regarding the physical geography of the region concerned. But a map containing only the names mentioned by Mirza Haidar would have had little significance. As a guide to their whereabouts, easily recognised points of some kind were needed, and for this purpose a number of the most ordinarily known, and least irrelevant, names in modern geography, have been used. They are marked at fairly wide intervals all over the included region, and may be regarded, for the most part, as mere “signposts” for pointing to the places spoken of by the author.

It might appear, at first sight, that the map would have been more useful, if the designations of the tribes had been inserted, and marked in such a way as to show the regions they inhabited; also that the boundaries, or approximate limits, of the various countries and kingdon s should have been indicated. But information of this kind it is impossible to give on a single sheet, intended to serve for a period of over two centuries in duration. The whole burden of the history to be illustrated is “mutability”; and a series of maps, instead of one, would be requisite to show the boundaries that existed from time to time, or the moves that occurred among the tribes. It has been found expedient, therefore, to omit all information of a transitional nature from the face of the map, and rather to make it exclusively geographical.

For the rest, everything has been done to render it plain and easy to refer to; and with this end in view, all needless details, both in the matter of names and of physical features, have been avoided. It will be found, I believe, to be the only map which contains most of the names used in historical works relating to Central Asia during the Middle Ages. The original drawing is by Mr. H. Scharbau, and is clear and excellent of its kind.

It is with pleasure that I take this opportunity to acknowledge my indebtedness to several gentlemen who have been so good as to lend me a helping hand, at various stages of my task. To no one am I more grateful than to Sir Henry Howorth, whose interest in the book, from first to last, has been manifested in so many practical ways, that it is perhaps doubtful whether, in its absence, the manuscript would ever have reached the printer. Dr. Rieu's good offices I have already alluded to; but I herewith offer him my thanks for the grace and patience with which he rendered them, in part to myself, and in part to Mr. Ross in connection with the technicalities of the translation. My gratitude is also due to Mr. Stephen Wheeler for the valuable advice he has accorded me, and for many references to books and other documents which his extensive reading— perhaps unsurpassed on most Asiatic subjects—enabled him, with great generosity, to place at my disposal. In tendering my acknowledgments to Dr. L. A. Waddell for the favour he has done the reader in adding some notes to Mirza Haidar's chapters on Tibet, I have only to refer to his able and original work on ‘Lamaism in Tibet,’ to guarantee appreciation of his remarks. I gladly avail myself of this occasion, also, to express my sense of obligation to Her Majesty's Secretary of State for India, for the material assistance so liberally accorded by him, towards securing the publication of the volume.

Finally, I must echo the author's words when he tells his readers that he knows his book to be full of mistakes. The subject on which I have chiefly to beg the indulgence of the critical is that of the spelling of Asiatic names, though there may be other errors and omissions, due to a want of those minute and repeated revisions of the proofs, that a book of this kind requires. My time on furlough, however, is limited, and as it has been necessary to complete the revisions before leaving England to return to Khorasán, some hurry has been inevitable.

Mirza Haidar also tells his readers that no one but a Moghul can be interested in this history. Let us hope that he may not be entirely right in his forecast. Some few who are not Moghuls may regard the preservation of his work as an advantage, and may find some attraction in it, even in an English dress; but how far these will bear with an editor who knows but little of his author's language, is another question. It may be thought that a scholarly knowledge of the language of a book is essential in one who undertakes to elucidate it, in order that he may realise the true significance of its scope, and properly understand its design. This may occasionally be the case; but if there be any virtue in the words of the German poet—

Wer den Dichter will verstehen,
Muss in Dichter's Lande gehen,

I would plead that the present is an instance in which something besides language may help lead to a right interpretation of the author, and to an appreciation of his theme.

N. E.

ORIENTAL CLUB,

25th March, 1895.

Page 6, line 9 from foot. For “it” read “is.”
Page 18, line 4. For “Councillors” read “Counsellors.”
Page 23, line 23-4. It has been pointed out by a reviewer that this statement
is incorrect—that Abul Fazl mentions the “Tar-Rashidi” in the Akbar-
náma.
Page 62, line 20. For “Oirát Kalmák” read “Oirát or Kalmák.”
Page 80, line 4 of note 1. Omit the last sentence: “Nikudar” is certainly correct.
Page 87, note 2. Insert after first full-stop “(See Elliot, III. p. 529.).”
Page 103, line 10. After the word “subdued” insert “(nominally, at all
events).”
Page 112, lines 10-11. In place of “150 or 200 feet” read “300 feet or over.
(See J. R. G. S., August, 1896).”

The First Part of the Tarikh-i-Rashidi is called, by the Author, the Tarikh-i-Asl, or ‘Real History.’ The Second Part he styles Mukhtasar, or ‘Epitome.’

The First Part was written after the Second Part had been completed. This accounts for the Author remarking, in several places in Part I., that he has written certain passages in Part II.; while in Part II. he promises to make certain statements in Part I.

The First Part covers the entire period with which the Author deals— viz., from about 1321 to 1547—in the form of a brief Epitome. The Second Part takes up the history again at about the year 1484, and recounts in detail to 1546. This Part contains the life and adventures of the Author.

The system adopted in spelling proper names has been explained in the Preface, pp. x. and xi., which see.

It has also been noticed in the Preface (p. xii.) that the extracts from the Zafar-Náma are printed in smaller type than the rest of the text. No difference in type, however, has been made for the extracts from the Tarikh-i-Jahán Kushai. Those from the former work (with the exception of the very brief one in Chapter XCIX. of Part II.) were translated from original texts; while those from the latter (though collated with a copy of the Jahán Kushai) were translated from the Tarikh-i-Rashidi, as Mirza Haidar gives them.

The ordinary, or curved, parentheses in the text, are the Author's. The light angular brackets enclose words inserted by the translator or the editor, in order to render a passage complete in English, or to make sense. The heavy angular brackets contain words, or sentences, interpolated by the Turki translator, or substituted from his version, and are the outcome of the collation of the Turki text with the Persian. They appear first at page 177 and continue, at intervals, to the end of the book.

The foot-notes to the text, referring to the translation, and signed R., are those of Mr. Ross. Those in Section IV. of the Introduction, when signed H. H., are by Sir Henry Howorth. Those in Chapters LXXXIX. to XCI. added by Dr. L. A. Waddell on certain Tibetan subjects, are signed with his initials. The rest of the notes are editorial.

The Poet wandering on, through Arabie
And Persia, and the wild Carmanian waste,
And o'er the aërial mountains which pour down
Indus and Oxus from their icy caves,
In joy and exultation held his way;
Till in the vale of Cashmire, …
he stretched
His languid limbs.

—Alastor.

THE object of the Tarikh-i-Rashidi, as the author tells his readers, is to preserve the memory of the Moghuls and their Khans, which, at the time he wrote, stood in danger of being altogether lost through the want of a chronicler. It was a race that he knew to be not only declining, but speedily approaching an end: its power was a dream of the past; its numbers were dwindling at a rapid rate, chiefly through absorption into the neighbouring tribes then rising to influence; while he himself had been a witness of the events and an actor in the scenes, which had resulted in the remnant of his people being ousted from their own country, to find an asylum in a strange land. In short, the Moghuls of Moghulistan—the eastern branch of the Chaghatai—had been nearly blotted from existence, while their Khans, through a long course of intermarriage with other races, had ceased to be Moghuls in anything but the name. Mirza Haidar foresaw, therefore, that there might soon be nobody left to tell the story of a people who, only a few generations earlier, had regarded themselves with pride as the descendants of Chingiz's conquering hordes, who made themselves feared if not respected, by their neighbours, and who gloried in the independence of the wide steppe-land which was their home. All this had been changed when our author— himself an exile and serving a foreign monarch—had to constitute himself the historian of their fall. Whether he was able to appreciate the changes that were taking place around him, where they did more than affect his own people, is perhaps doubtful. It may be supposed that he was regarding events from too close a standpoint to be able to judge of their true proportions; but it has become evident to later observers that he had, for the period of his history, a time of gradual but extensive change, which brought results of the greatest importance to the future of a large section of Asia. Mr. Erskine, the historian of the rise of the Moghul dynasty in India, has pointed to this period, as that which gave Transoxiana to the Uzbegs, Moghulistan to the Kirghiz, and India to the Moghuls —but to the descendants of a branch of the Moghuls quite separate from that of Moghulistan.^2a

In Central Asia it was a period full of incident: wars were on foot on every side: states were being overrun and cities besieged, while rulers arose or went down, almost from day to day, according to their fortune in war or intrigue. The princes and the descendants of exiled ruling families, together with most of the Khans and Begs of the various tribes, found themselves forced to take a side, either in support of their house or their relations, or in self-defence; and in many cases they seem to have changed sides with as little consideration for the rights and wrongs of the cause, as when they first took a part in the quarrel. When they were strong they attacked a neighbour with or without reason; if successful, they enjoyed, usually, a short period of bloody revenge and debauchery, but soon had again to “mount”—as the phrase was—for a new campaign; if beaten, they fled to some other neighbour, and if not put to death by him, waited, in exile, till a turn of fortune's wheel should afford a fresh chance of aggrandizement or plunder. “In the space of about 120 years,” writes Sir H. Yule, “no less than thirty descendants or kinsmen of Chaghatai are counted to have occupied his throne; and indeed revolutions, depositions, murders, and usurpations seem to have succeeded each other with a frequency unusual even in Asiatic governments.”^3a

Here, then, were times that could hardly fail to make a historian of any soldier of fortune, who happened to have a taste for recording the events of his own life. Baber, the first of the Moghuls of India, and our author's cousin, especially answered to this description, and left behind him a picture of his age which is almost, if not quite, unique among the works of Asiatic authors. He has been represented as at once a soldier, a historian, and an autobiographer; and his kinsman, Mirza Haidar, may justly be described in the same way. Baber, however, was a better autobiographer than Mirza Haidar, and he was incomparably a greater soldier, as history proves. But, on the other hand, his cousin may be fairly acknowledged the better historian. While Baber made history incidental to his own memoirs, the reverse was the case with Mirza Haidar. The Mirza wrote the history of his race and family with a definite purpose; and when he came to his own days, he wove in his personal adventures as those of an actor and participator in the events he was recording—making the one illustrate the other; so that it may, with truth, be said that his life belongs to his history.

Though they differed in remote origin, Mirza Haidar was, to all intents and purposes, of the same nation and country as Baber; yet he wrote in Persian, while the latter wrote in the Chaghatai Turki (as the modern name is), current then, as now, all over Central Asia. Baber was a descendant of Amir Timur (or Tamerlane), and was, consequently, on one side of his family, more a Turk than a Moghul, for Timur belonged to the Barlás, a Turki tribe of distinguished lineage. Following the common usage of the day, however, Mirza Haidar would have called Baber a “Chaghatai,” while the latter would have spoken of his cousin as a “Moghul.” Mirza Haidar came of the Dughlát tribe—a sub-division, or sept, of the true Moghuls of Chagha-tai's line—and one that was accounted about equal, in point of nobility, to the Barlás. By the end of the fifteenth century the members of all the Moghul and Chaghatai ruling families had become much scattered, and mixed in blood, through frequent intermarriages with aliens. Many of them had, for several generations, lived in Turki countries, where they had become Turks in manners and language. So much was this the case with Baber and his kindred, that he had come to look upon himself as more of a Turk than a Moghul, and in his Memoirs mentions, more than once, his aversion and contempt for the Moghul race.^4a The Dughlát had remained more distinctively Moghul, though among its members, also, much intermixture with Turki tribes appears to have taken place. Thus the Turki in which Baber wrote his Memoirs, must have been the natural language of Mirza Haidar also, who probably knew little or nothing of the Moghul tongue, and in his capacity of Musulman, would have despised it as something appertaining to infidels and barbarians. But however this may be, when he wrote in Persian, he was certainly using a foreign language, and it is for this reason, perhaps, that his style is wanting in the simplicity which (it is said) characterises that of Turki writers—a simplicity that Baber loved, and impressed upon his son, Humayun, as an accomplishment to be cultivated.^4b

That the Tarikh-i-Rashidi was not written for effect, or for the indulgence of a taste for literature, need hardly be remarked after what has been said above. The work is an earnest one, and the author, no doubt intended that it should be, before everything else, a clear and complete exposition of the times he had set himself to chronicle. On the whole he has been successful, and has produced a record that, in point of usefulness, will bear comparison (as far as can be judged from translations) with most of those of Asiatic authors who have occupied themselves in the same field, from the thirteenth century to the seventeenth. ^4c His task was not an easy one, for much of the history of the times is complicated and obscure, and would require infinite care and method to present it to the reader with perfect clearness. All was change and disorder. Princes and members of reigning families wandered and married in every direction, and their houses dovetailed into one another in a manner almost calculated to set at defiance any method of narration, however systematic: the limits of countries were nowhere fixed, while, unlike in any other part of the world, many of the nations dealt with were nomads, who sometimes migrated en masse from one region to another, or sometimes were found divided in their political subordination, as well as in their abodes. Even the names of the countries were not defined; and in some cases the tribe and the region it occupied, were confused under one name. In others, the country and the chief town were not distinguished; while in some, again, a place or a people might be known by different names to different neighbouring nations. The author who could construct from these confused materials an intelligible and fairly consecutive narrative, can scarcely be blamed if his reader should occasionally be perplexed in linking the various incidents together, or in distinguishing between some of the actors who took part in them. More especially should he be treated with leniency, when it is considered that what was clear to him at the time, and on the spot, must necessarily bear an entirely different complexion when viewed by the Western reader, after a lapse of more than three hundred years, and after all the changes that have taken place in the interval. It may be said that the art of the historian consists in overcoming these difficulties, and in leaving behind him a narrative that will be clear for all time; but this would be too much to expect from an Asiatic author, even though he might be an experienced writer, and not, as in Mirza Haidar's case, a roving adventurer or soldier of fortune, exposed to all the vicissitudes of the times. To the most practised among them, systematic arrangement and clearness of statement, as we understand the terms, are unknown, and even if they thought it worth while to consider the convenience of the readers they knew of, they could hardly have contemplated their works being studied by foreigners, from countries of which they had scarcely heard even the names.

Still, after making every allowance, it must be admitted that Mirza Haidar's book has its shortcomings, when viewed as a practical history. His flights of unmeaning rhetoric are, unfortunately, frequent, if scarcely so extravagant as those of most Persian writers. He constantly breaks out into verse, also, though he usually indulges in this form of ornament parenthetically—by way of declamation—and thus only interrupts the course of the narrative, while not marring its sense. His sentences, again, are often involved and his meaning not always apparent. This is more especially the case where he uses the ratio obliqua, and where he puts speeches into the mouths of his characters; but when he confines himself to the direct relation of an event, such as the siege of Yangi-Hisar or the battle of Kanauj, his descriptive power is excellent, and the picture he presents is all that can be desired. On the whole, it may be said that for an author who takes credit to himself (as the Mirza does in his prologue) for being a past master in the art of making verses and in the “epistolary style,” his writing is not obscure as Asiatic writings go; and though rather tedious repetitions are found in some of the historical sections, this is a fault on the right side, and causes less embarrassment than when gaps occur in the narrative.

These points relate more particularly to the author's style, but the chief imperfections in the work lie deeper. Perhaps those most to be deplored, are the weakness of the chronology and the looseness with which numbers and measurements are used. The former is a serious blemish, but as it is most marked in the early parts of the history, where the faults can be, to some extent rectified, by references to Chinese and other annals, it is not of vital consequence. A great part of his information having reached him by means of verbal tradition, passed down through three or four generations, the dates, above all, would tend to suffer; while, generally, it may be supposed that Mirza Haidar had scarcely realised, as did Sir Walter Scott, that “tradition is as frequently an inventor of fiction, as a preserver of truth.” The second defect is greatly to be regretted, as many interesting passages relating to military operations, the tribes, cities, ruins and curiosities are greatly diminished in value, from the want of accuracy in the figures recorded. The tendency, generally, it to exaggerate freely. A third, but less important deficiency, is the one partially alluded to above —i.e., the want of systematic arrangement into divisions, or sections, the absence of which is the cause of the frequent repetitions that occur, and the involution of one subject with another.

The scope and character of the Tarikh-i-Rashidi may be briefly summarised in much the same way as Dr. Charles Rieu, the learned Keeper of the Oriental Manuscripts at the British Museum, has described it in his official catalogue.^7a It may be regarded as the history of that branch of the Moghul Khans who separated themselves, about the year 1321, from the main stem of the Chaghatai, which was then the ruling dynasty in Transoxiana; and it is the only history known to exist of this branch of the Moghuls. The original, or western line—that of Transoxiana—was at that time declining in power, and through internal dissensions and administrative decay, was rapidly approaching a final dissolution. The princes of the branch then thrown off, became masters of Moghulistan (or Jatah, as it was called at that period) and of all Eastern Turkistan, and continued as a ruling dynasty for more than two and a half centuries. The book is divided into two parts, called Daftar, the first of which is entirely historical, while the second contains reminiscences of the author's life and notices of Chaghatai, Uzbeg and other princes, with whom he was acquainted.

The first Part, or history proper, was written in Kashmir in 1544 and 1545, and was completed about February, 1546, or five years after his installation as regent of that country. It includes, however, a later addition, in which 953 of the Hajra (4th March, 1546, to 21st February, 1547) is mentioned as the current year. For the earlier periods it deals with, it is based on the traditions handed down to the author chiefly by his older relatives, combined with the statements of Sharaf-ud-Din, Yazdi in the prolegomena of the Zafar-Náma; and, for the later periods, on his personal recollections. It contains a record of two distinct and parallel dynasties: (1) that of the Khans of Moghulistan, beginning with Tughluk Timur, who reigned from 1347 to 1362, and whose father, Isán Bugha, was the first to separate from the main Chaghatai stem; and (2) of their vassals, the Dughlát Amirs of Eastern Turkistan, one of the earliest of whom, Amir Bulaji, the author's ancestor, had raised Tughluk Timur to the Khanship. In the second period, the family of the Khans divided into two branches, one of which, superseding the Amirs of Kashghar (or Eastern Turkis-tan), continued to rule over Moghulistan proper and Eastern Turkistan, with their capital at Kashghar, while the other became rulers of the provinces eastward of Aksu (known as Uighuristan), and had their seat of government usually at Turfán. The author concludes his account of each with a short sketch of their reigning representatives, at the time of writing.

The second Part, which has more than twice the extent of the first, and contains Mirza Haidar's record of his life and times, was the first in point of date. The author wrote it in 1541-42, and, as he states in the Prologue, with a view to preparing himself for the more arduous task of historical composition. ^8a It begins with his birth and concludes with an account of his second invasion of Kashmir, when, by a battle fought on the 2nd August, 1541, he became master of the country. This Part includes also some rules of conduct for kings, drawn up at the request of the author, by his spiritual guide, Maulána Muhammad Kázi, whose death, in 1515, is recorded in the preceding passage; while another moral treatise by a holy Shaikh, Shaháb-ud-Din Mahmud, styled Khwája Nura, is inserted in full.^8b

The author is usually known as Mirza Haidar, and in this way he styles himself, though his full name and designation would be Mirza Muhammad Haidar, Dughlát, Kurkán. By some European writers, his usual appellation has been reversed, and he has become Haidar Mirza. In some parts of Asia the distinction would be a wide one; for when “Mirza” is placed before a name, it means merely “Mr.” or “Esq.,” and has about the same signification as the word “Khan,” when used by Persians of the better class, and by Hindustani Musulmans of all classes, at the present day. When placed after a name, it is equivalent to “Prince,” and is so used only by persons belonging to a reigning family. In the case of our author either would be suitable, seeing that he was a prince of the branch of Moghul Khans who were, at that time, rulers of the Kashghar province. But his grandfather, who had been one of these rulers, had borne the same names, and seems always to have been styled with the word Mirza at the end—Muhammad Haidar Mirza. It may be as well, therefore, to draw as clear a distinction as possible between him and his grandson. The latter tells us, too, that he was known to his associates by the style of Mirza Haidar, and as he himself uses it, the words may safely be placed in that order.

In recording his own descent, Mirza Haidar describes himself as the son of Muhammad Husain Kurkán, son of Muhammad Haidar Kurkán, son of Amir-i-Kabir Said Ali, son of Amir Ahmad, son of Khudaidad, son of Amir Bulaji. He was born in the year of the Hajra 905 (1499-1500 A.D.)^9a at Tashkand, the capital of the province then known as Shásh, where his father, Husain, had been made governor some six years before, by Mahmud, the titular Khan of Moghulistan and Kashghar. The others named in the pedigree were all Amirs of Kashghar, while the earliest of them, Bulaji of the Dughlát tribe, is remembered as being the first of the line to become a Musul-man. It was on the side of his mother, Khub Nigár Khánim, that our author was related to the Emperor Baber. She was a daughter of Yunus, Khan of the Moghuls, and a younger sister of Kutlugh Nigár Khánim, the mother of Baber.^9b

Mirza Haidar began his life in the midst of strife and adventures. His father—a treacherous and intriguing man— had been convicted of a mischievous plot against Baber at Kabul, but had been pardoned on account of his blood relationship. Shortly afterwards he had fallen into the hands of Shahi Beg Khan (otherwise Shaibani Khan), the Uzbeg leader, and had incurred that chief's suspicion also; but once more he was permitted to escape, and repaired to Herat, then the capital of Khorasán. His intriguing nature, however, being thought by Shahi Beg to be dangerous even at a distance, he caused him to be put to death there, after a short time, by emissaries whom he sent for the purpose from Transoxiana. Muhammad Husain had taken with him into exile some members of his family, among whom was our author, then quite a child; and it appears that after his father's murder, some of the retainers of the family, believing the son to be doomed to a similar fate, had carried him off to Bokhara, and had placed him in concealment there. In 1508, when about nine years of age, he was taken in charge by one of these faithful friends, called Maulána Muhammad (formerly his father's khálifa, or religious guide) who determined to save the child from the death that awaited him at the hands of the relentless Uzbegs, and contrived to escape with him from the city. After a difficult and exciting flight across the hill tracts of Khatlán and Kuláb, in the course of which they several times narrowly escaped falling into the hands of hostile Uzbegs, they succeeded in crossing the Oxus into Badakhshán. Here one Khan Mirza, a cousin and dependent of Baber, was at the time the reigning chief, with his capital at Kila Zafar on the Kokcha. He received the fugitives with kindness, and they remained a year with him, when Baber sent to summon them to Kabul. On their arrival, Mirza Haidar was made a member of the Emperor's household, and seems to have been treated with much consideration. Within a few months, however, Baber had to march northwards against the Uzbegs, whose main force was then at Hisar, and his young cousin accompanied the army. The next two years were stirring times, and Mirza Haidar, if not too young, must have learned much of warfare, as it was conducted in those days in Central Asia.

Baber's first two attempts on Hisar failed, but, on being joined by a large body of Persians from Khorasán, his third advance resulted in a victory which gained him the possession of Kunduz, Khatlán, and Khuzár. Taking advantage of the reputation they had established, and of the defeat and death of Shahi Beg, which had just then (1510) taken place in a battle with the Persians near Merv, the allies lost little time in making an attempt on Samarkand, the capital of Transoxiana. They marched first on Bokhara, where the inhabitants opened their gates to them, and afterwards to Samarkand, which they found undefended, the Uzbeg leaders having fled on their approach. Here Baber was received with enthusiasm by the people, and was virtually master, for a time, of the greater part of Central Asia. With his young guest in his following, he remained in Samarkand for some months, when a strong combination of Uzbeg tribes, compelled him and his Persian allies once more to take the field—though this time with very different results. They advanced against Bokhara, which had in the meantime been seized by the Uzbegs, but were repulsed, and shortly afterwards were disastrously defeated at the battle of Ghajdiwán, some distance to the north of the city. The alliance with the Persians came to an end and Baber retreated to Hisar, where he was surprised by an attack made by a body of Moghuls in the service of the Uzbegs, and again experienced a crushing defeat. He then retired to Kabul, but Mirza Haidar had now left him. After the retreat from Samarkand, his uncle, Sultan Ahmad, the Khan of Moghulistan, having written several times to ask Baber's permission for the boy to be sent to him, at last obtained it, and Mirza Haidar, “led away by youthful impatience,” as he himself writes, availed himself of the Emperor's consent, unwillingly given, and followed his uncle to Andiján, then the capital of Farghána.

It was about the beginning of the year 1514 that Mirza Haidar arrived at Andiján, and almost immediately afterwards entered the service of his kinsman Sultan Said Khan (the son of Sultan Ahmad), who had just then been conducting an expedition against the Uzbegs in Tashkand, but had returned to Andiján on the enemy evacuating their positions. During the following summer, however, the Uzbegs recovered themselves and marched with a large force to lay siege to the Farghána capital. Sultan Said convened a council of his chiefs, who were unanimously of opinion that they were unable, without allies, to contend against the power of the Uzbegs; they believed themselves to have a fairer chance of success by undertaking an invasion of Kashghar, and wresting that province from Mirza Abá Bakr, who then held it. This resolution was accordingly adopted, and before the Uzbegs had time to enter the country, the Khan with all his Amirs, their families and baggage, set out from Andiján and advanced towards Kashghar, by a route leading through Moghulistan. This Mirza Abá Bakr was of the line of Dughlát Amirs, and was regarded by the Khans of Moghulistan as a usurper. He was an active and able soldier, though a cruel tyrant, and during his long rule, had made himself master of nearly the whole of Eastern Turkistan, besides several of the neighbouring countries. In 1511 he had invaded Farghána, but had there received a check by coming into conflict with Sultan Said, from whose forces he experieneed a severe defeat at the battle of Tutluk, near Andiján. It was this victory over the usurper, that emboldened Sultan Said and his Amirs to attack him again in his own stronghold. Their enterprise resulted in a complete success: Kashghar was taken in 1514, while Yangi-Hisar, Yarkand, and the remainder of the cities of Eastern Turkistan fell shortly afterwards. Abá Bakr, driven an exile to Ladak, was murdered on the road, and the line of Moghul Khans was re-established in Moghulistan and Eastern Turkistan.

Mirza Haidar, though now only fifteen years of age, was raised by his cousin the Khan to a high position, and his life of activity may be said to have begun about this time. For the ensuing nineteen years, during which Sultan Said's reign lasted, the Mirza served him in various capacities, but chiefly as a soldier; and it was only after the Khan's death, which occurred while returning from an expedition against Ladak in 1533, that he abandoned Kashghar and transferred his services to the Chaghatais in India. He not only took part in Sultan Said's wars against the Kirghiz and Uzbegs in Moghulistan, and against other tribal enemies, but was entrusted with important commands on distant expeditions. The first of these was an invasion of the hill country, then known as Bilur, or Bolor, in 1527. The expedition was nominally under the command of the Khan's eldest son, Rashid Sultan, but seeing that our author acted as a sort of tutor, or governor, to this young prince, it seems that he had much to do with the conduct of the campaign. Bolor may be described, roughly, as all the small hill states lying south of the Hindu Kush, between Baltistan on the east and Afghanistan on the west—as the limits of these countries are now accepted. Thus it included Hunza, Gilgit, Chitral, and probably most of the petty states sometimes known as “Yághistan.” There appears to have been no cause for the invasion, other than that the inhabitants were not Musulmans; but considerations of this kind did not weigh with the Central Asian Khans, and Sultan Said, as the author tells us, had always been ambitious of gaining glory by waging wars against “infidels.” The Bolor states were accordingly overrun and plundered during a whole winter, and the expedition returned to Kashghar in the following spring.

In 1529-30 the Khan undertook, in person, a campaign against Badakhshán, but sent Mirza Haidar in advance to begin operations. The Mirza records that he laid waste the environs of the chief town, Kila Zafar, and when the Khan arrived, his men had only to carry off what little had been left. The object of this expedition was to gain possession of the districts on the Upper Oxus—Wakhán, Shighnán, etc.—which had been conquered by the late Mirza Abá Bakr, and which Sultan Said, in consequence, considered himself the heir to. But the chief of Badakhshán was a relation and nominee of Baber, who took a view of the matter entirely opposed to that of Sultan Said, and threatened to support the chief. As Baber had now recovered, in India, the influence he had lost in Transoxiana, a letter from him to the aggressive Sultan Said, seems to have been sufficient to cause the Kashghar forces to be withdrawn across the Pamirs.

But it was in 1531 that Mirza Haidar undertook his most important service for Sultan Said Khan. This was the invasion, first of Ladak, then of Kashmir and Baltistan, and afterwards of Tibet proper, or the country known to Europeans under that name^13a —an invasion as culpably aggressive as the raid into the Bolor states. There was much paganism, he tells us, in Tibet, and the Khan, always animated by a love of Islam and a desire to carry on holy wars, was led by his pious aspirations to conquer that infidel country. It was not the first time that Ladak had been wantonly overrun from the side of Turkistan. Mirza Abá Bakr, during his long reign, had once at least, carried his arms into Ladak, while it would appear, from what Mirza Haidar records, that several parties had been sent to plunder the country since the accession of his patron, Sultan Said, to the Khanate. Very little is known of these earlier invasions, beyond the mere mention of them by Mirza Haidar, and by the author of the Haft Iklim,^13b who, however, obviously derived his information from the Tarikh-i-Rashidi. That all were unprovoked and prompted by a mere craving for plunder, however disguised under the mask of religious zeal, may be assumed with moderate confidence. None of them, including that of Sultan Said and Mirza Haidar, appear to have prospered, or to have made much impression on the inhabitants, who have preserved their old religion and manners to the present day; and though they have, in modern times, fallen politically under the Hindu yoke of the Dogras, they still keep up their ancient connection with Lassa, in all matters concerning their Buddhism and social customs. As Mirza Haidar says little about the fighting in Ladak, it is probable that the inhabitants offered only a feeble military opposition to the invaders, but trusted rather to the rugged nature of their country, the severity of the climate, and to the weapon common to most of the yellow races—passive resistance—to free them eventually from their enemy. And they were indeed successful. After subduing Ladak, a rapid march was made into Kashmir, where, to begin with, some easy victories were won, but treachery and discontent having appeared in the Moghul camp, Mirza Haidar had, after a few months' occupation, to fall back on Ladak, leaving Kashmir, to all intents and purposes, independent.

Sultan Said Khan, hoping to share in the glories of the “holy war,” had followed his lieutenant into Ladak, but his constitution, undermined by excessive drinking, proved less vigorous than his religious zeal, and the attenuated air of the Ladak passes had nearly proved fatal to him on the journey across. He recovered, however, sufficiently to lead a portion of his force into Baltistan, while Mirza Haidar was engaged in Kashmir, but after passing a winter there, distracted by cold and hunger, he too had to retreat into Ladak, and very shortly afterwards, set out on his return to Kashghar with a portion of the army. This second journey across the heights, achieved for him what the first had so nearly accomplished. He died on the Suget Pass, from the malady known as “damgiri,” or mountain sickness, and was at once succeeded by his eldest son, Abdur Rashid.

The death of the Khan in no way checked the course of the “holy war,” for his second son, Iskandar Sultan, and many other Amirs, remained with Mirza Haidar, who now (July, 1533) started on an expedition to “earn merit” by destroying the great temple at Lassa—an exploit, he tells his readers, that had never been achieved by any King of Islám. He appears to have marched for about a month's journey towards the southeast, over some of the highest table-lands in Asia, to the region which gives rise to most of the great rivers of India, and to within a few days' journey of the Tibetan border of Nipal. His total force is nowhere stated in figures, and apparently it was divided into at least two, or perhaps three, columns. One of these was attacked by a force of “men armed with short swords,” sent by “a Rai of Hind” to the assistance of the Tibetans—a statement that appears to point to a body of Nipali tribesmen, armed with their national weapon, the kukri. The inference is that the Moghuls were beaten in at least one fight with these people. Yet Mirza Haidar continued his march towards the capital, until he arrived at, and plundered, a place he calls Astábrak (or Astákbark), which was represented as being within eight days' journey of Lassa. No map or book of any date, now available, seems to contain this name or any variant of it, but if the estimate of eight marches from Lassa be correct, and these marches are intended for the long Tibetan post-stages, the invaders would still have been some 300 miles, or more, distant from their goal. However this may be, the mortality among his horses, want of supplies, and the general distress caused by cold and the high elevation, obliged the Mirza to abandon his enterprise at this point, and to set out in retreat towards Ladak. His experience, indeed, was almost exactly that of the Dogra general Zoráwar Sing who, in 1841, made an attempt to conquer the western provinces of Tibet for his master, Rájah Guláb Sing of Kashmir. Of fighting there was little in either case, except against the climate and conditions of the country, and in both instances these adversaries proved victorious.

In the early months of 1534 Mirza Haidar returned defeated, and with a mere remnant of his force, to a position of safety in Ladak. Of those who were left even, many deserted him here to find their way back to their homes across the mountains. Yet, broken and almost helpless as he was, the chiefs of Upper Ladak received him and his men with hospitality, and even assisted him in getting together a force with which, the next year, he proceeded to attack and plunder the western districts of the country, known as Purik, Suru, and Zangskar. His success in all these forays was very doubtful. He seems to have been able to do little more, during the first year, than keep his men and animals from starving, while in the second year (1535) he had again, from sheer distress, to fall back on the neighbourhood of Leh and throw himself on the mercy of the strangely tolerant Ladak chiefs. His followers, under these conditions, became discontented if not mutinous, and began to desert him; while he received such evil tidings from Kashghar, that the “holy war” against the Tibetans at length came to an end.

Rashid Sultan (otherwise Abdur Rashid Khan) had begun his reign at Kashghar, by putting to death many of his own relations, and among them the author's uncle, Sayyid Muhammad Mirza, whom he suspected of plotting against him in favour of the late Khan's younger son, Iskandar. These events seem to have made a deep impression on Mirza Haidar's mind, for he alludes to them with bitterness, more than once in the course of his narrative. His uncle had served Sultan Said faithfully for many years, and had done much arduous work for him, while Mirza Haidar himself had been the chief agent in extending the Khan's kingdom and power. But besides this, he had been companion and instructor to two of the Khan's sons, and when the elder of these marked the commencement of his reign by acts of ingratitude and bloodshed, it is scarcely surprising that he should be deeply hurt, and should record his feelings, years afterwards, in his history.

Hence, fearing that he might meet with the same treatment as his uncle and others of his family, if he returned to Kash-ghar, he had to seek for a refuge. It was impossible to stay longer in Ladak, while all the direct roads to India and Kabul were in the hands of those whom he had lately been chastising and plundering, in the name of religion. With the daring of despair, he determined to try and reach Badakhshán with the handful of adherents that remained in his service, by turning off from the usual track between Ladak and Yarkand, at a point called Ak-Tagh, to the north of the Karakorum Pass; and after following the course of the Yarkand river for some distance, to gain Ráskám, the southern Pamirs, and Wakhán. This adventure—apparently almost hopeless under the conditions in which he attempted it—he accomplished successfully, accompanied by about twenty followers, though not without much hardship and suffering. The winter of 1536-7 he spent in Badakhshán, the following summer he repaired to Kabul, and shortly after to Lahore, where he was received by Baber's son, Kámrán Mirza, and found himself, as he tells us, raised from the depths of distress to honour and dignity.

Kámrán was at that time engaged in a struggle for territory with the Persians, and had, soon after our author's arrival, to proceed to the relief of Kandahar, which was being besieged by Sám Mirza and by Shah Tahmásp, the sons of Shah Ismail, the Safavi; but before setting out he appointed his guest to the governorship of those parts of India (the whole of the Punjab) which belonged to him, and in this capacity Mirza Haidar resided for over a year at Lahore, “collecting taxes, suppressing revolt, protecting the frontiers, and establishing Islám.” It was shortly after Kámrán's return to the Punjab, (1538) that Humayun had sustained a severe defeat in Bengal at the hands of Shir Sháh Sur, the Afghán leader, who was now advancing towards Agra by the left bank of the Ganges. A large part of Humayun's army having accompanied him to Bengal, he made an appeal to Kámrán and his other brothers to send assistance to Agra, while he himself hurried northward. Kámrán, after some hesitation, consented, and moved first to Delhi and then to Agra, with an army of 20,000 men, and in company with our author. Here dissensions took place among the brothers; Kámrán repented of his decision to support the Emperor, and putting forward bad health as a reason, determined to return to Lahore, while Shir Shah was yet on the far side of the Ganges. He endeavoured to persuade Mirza Haidar to return with him, but the Mirza declined on patriotic grounds, and from that time forward (1539) became an adherent of Huma-yun, who treated him with great honour and called him “brother, after the Moghul fashion.”

The disastrous battle of Kanauj soon followed.^17a Humayun's force numbered some 40,000, but was less an army than a huge undisciplined mass, commanded by Amirs who had no intention of fighting the Afghans. Mirza Haidar appears to have acted as a kind of general adviser or chief of the Emperor's staff, but he mentions incidentally that he also led the centre division.^17b The confusion and corruption that prevailed on the side of the Chaghatais he describes with much candour, and clearly shows that the battle was lost before it had been fought. Whatever his position in the army may have been, he seems to have done his best to advise and support his master, and finally joined him in his flight to Agra,^17c and thence to Lahore. His narrative gives, in a few words, a vivid picture of the crowd of refugees that were assembled at the Punjab capital, their state of panic, and the divided and interested counsels with which the Emperor was perplexed. Mirza Haidar advised that the Chaghatai Amirs should occupy separate positions along the lower hills, from Sirhind to the Salt Range, where the army might be reorganised in safety and, on a favourable opportunity presenting itself, might be used with effect to regain possession of India. He himself would undertake the reduction of Kashmir, a task he hoped to accomplish in so short a time that the Emperor and his brothers might send their families thither, and secure, for them at least, a refuge from all enemies. But the Mirza's advice was of no avail; for though Humayun seems to have been inclined to listen, he was overborne by other councillors.

While acting at Lahore as Kámrán's delegate, Mirza Haidar had been approached by certain chiefs of Kashmir who were at variance with the native prince then reigning in their country, and who, on being worsted by him, had found a refuge in the Punjab. They endeavoured to procure, through Mirza Haidar's influence, the assistance of a body of Kámrán's troops, to invade their own country and expel the obnoxious ruler. The scheme seems to have commended itself to the Mirza's judgment, and after some delay he was able to gather a respectable force, which he placed under the command of one Bába Chuchak, one of the most experienced officers in the service of Kámrán, with instructions to accompany the Kashmiri chiefs and restore them to the possession of their State. The Bába, however, found pretexts for evading the execution of these orders, and the expedition proved a failure. After the retreat of the Chaghatais from Kanauj to Lahore, these chiefs renewed their appeals for assistance, and it was during the discussions that took place there as to the general line of action to be adopted, that Mirza Haidar impressed on Humayun the advantage of seizing the opportunity to gain a footing in Kashmir. He had learned from his previous incursion into that country, while in the service of the Khan of Kashghar, the value of its position and resources, and calculated that, with a reasonable force, he would require only two months to subjugate it and make it a suitable asylum for the Emperor and his family, together, if necessary, with the remains of the Chaghatai army. Shir Shah, on the other hand, with the wheeled carriages and the artillery, on which his strength mainly depended, would not, the Mirza reckoned, be able to reach the outer hills in less than four months, and his troops would be exhausted by the effort.

Though these plans were not taken advantage of by Humayun (who continued his retreat to the Indus), he permitted them to be put into practice by Mirza Haidar. The Mirza was given a small body of troops, and was sent forward from Lahore to join the Kashmiri chiefs, in whose company he was to enter the hills of their country, and to be followed, at intervals, by two of Humayun's officers, called respectively Iskandar Tupchi and Khwája Kalán. When all had assembled above Jhilam, and the force had begun to ascend the passes leading to the valley of Kashmir, dissensions arose among the commanders. Khwája Kalán, with his men, first separated himself from the expedition, and the Tupchi shortly afterwards followed him, leaving Mirza Haidar to prosecute the undertaking with no more than a handful of retainers in his own pay, and a few more who had joined him on the personal authority of the Emperor. With this following he determined to advance, and on the 21st November, 1540, crossed the Punch pass and descended into the valley. His calculations proved correct: he met with no resistance from the chiefs or people, but obtained possession of the country without striking a blow.

It is curious how little our author relates about his invasion and administration of Kashmir, or of the affairs of that country during the eleven years that his regency lasted. He was to all intents and purposes king of the State; while the value of the territory and the importance of its position, from a military point of view, at the juncture when he found himself its ruler, were well known to him, for he had impressed them urgently on Humayun only a short time before. Yet all he has to say of the period is summed up in two short chapters at the end of his history; though he devotes much more space to the events that were happening at the time across the passes. It was in Kashghar and Yarkand that his nearest relatives and his friends were living—most of them in suffering and danger—and that his political enemies were ruling, on lines that he regarded as dangerous, and subversive of the power and prosperity that he had himself helped to build up. It seems evident, indeed, that to the end of his life, his mind was chiefly occupied with the affairs of what may be called his own country, and communications between his friends and himself seem to have been kept up to the last, while he felt himself to be more or less an exile in Kashmir. So meagre is his story of this period of his life, and so abruptly broken off, that from the year 1540 onwards, I have had to follow chiefly the accounts of Abul Fazl, the historian of Akbar, and of Firishta. Both of these authors wrote within an interval not very remote from that which they chronicle, so that the events they deal with must have been fresh in the memories of their informants.^19a

Kashmir had, for some time previously, acknowledged no one supreme ruler, except those set up as mere nominal representatives of the old line of kings. Several native chiefs exercised the real authority, in various parts, and at that particular time were supporting, as a pageant, a prince whose title was Názuk Shah.^20a Whether Mirza Haidar began by joining issue with this personage we are not informed, but it appears rather, that he took him under his protection. It is related, however, that one Káchi Chak, the principal of those chiefs through whose representations Mirza Haidar had been originally induced to undertake the reduction of the State, very shortly deserted his benefactor. He perceived, says Abul Fazl, that his own schemes would be defeated by the establishment of Mirza Hai-dar's power, and “with the natural perfidy inherent in the character of the Kashmirians, suddenly withdrew from the country to seek the protection of Shir Khan”^20b [i.e. Shir Shah]; with the result that a force of 2,000 Afghans was immediately despatched by the Shah, to conduct the petitioner back to his country. A threat of invasion by Shir Shah and his Afghans was sufficient to deprive Mirza Haidar of all his Kashmiri allies, and he had to retire to an inaccessible part of the country, with a few of his own followers, where he led a precarious and unsettled life for about three months. At last, on the 2nd August, 1541 (8 Rabi II. 948 H.) he gave battle to his enemies, who were computed at 5,000 combatants (including natives and auxiliary Afghans), and defeated them with great loss, the Afghans retiring to Delhi, while the Kashmiri malcontents fled to the outer hills. By this victory, our author rendered himself undisputed master of the whole of Kashmir.

A period of tranquillity followed, but was destined to last only till the year 1543, when the fugitives beyond the borders, having combined their forces with those of some of their relatives, marched on Srinagar for the purpose of subverting Mirza Haidar's government. They were completely routed, however, and again took refuge in the outer hills. Not long afterwards, the Mirza himself took the offensive against Ladak, and is said to have reduced several of its districts to subjection. Only one of these is named by Firishta, who writes it “Looshoo”—a name impossible to identify, unless it can be regarded as a corruption of “Suru.” During his absence on this expedition, an epidemic disease broke out, which carried off the three discontented chiefs who had, up to that time, been his most persistent opponents. Their removal afforded him again a period of peace, which lasted for about two years, when he proceeded to attack the province of Kishtawár. One Bandagán Koka was sent forward in command of a portion of the force, while Mirza Haidar followed at a distance. Bandagán Koka came up with the enemy on the banks of the Kishtawár river, and after two engagements, was defeated and killed, together with a number of his men. The remainder of his force fell back on the division of the Mirza, who, however, does not appear to have followed up his intention of subduing the province. The next year, 1548, he is reported to have turned his attention first towards Little Tibet (or Baltistan), then to Tibet (or Ladak) again, and subsequently to Rajaori and Pakhli. In all these provinces he is said to have succeeded in his objects, and to have added them, finally, to his Kashmir dominions.

In 1549 an occurrence is recorded, which nearly brought our author once more into conflict with the Afghans of Hindustan. In 1545 Shir Shah had been succeeded by his son, Islám Shah (otherwise known as Salim Khan), against whose rule the Niázi tribe of Afghans, then settled in the Punjab, rose in rebellion. After being worsted by Salim in the plains, they fled towards the hills and took refuge in the Kashmir province of Rajaori. Here they were received by the descendants of those Kashmiri chiefs, who had so persistently opposed Mirza Haidar's rule, up to a few years previously. Intrigues were entered into between these and the Niázi, but in the meantime Salim, pursuing the latter, arrived at the foot of the hills near Nau Shahra in Rajaori, while Mirza Haidar advanced to block the road from the side of Kashmir. According to Firishta, a peaceful arrangement was come to between the various parties; Salim was appeased on certain hostages being made over to him, and returned to Delhi, while the Kashmiri partisans, abandoning their plans, some joined Mirza Haidar, and others accompanied Salim to his capital. A different version of this affair (it may be noted) is given by Abdulla, the author of the Tarikh-i-Daudi, who records that a fight took place between the Niázi and a force sent by Mirza Haidar to prevent them from entering Kashmir, and the writer locates this encounter, not in Rajaori, but in the district of Banihál. The Kashmiri force is represented as gaining a complete victory, while Mirza Haidar is said to have propitiated Salim Khan, by sending him the heads of the slain Niázi as a peace-offering. Which of these two accounts is the more correct, it is not easy to judge, but it seems that Mirza Haidar had, about this time, some transactions with the Afghan Shah of Hindustan, and may possibly have felt it necessary to propitiate him. At any rate, Firishta relates that he sent ambassadors with presents to Delhi in 1550, and that Salim, in return, deputed an envoy with horses, muslins, etc., to Srinagar. What brought about this exchange of courtesies, or what came of it, the historian does not state.

In the same way, the events of the ensuing year, 1551, relating to Mirza Haidar's death, are to some extent at variance. The only two historians (as far as I am aware) who record them in any detail are Abul Fazl and Firishta; but, as the former seems somewhat uncertain of his facts, the account of the latter may perhaps be more advantageously followed.

General Briggs' version of Firishta records, quite briefly, that Mirza Haidar had appointed one Kirán Bahádur, a commander of Moghul horse, to the government of the district of Bhirbal.^22a The measure gave great offence to the inhabitants, who resisted Kirán's authority, and eventually proceeded to attack him. Mirza Haidar, in order to support his officer, put himself at the head of his Moghuls, and marched towards the scene of the disturbance. On the road, a night attack was made upon his camp, the Moghuls were defeated, and he himself was killed by an arrow in the course of the fight. The exact date of the event in 1551 is nowhere recorded, but it would appear to have taken place on one of the last days of Rámzán, or about the beginning of October.^22b In Mr. Rodgers' version, the circumstances are related in much greater detail, but some of the particulars are not quite intelligible. The substance, however, is the same, and the account makes it appear that the locality where Mirza Haidar fell, must have been somewhere near Báramula on the Jhilam. It points also to his death having been caused through being accidentally struck by an arrow, discharged by one of his own men, in the darkness.

During the ten years (counting from the battle of 2nd August, 1541) over which Mirza Haidar's regency extended, he is said, in the Akbar-Náma, to have devoted himself, when not actively engaged with his enemies, to the restoration of the province and the improvement of its resources. He found it in a state of ruin and desolation, and raised it to a land abounding in cultivation and flourishing towns; he extended the frontiers also, and ruled with moderation and justice. Yet the austere Abul Fazl takes him to task for devoting too much of his time and attention to music, and thereby becoming forgetful of the dangers that surrounded him. Still more he blames him for continuing the government of the State in the name of the puppet Prince, Názuk Shah. After his military successes, it was his duty, the historian considers, to read the prayers and strike the coins in the name of “his imperial benefactor then struggling with adversity;” while there was no necessity to cultivate the attachment of the native rulers. Yet he is obliged to admit that when Humayun had returned from exile in Persia, and had repossessed himself of Kabul, Mirza Haidar at once conceded to him the honours due to a sovereign.

How far Abul Fazl's estimate of Mirza Haidar's character is a just one, may be open to question. In the first place, it was not entirely to music that he devoted the interval of well-earned repose that he enjoyed in Kashmir. It was during these years that he wrote the Tarikh-i-Rashidi—a work which, strange to say, Abul Fazl makes no mention of. Yet it is evident, from incidental allusions to dates in the body of the book, that this task occupied no little of the Mirza's time. To judge by the number of authors he cites, or speaks of, in the course of his history, he must have collected a good number of books about him, and the study of these may perhaps have occupied more of his leisure than the lute or the zitára. Among them, it may be noted, was a copy of the “Memoirs” of his cousin Baber, which, in all probability, he had obtained while in India at the court either of Humayun or of Kámrán; and, no doubt, it was the first copy ever utilised for historical purposes. Secondly, as regards the imputed infidelity towards the Chaghatai Emperor, it should not be forgotten that the historian of Akbar was writing after events had seemed to justify his view. At the time when Mirza Haidar administered Kashmir in the name of Názuk Shah, Humayun was a refugee in Persia, dependent on the uncertain friendship of Shah Tahmásp, and it must have been quite a matter for speculation whether he would ever return, or if, indeed, any member of the house of Baber would again occupy the throne of Hindustan. After completely subjugating Kashmir, and defeating the troops that Shir Shah had sent against him, there seems to have been no reason, but loyalty to the Chaghatais, why the Mirza should not have set himself up as king of the State.

His action in recognising the native puppet may fairly be regarded as one of self-denial—a temporary measure, undertaken while waiting to see whether his patron might not return, and claim his own kingdom in India. As events fell out, he did return, though not till January 1555, or nearly four years after our author's death. Step by step, he made himself master of the principal districts of Afghanistan, regained Kunduz and Badakhshán, and disposed of Kámrán Mirza, together with other enemies of his house. But as early as 1545, when, with the aid of Shah Tahmásp, he had wrested only Kandahar and Kabul from his rebellious brother, and while still far beyond the limits of India, Mirza Haidar transferred to Humayun the nominal sovereignty with which he had invested Názuk Shah. He sent an envoy to Kabul, to inform his patron of these proceedings and to invite him to Kashmir. His letters were full of expressions of loyalty and attachment, and, in pressing his invitation, he pointed out that the country he had subdued would serve as an impregnable position, from which the Emperor might pour down his troops for the conquest of Hindustan— an enterprise which he urged him to attempt without delay.^24a He is recorded, moreover, by Abul Fazl himself, to have read the prayers and to have struck the coins in Humayun's name at about this period; while unanswerable evidence as regards the coinage is to be found, to this day, among the specimens of the money of Kashmir, which have come down to us. In the British Museum there is a silver coin of Kashmir, bearing the name of Humayun and dated 952 or 953^24b of the Hajra (1545 or 1546). Mr. Rodgers also describes two coins of Humayun which were struck, in Kashmir, in the year 953, and another bearing a date subsequent to 950, but on which the third figure is illegible. This last one, however, contains in the field a letter ha, which Mr. Rodgers believes may stand for the initial letter of the name Haidar. In any case, the dates that are decipherable not only fall within the period of Mirza Haidar's regency, but they are good evidence that he regarded Humayun as his sovereign, while at the height of his own power in Kashmir, although no coins are known which show that he so regarded him previous to his recovery of Kabul.^25a Neither the coins nor the documentary history of the period, however, are completely worked out, and until the tales that both have to tell are exhausted, it would perhaps be premature to conclude that, even prior to the subjugation of Afghanistan in 1545, Mirza Haidar may not have afforded testimony, in one form or another, that he regarded himself and his puppet king as, alike, dependants of the Chaghatai Emperor.

Thus, whatever faults the Mirza may have had, disloyalty to his chiefs can hardly be accounted one of them. He served his first master, Sultan Said Khan, with devotion till the end of the Khan's reign, and when forced by the barbarities of his successor, Rashid Sultan, to seek safety for his life with the Chaghatais in India, he served them likewise with good faith, as long as he lived.

Besides Abul Fazl's and Firishta's, the notices of Mirza Haidar's life, among the writings of Asiatic authors, appear to be few. Several quote his history, and even copy from it extensively, but only two, as far as I have been able to ascertain from translations, make any mention of his personality. Jauhar, in his Memoirs of Humayun,^25b does no more than briefly allude to his master's faithful lieutenant. The author of the Tarikh-i-Daudi, cited above, calls him “a youth of a magnanimous disposition,” but vouchsafes no more.^25c Amin Ahmad Rázi, however, has devoted a few sentences to him in his geographical work, the Haft Iklim, an important extract from which was translated into French by Quatremère, and published in 1843.^25d Ahmad Rázi tells us that Mirza Haidar “was endowed with an excellent character and a rare talent for elegant composition in verse, as well as in prose. To these gifts of nature, he added those of extreme valour, and all the qualities that constitute a great general. Having been sent into Kashmir by Sultan Abu Said Khan,^26a he penetrated into this province by the road of Kashghar and Tibet [Ladak] and entirely subdued it. He entered it also a second time from the side of India, and establishing his residence in Kashmir, formed it into an independent principality … He was author of the historical work entitled the Tarikh-i-Rashidi, which was named in this way after Rashid Khan, sovereign of Kashghar. This book enjoys universal esteem.” Ahmad Rázi then appends some verses of the Mirza's, as a specimen of his poetic genius.

Among Europeans, Mr. W. Erskine is perhaps the only original author who has touched on Mirza Haidar's personal characteristics or attainments; even he does so only very briefly, though in several passages he praises his work in the highest terms. He sums him up as “a man of worth, of talent, and of learning.”^26b For his own part, he naively tells us that he had many accomplishments, and though most of those he names were of a more or less mechanical order, others, at least, show a taste for authorship, and make us picture him as a man of some imagination. Taking into consideration the life he led—his adventures, sufferings, discomfitures, and escapes— and the age and countries he lived in, he may be accounted also a man of learning. At any rate, he was a patron of the learned whom he came in contact with, and seems to have taken an interest in their teachings, as well as in the books he knew of; though it may be open to question, perhaps (from a European point of view), how far he used them to the best advantage for historical purposes. Yet, withal, he was a bigoted Musulman and a fanatical Sunni, as his remarks about the transactions of Baber with the Persian Shias, after the capture of Samarkand in 1511, clearly indicate. And his bigotry took many curious forms, as, for instance, his approval of the hypocritical proceedings of Sultan Said Khan, his refraining to trace his pedigree beyond the date of Amir Bulaji, because Bulaji's ancestors were not Musulmans, and his pious invocations on the Moghul Khan, whose religious zeal and enlightenment led him to drive horseshoe nails into the heads of his subjects, to induce them to become Musulmans. In short he belonged to his times, and herein lies the chief value of all that he has left on record.

The reader, however, will form his own judgment of the author's character and worth. What may safely be said is that his history carries with it a conviction of honesty; while he himself, though a soldier of fortune, was, as shown by the advice he tendered to Humayun, and by his administration of Kashmir, no mere Dugald Dalgetty of the East.

Think, in this batter'd Caravanserai
Whose Doorways are alternate Night and Day,
How Sultán after Sultán with his Pomp
Abode his Hour or two, and went his way.

—Omar Khayyám.

THE story of the conquests of Chingiz Khan, and the partition of nearly the whole of Northern Asia among his descendants, has been so often told, that no useful purpose would be served by recounting it again in this Introduction. Only those phases need be briefly sketched, which form the basis of Mirza Haidar's history, or which help to elucidate the course of events immediately preceding it. Though the Tarikh-i-Rashidi embraces many wide regions and deals with many tribes and nations, its chief scenes are laid within the appanage of Chingiz's second son Chaghatai, and it is, before all things, a history of part of the Chaghatai branch of the Mongol dynasty. This is the branch, moreover, which hitherto has remained the most obscure of all those of the family of Chingiz Khan. The other divisions of the empire founded by the great conqueror, have all found abundant historians, not only in China and Mongolia, but among the Musulman writers of Western Asia and among Europeans. The great works of Deguignes, D'Ohsson, and Howorth, though designed to tell the story of all the Chingizi branches, have failed, as yet, to complete that of the house of Chaghatai. The two older authors frankly avow the want of materials, as their reason for leaving this section of their field almost untouched, while Sir H. Howorth, though he is understood to have completed his researches in it, has been prevented by other circumstances, from giving to the world his much desired volume on the Chaghatais.

Perhaps the nearest approaches to histories of the Chaghatais are to be found, (1) in an excellent paper entitled The Chagha-tai Mughals, by Mr. E. E. Oliver, in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,^29a where the writer has summarised, in a consecutive manner, most of that which can be gathered on the subject, from European sources and from translations of Asiatic authors; and (2) in Erskine's History of India under Baber and Huma-yun . The learned translator of Baber's Memoirs had read widely among the Musulman authors, and compiled, in his last work, a more complete epitome of Chaghatai history, from original sources, than is to be found in any other European writings—unless possibly in those of Russian Orientalists, whose books, indeed, are sealed to most European readers. The source from which Mr. Erskine chiefly drew his information was the Tarikh-i-Rashidi, which he not only studied, but, as we have seen in the Preface, partially translated in a summarised form. The Tarikh-i-Rashidi, however, does not begin at the beginning of the Chaghatai history, but at an arbitrary point, dating nearly a hundred years after the allotment of his empire by Chingiz Khan, and at the period when the Khans of Moghulistan, having separated themselves from those of Mávará-un-Nahr, a distinct history of their branch became possible. In order, then, to furnish a foundation for Mirza Haidar's chronicle, it is necessary to fill in, however briefly, this gap of a hundred years, and, in doing so, to take a rapid glance at the two allotments which bordered on that of Chaghatai Khan—the one on the west and the other on the east—for the affairs of all three are, to some extent, interwoven at certain periods.

In assigning his dominions to his four sons, Chingiz Khan appears to have followed an ancient Mongol custom. The sons of a chief usually ruled, as their father's deputies, over certain nations or clans, and at his death each received, as an appanage, the section of the population which had been under his care. Thus the distribution was rather tribal than territorial, and the tribes, which were in most cases nomadic, sometimes shifted their abode, or were driven, by enemies, to migrate from one district to another. These movements, as a fact, do not seem to have occurred very frequently, nor to have altered the position of the main body of the people to any great extent. It will be more convenient, therefore, and far more intelligible, to state the distribution of Chingiz's dominions, as far as possible, in territorial terms.

Juji, or Tushi, the eldest son of Chingiz, died some months before his father, and therefore, never became supreme Khákán^30a in the regions he governed; but they descended intact to his own son and successor, Batu, as an appanage direct from Chingiz. The centre of this dominion may be taken to be the plains of Kipchak, but it comprised all the country lying north of the lower course of the Sir Daria (the Sihun or Jaxartes) and of the Aral and Caspian seas—“wherever the hoofs of Mongol horses had tramped”; it included also the valleys of the Volga and the Don, and some wide-spread regions on the north shore of the Black Sea; while towards the north it extended beyond the Upper Yaik (or Ural River) into Western Siberia. On its southern and south-eastern confines, this appanage of the Juji line marched with that of Chingiz's second son, Chaghatai, whose central kingdom, Mávará-un-Nahr, or Transoxiana, was situated chiefly between the rivers Sir and Amu (the Jihun or Oxus), but included, in its extension towards the north-east, the hill ranges and steppes lying beyond the right bank of the Sir, east of the Kipchák plains, and west of lakes Issigh-Kul and Ala-Nor. Towards the east, the Chaghatai domain took in the greater part of the region now known as Chinese (or Eastern) Turkistan, Farghána (or Khokand) and Badakhshán; while towards the south it embraced Kunduz, Balkh, and, at the outset, Khorasán—a country which, at that time, spread eastward to beyond Herat and Ghazni, and southward to Mekrán. This was, perhaps, the most extensive appanage of all, and within its limits were to be found the greatest variety of races and tribes, and the greatest diversity of modes of life. It comprised, on the one hand, some of the richest agricultural districts, peopled by settled inhabitants, far advanced in Asiatic civilisation, and some of the most flourishing cities in Asia; while, on the other hand, some of the rudest hill tribes, or Hazáras as they were called then, had their homes in the southern highlands, and large tracts of barren steppe-land were occupied by almost equally primitive nomads, who drove their flocks from hill to valley and valley to hill, in search of pasture, according to season.

Eastward, again, of this “middle dominion,” as it was often termed, came that of Oktai (or Ogodai), the third son of Chingiz Khan. His allotment was the country of the original Mongols with that of the tribes immediately around it, while he was also heir to his father's capital, Karakorum, and to the supreme authority over the Mongol people. On its western confines his dominion bordered, at first, on that of Chaghatai, in the country since known as Jungar or Zungaria^31a —a region that, for want of more exact boundaries, may be roughly described as lying north of the Tian-Shan, from about Urumtsi on the east, to the river Chu on the west, and having for its middle line the upper course of the Ili river. This region became the subject of much contention among the descendants of Oktai and Chaghatai, in the latter half of the thirteenth century, and as the house of the former declined, the greater part of it, if not the whole, appears to have gradually merged into the territories of the Chaghatai Khans; while the clans that inhabited it, were dispersed among the tribes of Transoxiana and Kipchak, and their chiefs lived in obscurity under the Khans, or conquerors, for the time being.

Chaghatai himself appears to have been a just and energetic governor, though perhaps rough and uncouth, and addicted to the vice, common among the Mongols, of hard drinking. At any rate, he was animated by the soldier-like spirit of his father, and succeeded in keeping order among as heterogeneous a population, as a kingdom was ever composed of. In 1232, for instance, when sedition showed itself at Bokhara, he acted with promptitude, if with severity, and saved his country from a far-reaching calamity. He was, in all probability, an old-fashioned Mongol, for we read that he stood by the Yasák, or code of laws instituted by Chingiz Khan, and that he showed little favour to what was, at that time in his dominions, the comparatively new and rising religion of Islám. He must, however, have been fairly tolerant, for it is recorded that his minister for Trans-oxiana was a Musulman, called the Jumilat-ul-Mulk, and that mosques and colleges were founded during his reign. But if Chaghatai did not lean towards Islám, neither does it appear that he ever inclined towards Christianity, though that religion, as practised by the Nestorians, must have been familiar to him. It existed in his own dominions and in those of his brother Oktai, who seems to have been thoroughly tolerant, and to have encouraged at his capital, Karakorum, every form of worship, besides the enlistment in his service of men of all religions—a circumstance which had, as will be seen later, an important bearing on subsequent history.

Chaghatai's own capital was at Almáligh, in the valley of the Upper Ili, near the site of the present Kulja, and consequently in the extreme east of his dominion. His reason for fixing it in that remote position, instead of at Bokhara or Samarkand, was probably one of necessity. His Mongol tribesmen and followers —the mainstay of his power—were passionately fond of the life of the steppes: the only existence worthy of men and conquerors, was that passed in the felt tents of their ancestors, among the flocks and herds that they tended in time of peace, and led with them on their distant campaigns. The dwellers in houses and towns were, in their eyes, a degenerate and effeminate race;—the tillers of the soil, slaves who toiled like cattle, in order that their betters might pass their time in luxury. They would serve no Khan who did not pass a life worthy of free-born men and “gentlemen rovers”; and Cha-ghatai and his immediate successors probably saw, as his later descendants are described by Mirza Haidar to have seen, that the one way of retaining the allegiance of his own people, was to humour their desires in this respect, and live, with them, a nomad's life.

Chaghatai died in 1241, after a reign of about fourteen years, and within the same year the death of Oktai occurred at Kara-korum. Thus two out of four of the chief divisions of the Mongol empire were suddenly deprived of their sovereigns, with the result that nearly the whole of the successors of Chingiz were set disputing for the succession. “Among the most violent as regards party spirit and warlike temper,” writes Mr. Oliver in his summary of this period, “were some of the representatives of Chaghatai. For the time being, it ended in Turakina, Oktai's widow, being appointed regent; but there were set up lasting disputes among the rival claimants, and the seeds of much future mischief were sown. For long after, the disputes regarding the succession to the throne of the great Kaán became inextricably mixed up with the affairs, more especially of the eastern part, of Chaghatai's Khanate, and it is impossible to give an intelligible account of the latter without occasional references to the former.”^33a

Little is known of the way in which Chaghatai disposed of his kingdom at his death, and there appears to be no mention, anywhere, of his having followed the ancestral custom of his house in distributing it among his descendants. He is recorded to have left a numerous family, but to have been succeeded by a grandson, and a minor, named Kara Hulaku, while his widow, Ebuskun, assumed the regency. This statement, however, seems to apply to Turkistan, Transoxiana, and the adjacent regions: at all events not to Kashghar, Yarkand, Khotan, Aksu, and the southern slopes of the Tian Shan mountains—or, in other words, to the province south of the line of the Tian Shan, which is called, in our times, Eastern Turkistan. As regards this province, Mirza Haidar tells us that it was given by Chaghatai, presumably at his death, to the clan or house of Dughlát, whose members were reckoned to be of the purest Mongol descent, and one of the noblest divisions of that people. We shall hear more of this clan and the province they ruled, farther on; but the important point to notice here, with reference to subsequent events, is that the Dughláts were made hereditary chiefs, or Amirs, of the various districts of Eastern Turkistan, as far back as the time of Chaghatai, for it is chiefly on this incident that hinges the permanent division of the Chaghatai realm into two branches, at a later date.

Ebuskun's sway was a short one, for as early as 1247 Almáligh was attacked by Kuyuk, the son and successor of Oktai, and she was deprived of her power. For a time, disorder prevailed throughout the Khanate; but Kuyuk seems to have had sufficient power to set up one Yasu (or Isu) Mangu, who, being himself a worthless debauchee, governed the country through the agency of a Musulman Wazir, called Khwája Bahá-ud-Din. Kuyuk died within three years of his accession, and was followed, as supreme Khakán, by Mangu, who, in 1252, restored Kara Hulaku and Ebuskun to their former dignities. Bahá-ud-Din and Yasu Mangu were now, in their turn, removed, the former being put to death at once. Kara Hulaku died within a few months of his restoration, and after his death we hear no more of Ebuskun. Hulaku's throne passed over to his own widow—one Orgánah Khatun—whose first act was to execute Yasu Mangu, under some compact, which appears to have been made for his riddance, between her predecessor and the Khakán Mangu.

Orgánah is described as possessing much beauty, wisdom, and influence, and as long as Mangu lived she was allowed to reign in peace. But he died in 1259, when a war of succession to the supreme Khakánate broke out between his brothers Irtukbuka and Kublai. In this strife, the Chaghatai princess appears to have taken no part, but she suffered nevertheless, for in 1261 she was driven from Almáligh by Algu (a great-grandson of Chingiz), who had been nominated by Irtukbuka to rule in her place, and to bring over the Chaghatai forces to assist him in his war with Kublai. Algu, however, betrayed his patron, who, abandoning Karakorum to his rival Kublai, marched against Almáligh, whence Algu had to fly for safety, first to Kashghar and Khotan, and finally to Samarkand. Irtukbuka spent the winter of 1263 in Almáligh, devastating the district and putting to death many of Algu's followers. By these excesses he weakened his own army and resources to so great a degree, that he had to submit to Kublai and make peace with Algu, stipulating to retain for himself a portion only, of the eastern part of the Chaghatai Khanate. These transactions brought about not only a reconciliation between Algu and Orgánah, but a marriage. Both, however, died within a few months, and Irtukbuka, having done homage to Kublai, by prostrating himself at the door of Kublai's tent, the latter remained supreme from Peking to Transoxiana, and acquired the title of Khakán. He was the “Great Kaán” of Marco Polo.

But a rival was beginning to show himself in the person of Kaidu, a grandson of Oktai. This prince was plotting, in western Kipchák, for the assistance of his uncle Batu, in asserting his claim to the province of Turkistan—the northwestern division of the Chaghatai Khanate—and probably also for the region then becoming known as Moghulistan, which lay immediately to the eastward of Turkistan, and comprised the Zungar country, already alluded to. At the death of Algu, Kublai nominated Mubárak Shah, a son of Algu and Orgánah, to the Chaghatai succession, but immediately afterwards is said to have appointed, as his vice-regent, another great-grandson of Chaghatai, named Borák (or Barák), to support Mubárak Shah in resisting Kaidu. So far from assisting the young Khan, Borák drove him from the throne, made common cause with Kaidu, and for a time exercised joint sovereignty with the latter over Transoxiana. But jealousies were not long in showing themselves between the allies, and quarrels ensued which were only partially composed at a kuriltai, or conference of the chiefs of the tribes, held in Turkistan in 1269, when certain points were agreed on, the most important being “the implied recognition of Kaidu as the rightful Khakán of the Moghuls, which from this time was extended by the Chaghatai Khans both to him and his son Chapár.”^35a

Borák now proceeded to indemnify himself by invading Khorasán, but his campaigns resulted in nothing but defeat, and eventually he retired to Bokhara, where he died, or was perhaps poisoned, in 1270. “His reign,” says Mr. Oliver, “had extended only to some four years, but they were years of misery and destruction to some of the fairest lands and most prosperous cities on the Zaráfshán. His death delivered them from at least one cowardly tyrant and persecutor, though they still continued to suffer from the fratricidal wars that constantly raged between the rival chiefs of the lines of Oktai and Chag-hatai, and the unhappy citizens had even more reason than Venice of old for invoking ‘a plague on both their houses.’

“Borák's death left Kaidu sole master of the western portion of the Khanate. The dispossessed Mubárak Shah and other chiefs took the oath of allegiance to him, thus rendering him a still more dangerous rival of Kublai. In 1270 (668 H.), much to the indignation of the sons of Borák, he nominated Nikpai, a grandson of Chaghatai, chief of the tribe, but in less than two years Nikpai seems to have revolted, been killed, and succeeded by Tuka Timur, another scion of the house (circa 1271, or 670 H.), who, in less than two years more, was ousted by Davá, the son of Borák (circa 1273, or 672 H.). Davá had made up his quarrel with Kaidu, his claims having been constantly urged by the latter's son Chapár. His reign was the longest ever enjoyed by a descendant of Chaghatai, and the Khanate might have hoped for some peace from an alliance between the rival houses, but unfortunately a third firebrand appeared on the scene. Abáká, the Il-Khán of Persia, who had always acknowledged Kublai as the rightful Khakán in opposition to Kaidu, and who had never forgiven Borák's invasion of Khorasán, was only watching his opportunity, and his Wazir, Shams-ud-Din Juvaini,^35b

had only to draw his attention to a favourable omen, to start him for Bokhara, which he entered about 1274 (672 H.), plundering, burning, and murdering right and left.”^36a

Davá reigned for some thirty-two years and was almost constantly at war. He possessed himself of Ghazni, and from that stronghold, as a base, made several expeditions into India, ravaging the Punjab and Sind, and sacking at different times between 1296 and 1301 Peshawar, Multan, Lahore, and Delhi. In the meantime, Kaidu had involved himself in wars of long duration with the Khakán Kublai, and as these took place shortly before the time of Marco Polo's travels through Central Asia and China, detailed accounts of some of them have been handed down to us in his narrative. These wars extended, from first to last, over a period of some thirty years, and were not even concluded in 1294, when Kublai died and was succeeded as Khakán by his grandson Uljaitu.^36b The credit indeed of finally overthrowing Kaidu is due rather to this prince, and moreover it was not Kaidu alone whom he subdued, but Davá also, for this last, on his return from a campaign in India in 1301, seems to have allied himself with Kaidu and to have assisted in the wars against the Khakán. Kaidu's death followed quickly on his final reverse, and must have occurred in 1302, about. His son Chapár, backed by the influence of Davá, obtained the recognition of his succession to the Khanate of the eastern division of the country, and both having sent envoys to Uljaitu bearing professions of submission, a period of peace should, it might appear, have been established. But this was not the case. Within a year of Kaidu's death, Davá and Chapár fell out, and the latter was defeated in a battle fought between Samarkand and Khojand. This engagement was followed by several others, victory falling sometimes to one side and sometimes to the other, until at length the Khakán Uljaitu routed Chapár and obliged him to submit to Davá.

The death of Davá occurred in 1306, and he was succeeded by his son Kuyuk, who lived only two years, and was in his turn followed by a descendant of Chaghatai named Taliku. This prince is said to have adopted the Musulman religion, and in consequence to have been put to death by his own officers, who raised in his place, one Kabak, a son of Davá. Kabak was installed in 1309, and was at once attacked by Chapár, in alliance with several members of the house of Oktai. The allies were beaten in a number of fights, and eventually fled for refuge to the territory of the Khakán (now Kuluk,^37a a nephew of Uljaitu), while their dominions were appropriated by the house of Chaghatai, the clans who inhabited them becoming in part its subjects and in part those of the Kipcháks. “With Chapár,” says Mr. Oliver, “the house of Oktai disappears, though representatives came to the front for a brief period again in the persons of Ali and of Dánishmanjah, while Timur (Tamerlane), after displacing the family of Chaghatai, selected his puppet khans from the Oktai stock.”^37b Within a year of his installation, Kabak made way for an elder brother, who ascended the throne of the Chaghatai under the name of Isán Bugha, though his historical identity (in connection with this name at least) is somewhat uncertain. He provoked the Khakán into war, and was beaten almost at the outset of his rule; afterwards he invaded Khorasán with a like result, and was finally forced to fly from the country, before the combined forces of one of his brothers and of the seventh Il-Khán, or King of Persia. This occurred in 1321, when Kabak seems to have resumed the throne which he had abdicated twelve years previously.

It was about this time that a permanent division occurred in the realm of Chaghatai, the two parts being known by the general names of Mávará-un-Nahr (or Transoxiana) and Moghulistan (or Jatah), though there were other provinces attached to each section. The story of the Khans of the former branch, roughly sketched above need not be followed further, as the history of Mirza Haidar, which chiefly concerns us, belongs to the other or eastern division, and is told by him, a descendant of its princes, in full. It is only necessary to remark with regard to Mávará-un-Nahr, that from the time of this division forward, the fifty years that remained till the great Amir, Timur, made himself master of the land, confusion and discord prevailed. During those few years the names of fifteen Khans appear in the lists— some of them not even of the Chaghatai line—together with some periods of anarchy when no name occurs. The rise of Timur was the turning-point from decadence to power in Mávará-un-Nahr, but at the same time, the death-blow to the original line of Chaghatai. He reduced the country to order, and ruled with uncontrolled power, though he left to the Khans, whom he set up or pulled down at pleasure, certain dignities and privileges which were nothing more than nominal.

We have seen already, how near the empire of Chaghatai came to being divided during the wars of Kaidu. This Prince was, as far as can be gleaned, one of the ablest of the Oktai line, and an active and determined soldier. During his struggles for supremacy, he held a large tract of country carved chiefly out of the Chaghatai appanage, though taken partly from that of Oktai. It is not clear what were the limits of the territory he held thus temporarily, and indeed it is probable that no actual limits were ever acknowledged. In all likelihood his power extended chiefly over certain tribes who were nomads, or dwellers in tents, and thus in the habit of moving their abodes when expedient; such movements, too, may have been more frequent than usual about Kaidu's period, for the tribesmen must have been constantly entangled in the prevailing wars, and subject therefore, to the changes of fortune of those with or against whom they had to serve. His dominion, consequently, would have been more tribal than territorial in its extent. At any rate it would seem that during Kaidu's last days—the period when he was allied with Borák—his power reached from the Tálás River and Lake Bálkásh on the west, to Kara-Khoja (between Turfán and Hami) on the east, and that it thus included nearly the whole length of the Tian Shan mountains, together with the Zungar country on the north, and Kashghar, Yarkand, Aksu, etc., on the south of them. Although this wide tract never fell permanently to him or his race, his temporary hold over it seems to have assisted in marking it out as a self-contained eastern division of the Chaghatai realm, and the greater portion of it—all that lay to the north of the Tian Shan—acquired, about this time, the name of Moghulistan, or vulgarly “Jatah.” It was, above all parts of that realm, the land of the purely nomad Moghul (or Mongol) tribes, as distinguished from the settled populations of Turkistan, Farghána, and Má-vará-un-Nahr on the one hand, and the mountaineers of Hisar, Karatigin, Badakhshán, etc., on the other. It was the land to or from which the tent-dwelling population could migrate, and carry with them their only wealth—their flocks and herds— when safety or other interests demanded a move; and it became, moreover, as Mirza Haidar's history will show, a sort of refuge for the defeated and discontented among those tribes and the neighbouring nations, and the country that the true Moghul loved to call his own.

Thus, at the beginning of the fourteenth century, when the Khans of Chaghatai were rapidly declining in power, and could scarcely maintain themselves in their central kingdom of Mávará-un-Nahr, this eastern division, or Moghulistan, appears scarcely to have felt their sway. The hereditary Dughlát Amirs who, as we have seen, had been set up by Chaghatai, governed in detail, with more or less power, in the different cities and districts of the region south of the Tian Shan (or Eastern Turkistan), and left scarcely a trace behind them in any history but that of one of their own clan—Mirza Haidar. They acted in the name of the Chaghatai Khan of the time, and though nominally hereditary, they seem in practice to have held office very much at the pleasure of the tribesmen whose affairs they administered; while the popularity of each one probably depended more on the degree of independence he was able to secure for the small section that regarded him as its chief, than on his hereditary rights. Still in the early days, the power of some of them must have been considerable, and it seems to have risen in degree, as that of the Chaghatai Khans declined. They fought among themselves as a matter of course, and the people suffered, no doubt, from the consequent disorder. It would be quite natural therefore that Isán Bugha, a Moghul by descent, when forced to retire from Mávará-un-Nahr, should turn his steps towards Moghulistan, and its companion province south of the mountains.

Just at this point the histories of the period are discordant. As remarked above, the identity of Isán Bugha is to some extent uncertain. He is known to have been a son of Davá Khan, and is believed to have had some brothers. Abul Gházi Khan, the historian King of Khwárizm of the seventeenth century, speaks of him as “Il Khwája, surnamed Isán Bugha.” On the other hand, Khwándamir makes Isán Bugha continue to reign over the western branch of the Chaghatai until his death, and alludes to one Imil Khwája (apparently another son of Davá) as having established himself in Moghulistan.^39a It is possible that Imil, or Il, may denote one and the same person;^39b

but however this may be, if the usually accurate Abul Gházi be followed, we learn that: “As there remained no longer in Kashghar, Yarkand, Alah-Tágh or Uighuristan, any prince descended from Chaghatai Khan, whose authority was acknowledged, the Moghul Amirs held a council, at which it was decided to summon Isán Bugha from Bokhara; and they proclaimed him Khan of Kashghar, Yarkand, Alah-Tágh, and of Moghulistan.”^40a This would make it appear that Isán Bugha was still reigning in Mávará-un-Nahr when summoned by the Dughlát Amirs; but the point is doubtful, for we have just been told that he had fled to Moghulistan. In any case, the dates of the two events agree, for the disappearance of Isán Bugha from Mávará-un-Nahr is recorded by one author to have taken place in 721 H. (1321 A.D.), and this is just the year when he is said, by the other, to have been summoned to Kashghar and made Khan of Moghulistan, with (it may be assumed) its dependencies.

Thus, although the chronology and even some of the events of the times are uncertain, the final division of the Chaghatai Khanate appears to have taken place in or about the year 1321, and it resulted in two separate lines of Khans being established which were never afterwards united. The western branch was, a little later, superseded by Timur, whose descendants, through Baber, gave the ruling house to India, which has gone, for three centuries, by the name of “Moghul”; though, as we shall see from Mirza Haidar's narrative, it was, in its early days, known—and perhaps more correctly—as the “Chaghatai.” The history of the eastern branch—that of the true “Moghuls” of Central Asia—we may now leave to be told, in detail, by our author; but as this line was several times broken, or subdivided, and as the subject is a complicated one, it may aid the reader to give (immediately below), in the form of an epitomised statement, a general view of the succession of the Moghul Khans from the time of Isán Bugha onwards. It is extracted almost entirely from Erskine's History of India,^40b and was compiled by him from the Tarikh-i-Rashidi; but it contains some emendations from the Chinese history of the Ming dynasty, as translated by Dr. Bretschneider, for the period immediately succeeding the reign of Khizir Khwája, and a few other alterations besides.

It is about this period that Mirza Haidar's chronicle is at its weakest; and it is also a period where some of the best of the Musulman authors fail us. The Rauzat us Safá of Mir Khwánd and the Zafar-Náma of Sharaf-ud-Din, both differ from the Tarikh-i-Rashidi, and the Ming history is at variance with all three. Thus between Khizir Khwája and Vais Khan, the Rauzat us Safá and the Zafar-Náma show two reigning Khans of Moghulistan, and the Tarikh-i-Rashidi also gives accounts of two only, though the names in the last-mentioned work are not the same as in the other two histories.^41a But the Tarikh-i-Rashidi , in another place, relates that six Khans, including Khizir Khwája and Vais, were raised to the throne by the Dughlát Amir, Khudáidád, thus placing four between them. These Khans are—

Shama-i-Jahán,
Nakhsh-i-Jahán,
Muhammad,
Shir Muhammad,

and the author states them in this order; so that the three which correspond with the names of those given in the Chinese histories, do not fall in the same succession. Again none of the Musulman authors supply the date of succession for any of the intermediate Khans whom they mention. The Chinese annals show three Khans for the period between Khizir Khwája and Vais, and furnish the year of succession for each of them, besides giving dates of other contemporary occurrences, which indicate that a particular Khan was reigning at a particular time. The annals chiefly refer to tributary missions and appeals for assistance addressed to the Chinese Emperor, but it is precisely such occurrences as these that the Chinese chroniclers record with care and exactness. Their dynastic histories are believed to be not always trustworthy, but they are, at any rate, compilations, more or less methodical, from State documents and are not based merely on tradition, as are most of the Musulman histories. As mere records of events and dates, therefore, the Chinese accounts are likely to be the best guides; and I should be inclined to substitute their data, regarding this period, for those of Mirza Haidar. I have, however, shown both in amending Mr. Erskine's epitome, as will be seen (at p. 46). A full extract from Dr. Bretschneider's translation of the Chinese history is also appended immediately below.

The three lists just spoken of, stand as follows:—

Of the two dates furnished by the Tarikh-i-Rashidi, the one indicating the year of Khizir Khwája's death is certainly incorrect, for there is evidence to show, in addition to the concurrence of the authorities named above, that this Khan did not reign up to the year 1420. The portion of the Matla' Asaadin, of Abdur Razzák, translated by Quatremère,^42b though it contains no list of these Khans, makes mention of ambassadors having been sent to Shah Rukh, of Mávará-un-Nahr, in 819 H. (1416), by Nakhsh-i-Jahán, who is described as a son of Shama-i-Jahán of Moghulistan; thereby implying, it would seem, that Nakhsh-i-Jahán was reigning in that year in Moghul-istan. This date accords with the Chinese indication for the accession of Nakhsh-i-Jahán—or the year when he would most probably have despatched envoys to his neighbours. The same work^43a mentions also that in 823 H. (1420) Shah Rukh's ambassadors, then on their way to China, learned that disorder prevailed in Moghulistan in consequence of Vais Khan, who was then reigning, having attacked Shir Muhammad Oghlán. This statement stands by itself; but it has some resemblance to that of Mirza Haidar, who relates that between Vais Khan and “Shir Muhammad Khan there arose great disputes.” It also appears, from the Matla' Asaadin, that in 1425 Shir Muhammad held powers of some kind in Moghulistan, though he may not have been the reigning Khan. It is stated, at any rate, that in that year Mirza Ulugh Beg, who was ruling in Mávará-un-Nahr, undertook an expedition into Moghulistan and defeated Shir Muhammad. Yet, according to the Chinese, Vais Khan was then reigning, he having slain Nakhsh-i-Jahán in 1418. On the subject of Shir Muhammad, therefore, the Matla' Asaadin and the Tarikh-i-Rashidi would seem to be at one, in so far that they both name him as living at a period immediately previous to the accession of Vais, though neither states precisely that he was a reigning Khan of the dynasty.

As I have placed in juxtaposition above, the lists of reigning Khans, according to the various authorities, it may be useful also to show how they vary in their statements regarding the sons of Khizir Khwája, some of whom reigned, though some did not.

Thus the Rauzat us Safá has—

(1.) Shama-i-Jahán,
(2.) Shir Ali,
(3.) Shah Jahán Oghlán.

The Zafar-Náma gives:—

(1.) Shama-i-Jahán,
(2.) Muhammad Oghlán,
(3.) Shir Ali,
(4.) Shah Jahán,

while the Tarikh-i-Rashidi mentions:—

(1.) Muhammad Khan,
(2.) Shama-i-Jahán,
(3.) Nakhsh-i-Jahán,

The passage taken from Dr. Bretschneider's version of the Ming history runs thus:^44a —

“After Yung-lo acceded to the throne he sent an envoy with a letter and presents to the King of Bie-shi-ba-li.^44b But at that time Hei-di-rh-ho-djo had died,^44c and had been succeeded by his son Sha-mi-cha-gan. The latter sent in the next year an embassy to the emperor, offering as tribute a block of rude jade and fine horses. The envoy was well treated and rewarded. At that time it had happened that An-ko Tie-mu-rh, Prince of Hami, had been poisoned by Gui-li-chi, Khan of the Mongols, and Sha-mi-cha-gan made war on the latter. The emperor was thankful, and sent an envoy with presents to him, exhorting the King to be on good terms with To-to, the Prince of Hami.

“In 1406 Sha-mi-cha-gan sent tribute, and the emperor accordingly despatched Liu Tie-mu-rh, a high officer, with presents to Bie-shi-ba-li. In the year 1407 Sha-mi-cha-gan presented three times tribute. His envoys had been ordered to solicit the assistance of Chinese troops for reconquering Sa-ma-rh-han, which country, as they stated, had formerly belonged to Bie-shi-ba-li. The emperor sent his eunuchs, Pa Tai and Li Ta, together with Liu Tie-mu-rh, to Bie-shi-ba-li to inquire cautiously into the matter. The envoys presented silk stuffs to the King, and were well received. They returned home in the next year, and brought the intelligence that Sha-mi-chagan was deceased, and his younger brother, Ma-ha-ma, had succeeded him. The emperor then sent the same envoys once more to Bie-shi-ba-li, to offer a sacrifice in memory of the late King and bestow presents on Ma-ha-ma. When, in 1410, imperial envoys on their way to Sa-ma-rh-han passed through Bie-shi-ba-li, they were well treated by Ma-ha-ma, who in the next year despatched an embassy to the Chinese court, offering fine horses and a wen pao (leopard).

“When this embassy returned, they were accompanied by An, who carried gold embroidered silk stuffs for the King. At that time an envoy of the Wa-la (Oirats) complained that Ma-ha-ma was arming for making war on the Wa-la. The emperor sent to warn him. In 1413 Ma-ha-ma sent one of his generals with tribute to China. He reached Kan Su. Orders had been given to the civil and military authorities to receive him honourably.

“In the next year (1414) people returning from the Si-yu brought the intelligence that Ma-ha-ma's brother and another had both died in a short interval. The emperor sent again An to Bie-shi-ba-li, with a letter of condolence. When Ma-ha-ma died he left no son. His nephew, Na-hei-shi-dji-han, succeeded him, and in the spring of 1416 despatched an envoy to inform the emperor of his uncle's death. The emperor sent the eunuch Li Ta to offer a sacrifice in memory of the late King and confer the title of wang (King) on his successor. In 1417 Na-hei-shi-dji-han sent an embassy to inform the emperor that he was about to marry a princess from Sa-ma-rh-han,^45a and solicited in exchange for horses, a bride's trousseau. Then 500 pieces of variegated and 500 of plain white silk stuff were bestowed on the King of Bie-shi-ba-li as wedding presents.

“In 1418 an envoy, by name Su-ko, arrived from Bie-shi-bali, reporting that his sovereign (Na-hei-shi-dji-han) had been slain by his cousin, Wai-sz, who then had declared himself King. At the same time Wai-sz with his people had transferred their abode to the west, changing the former name of the empire (Bie-shi-ba-li) into I-li-ba-li. The emperor said that it was not his custom to meddle with the internal affairs of foreign countries. He bestowed upon Su-ko the rank of tu tu ts'ien shi, and at the same time sent the eunuch Yang Chung with a mission to Wai-sz, conferring on the King, as presents, an arrow, a sword, a suit of armour, and silk stuffs. The chieftain Hu-dai-da^45b and more than seventy other people of I-li-ba-li all received presents. Subsequently Wai-sz sent frequently tribute to the Chinese court,^45c as did also his mother, So-lu-tan Ha-tun (Sultan Khatun).

“In 1428 Wai-sz died, and was succeeded by his son, Ye-sien bu-hua,^46a who also sent repeatedly tribute to China. Tribute was also offered by Bu-sai-in, the son-in-law of the late King.

“Ye-sien bu-hua died in 1445, and was succeeded by Ye-mi-li-hu-djo .^46b The latter sent camels as tribute, and also a block of rude jade weighing 3800 kin, but not of the best quality. The Chinese government returned for every two kin of jade one piece of white silk.

“In 1457 a Chinese envoy was sent to I-li-ba-li with presents for the King, and in 1456 again.^46c It was then settled that I-li-ba-li was to send tribute every three or five years, and the number of the people in the suite of the envoy should not surpass ten men. Subsequently embassies from that country were seldom seen at the Chinese court.”

Isán Bugha Khán seems to have been called into Moghulistan about A.H. 721 (1321), and to have reigned till 730 (1330).

An Interregnum.

Tughluk Timur Khán, son of Isán Bugha, born about 730, began to reign 748 (1347), died 764 (1363).

Usurpation of Amir Kámar-ud-Din. It was against him that the expeditions of Timur into Moghulistan were directed —A.H. 768-94 (1367-1392).

On the death of Vais there was a division among the Moghuls, some adhering to Yunus Khán, the eldest son of Vais, others to Isán Bugha II., the younger son.

Yunus Khan, who was expelled 832 (1429), returned 860 (1456), and regained the western part of Moghulistan. Hostilities were maintained between the eastern and western Moghuls till the death of his grand-nephew, Kabak Sultan, when he reigned without a rival.

In the latter part of his life, the remoter tribes of the steppes, displeased with his fondness for towns, separated from him, and acknowledged his second son, Sultan Ahmad, or Alácha Khán, as their Khán—so that the kingdom was again divided into two during his lifetime. He died 892 H. (1487).

Sultan Mahmud Khan, Yunus' eldest son, succeeded his father in Tashkand and as chief of the western tribes. He was defeated by Shaibáni Khán in 908 (1502-3), lost Tash-kand and Sairám, and was finally put to death by Shaibáni in 914 H. (1508-9).

Isán Bugha II., raised to the throne in 832 H. (1429), and through life supported by the eastern Moghuls, died 866 (1462),^47a was succeeded by his son

Dust Muhammad Khán, who ruled in the eastern districts (Uighuristán, etc.), died 873 (1468-9).

Kabak Sultan Oghlán, his son, ruled for a time about Turfán, or Uighuristán, where he was murdered.

Sultan Ahmad Khán, second son of Yunus, governed the eastern Moghuls in Aksu and Uighuristán. He was generally known as Alácha Khán—“the slaughtering Khán.” He was bent on making himself absolute ruler of the steppes, destroyed the chiefs, and curtailed the power of many of the tribes. Defeated by Shaibáni Khán in 908 (1502-3), he died of grief in 909 (1503-4).

The death of Sultan Ahmad was followed by many civil wars and much anarchy in Moghulistan. His elder brother, Sultan Mahmud, invaded his dominions from the west. Sultan Ahmad's numerous sons contended with one another. Several sections of the people, and among others the Kirghiz, separated from the main body. The anarchy and civil wars lasted some years. The country was overrun by Abá Bakr (a Dughlát) of Kashghar, by the Kalmáks and the Kazáks. The whole of the tribes of Moghulistan never again united under one head. Two Khanates and the confederation of the Kirghiz-Kazáks seem to have arisen out of the ruins of the Khanate of the Moghuls. Sultan Mansur, the eldest son of Sultan Ahmad, established himself in Aksu, Turfán, etc., and a new Khanate arose in Kashghar and the western provinces.

Sultan Said Khan, third son of Sultan Ahmad, in Rajab 920 (Sept. 1514), or eleven years after his father's death, seized Kashghar, and expelled Abá Bakr Mirza. He died 16 Zilhajah 939 (9 July, 1533); and was succeeded by his son, Abdur Rashid Khan, who died 973 (1565-6); and was succeeded by his son, Abdul Karim.

Mansur Khan, Sultan Ahmad's eldest son, was acknowledged and ruled in Turfán and the eastern provinces—i.e., Uighuristán. He died in 950 (1543-4), having reigned two years along with his father, and forty more by himself; he was succeeded by his son, Sháh Khán.

Meanwhile in the steppes of Moghulistan, the Kirghiz established themselves under Khans of their own, and in process of time, formed a kind of federative union with the Kazák Uzbegs, which has, in some degree, lasted to the present day, and has been called “the three hordes of Kirghiz.”

Amir Tulik, Ulusbegi (or chief of the tribe) of the Moghul Khans, contemporary with Isán Bugha I., succeeded by

Amir Bulaji, his brother; raised Tughluk Timur to the throne; succeeded by his son,

Amir Khudáidád, who is said to have reigned about ninety years in Kashghar. He succeeded his father, probably soon after the year 748 H. (1347). In his time Amir Kamar-ud-Din, his uncle, usurped the Khanship of the Moghuls, and for a time also (it would appear) that of the greater part of Alti Shahr. The chronology of Amir Khudáidád's life is very uncertain. He was succeeded by

Amir Sayyid Ali, grandson of Khudáidád (by his son Amir Sayyid Ahmad). Sayyid Ali reigned about twenty-four years—838 to 861 H. (1435 to 1457)—and was succeeded by his sons,

Sániz Mirza, in Yarkand, who expelled his brother from Kashghar, and reigned seven years. He died 868 H. (1463-4).

Muhammad Haidar Mirza in Kash-ghar, whence he was expelled by his brother.

Muhammad Haidar Mirza, on his brother's death, succeeded. He is said to have reigned twenty-four years in all, or eight years with imperfect authority and sixteen years with full authority. In 885 H. (1480) he was expelled by his nephew and stepson, Abá Bakr.

Abá Bakr Mirza, son of Sániz, reigned in all forty-eight years. The years of his reign are probably reckoned from the date of his taking possession of Yarkand, about 873 H. (1468-9). He was finally defeated and expelled by Sultan Said Khan, the third son of Sultan Ahmad Khan (Alácha Khan), who changed the dynasty. See Khans of Moghulistan, above. Abá Bakr was murdered 920 H.

It may perhaps help to make matters clear as regards the dates, if I append here, a list of the western branch of the line of Chaghatai Khans (those of Mávará-un-Nahr or Trans-oxiana), extracted from Mr. Stanley Lane Poole's Muhammadan Dynasties (p. 242).

>genealogy<

>graphic<

NOTE.—The early part of this Table (down to Tughluk Timur) is compiled chiefly from that of Sir H. Howorth, as published in Mr. S. Lane Poole's Muhammadan Dynasties, facing p. 242. The latter part is from the Tarikh-i-Rashidi, as explained in Sect. II. of the Introduction.

The numbers (where not in parentheses) indicate the reigning Khans of the line of Mávara-un-Nahr, as shown in the list at p. 49, Sect. II. of the Introduction.

>graphic<

NOTE.—This Table is almost entirely from Prof. Blochmann's Ain-i-Akbari—but abridged.

His eye might there command wherever stood
City of old or modern fame, the seat
Of mightiest Empire, from the destined walls
Of Cambalu, seat of Cathaian Can,
And Samarchand by Oxus, Temur's throne,
To Paquin of Sinæan Kings; and thence
To Agra and Lahor of great Mogul…

—Paradise Lost, Bk. XI.

THE area over which Mirza Haidar's history extends is a wide one. Expressed in the geographical terms of our times, it may be said to deal with Western Turkistan, Bokhara, Farghána, the Russian province of Semirechensk (or the seven rivers), the Chinese province of Ili (or Zungaria), Eastern Turkistan, Tibet, Ladak, Baltistan, Gilgit and the neighbouring states, Chitral, Wákhán, Badakhshán, Afghanistan, Kashmir, and Northern India; while references are frequently made to countries lying even beyond these regions. But it is a history, especially, of the eastern branch of the Chaghatais—i.e., the Moghuls proper —and, therefore, the chief scene of action lies in and immediately around their home-land. The situation and extent of this region are not difficult to describe, but it is far from easy to give a name to it as a whole.

Its limits were not very clearly defined at any period, and were seldom the same for twenty years at a time, while even the names of “Jatah” and “Moghulistan,” by which a portion of it was known, are now not only obsolete, but have hitherto been subject to some doubt regarding the exact locality to which they were applied. Moreover, there was at no time any one name in use, which served to designate the entire Khanate. Mirza Haidar usually speaks of ‘Moghulistan’ and ‘Kashghar,’ but it is not always clear whether, by ‘Kashghar,’ he means only the city and district of that name, or the entire province of Alti-Shahr—the Six Cities^51a of Eastern Turkistan—a region which, he tells us more than once, was, when combined with Farghána, termed Mangalai Suyah or “Facing the Sun.”^52a This territory would almost exactly correspond to the provinces of Farghána and the Chinese Turkistan of modern times, less the districts of Karashahr, Turfán and Hami in the extreme east; or, in other words, to Farghána and Alti-Shahr. But even if we were to give the entire country the double name of “Moghulistan and Mangalai Suyah,” there would still remain some difficulties of definition. At first sight it would appear that the author describes the limits very exactly; but this is not quite the case, and for two reasons. In the first place, he sets forth the provinces that composed it on several occasions, but does not always make them the same: the other is that, in common with all Asiatics who attempt to describe an area, he names a district or a geographical feature as a boundary, but does not mention whether it should be included or excluded— whether the limiting district, range or lake lay beyond or within the area he is describing. In addition to these uncertainties there is also the inconsistency that Farghána, as a whole, was seldom included within the actual possessions of the Khans of Moghulistan. They always regarded it as theirs by right, but they rarely held more than a few positions, or districts, within its limits, and even these they were usually unable to keep for any length of time. Practically, therefore, Farghána can scarcely be held to have formed a part of their dominions, although it may have been comprised in the geographical term “Mangalai Suyah.” With this reservation, however, and in order to show what the author describes, it would seem as well that Farghána should be included nominally with Moghulistan and Alti-Shahr; so that, after making due allowance for the fluctuations that occurred at different periods, the following may be regarded (as nearly as possible) as a statement of the extent of the dominions of the Moghul Khans, from about the middle of the fourteenth century to the middle of the sixteenth.

There was no central division, but the province of Moghulis-tan proper—or Jatah, as it was also called during the early part of that period—being a “steppe” or pastoral country, and the homeland of the dominant tribe, was therefore the principal division. Its western boundary marched with the province of Shásh, the modern Táshkand, which seems to have contained the whole of the lowlands of the valley of the Sir, from a little above Khojand to about the Arys tributary, and included such towns as Sháhrukhia, Táshkand and Sairám. Immediately to the east of this level agricultural stretch, rise the hills which separate it from the valley of the Upper Tálás, and it was this line of hills, or uplands, which seems to have stood usually, and in a general way, for the boundary of the Moghuls. To the north of Shásh lay the province of Turkistan, with the Káratau hills between it and the Lower Tálás, and here again the hills appear to have been the western limit of the nomad tribes. Turning towards the north-west, a line drawn from the Káratau to the southern extremity of Lake Balkásh, and continued again from its other extremity to the Tárbágatai mountains, may be taken roughly to have been the frontier in that direction. We hear, at any rate, of no transactions of the Moghuls, as a tribe, anywhere to the north-west of the Balkásh; nor do we trace them anywhere to the north of the Imil river, which is fed from the Tárbágatai mountains, except when flying before Timur's avenging army in 1389 and 1390, they crossed the range into the valley of the Irtish. But this was an occasion when danger led them to seek refuge beyond the bounds of their own country. From the Tárbágatai range, the limiting line would probably bend south-eastward to some point at the northern foot of the Tian Shan, near the present Urumtsi; but this is somewhat uncertain. All that is clear is that the tract now known as “Zungaria” (or the land of the Zungár, or Jungár, Kalmáks) formed a part of the Moghul dominion, but how far precisely, “Zungária” extended towards the east, there is nothing to show. Probably it included Lakes Ebi Nor and Ayar Nor, and had for its central feature the upper course of the Ili river. On the south, the main range of the Tian Shan, as far west as about the head of the Nárin river, divided Moghulistan from Kuchar, Aksu, etc., while westward, again, the water-parting ranges between the Nárin and Lake Issigh-Kul, continued up to the heads of the Tálás, would seem, approximately, to have been the line of separation from Kash-ghar and Farghána.

The boundaries of Alti-Shahr were better defined by natural features than Moghulistan. It may be said, generally, to have embraced the whole of the system of the Tarim, together with some of the upper waters of the Sir. On the north it marched with the southern limit of Moghulistan, as described above. On the east it included the town and district of Kuchar (which was usually a dependency of Aksu), and probably the region of Lake Lob; while it excluded Karashahr—then known as Chálish— and all to the east of it, which constituted, as we shall see, a province that bore the ancient name of ‘Uighuristán.’ On the south, along the whole length of the country, the mountains forming the scarp of the Tibetan highlands—the Kuen-lun and the Altyn Tágh—shut it off from all beyond. Towards the west the Pamirs, generally speaking, constituted its extreme limit, till these abut northward on the southern confines of the valley of the river Sir; for these uplands, then as now, seem to have divided the Kashghar district from Farghána. What the precise limits in the Pamir region were, there is nothing to indicate, but in speaking of Sárigh-Kul, Mirza Haidar implies that that district, at least, lay within the province of Alti-Shahr, and for a time also, we find Wakhán and Shighnan described as territory dependent on Kashghar, though this was not usually the case.

But if these were approximately and usually the limits, it does not follow that they were, on the one hand, never overstepped, or on the other, that the area they included was always held intact. As a matter of fact, they varied considerably from time to time. Before the rise of Timur, for instance, invasions, by the Moghuls, of Shásh, Turkistan and even Mávará-un-Nahr were of common occurrence, while at times in their later history, they extended their sway over districts in the east which did not properly belong to Alti-Shahr. In the same way, when the affairs of their neighbours were in the hands of strong rulers, portions of Moghulistan were cut off for a time, and numbers of the inhabitants seem to have had no scruple in joining the service of the successful conqueror of the time being.

The section known as Moghulistan differed widely, in most respects, from its companion province on the south. It was a land of mountains, streams and lakes, of upland pastures and steppes, of wooded valleys and even forests; for while it lay north of the regions which can only become productive if reached by the monsoon from the southern seas, or if irrigated by the art of its inhabitants, it was yet far enough from the blighting snows and sunless days of Siberia, to be in most parts clothed with natural verdure of some kind. Its altitudes were moderate, and its climate, therefore, as Mirza Haidar describes it, cool and invigorating, though to Europeans, accustomed to live within the modifying influence of the sea, it would appear to be subject to extremes of temperature. Deserts in the proper sense of the word—sandy or stony wastes, with little or no vegetation or water—nowhere existed, except on the extreme north-western confines, and wherever the word ‘desert’ occurs in the text, when referring to Moghulistan, it is because the author has used the Persian or Turki equivalent, though the real meaning would be ‘the open country,’ or the ‘country devoid of towns and cultivation’—the ‘steppe’—a feature which no English word will describe.

However this may be, it was a land in every way suited to the habits and customs of a sparse population of nomadic graziers and shepherds, and it accordingly evolved, or at least attracted, a race whose requirements it fulfilled. But the peaceable pursuits of raising flocks and attending herds were not the only avocations of a people with the traditions of the Moghuls. Perhaps their chief requirement was a land whence they might raid on their settled and more wealthy neighbours, and whither, if beaten, they could retire and find a refuge—a land, in short, so inaccessible and unproductive to all but themselves, that it formed, at once, a base for their own description of warfare, a secure retreat, and an inhospitable waste for the pursuing enemy; for where they moved, the whole resources of the country—the food supplies, the transport, the shelter— moved with them, and were used to meet their wants alone. There could have been no forts or towns or immovable property, worthy of the name, for an invader to destroy, and no stationary population, left undefended, upon whom he might wreak his vengeance; for the women and children and the aged all formed part of the expedition, and were doubtless employed or disposed of, in much the same way while the tribe was on the march, as while at home in their own encampment. In times of peace—or rather of inactivity—they probably bred, besides the camels and sheep, which were their principal food-producers, large numbers of ponies, for it was on these that all depended, when wars or forays were on hand. Mobility must have been the quality they relied on more than any other, both in attack and retreat, and we find them baffling their enemies more by their movements than by their fighting power. Indeed, fighting in its proper sense must have been with them, as with most of their neighbours, a pursuit very sparingly indulged in. We read, it is true, of armies counted by hundreds of thousands, and of pitched battles when thousands were killed on either side, but apart from the facts that populations such as those in question could not have put such masses of fighting men in the field, and that numbers among Orientals are at all times used as mere figures of speech, it is remarkable that where a particular battle or other special incident is described in detail, there are usually indications that the numbers engaged were very small indeed.

This must have been more especially the case with the tribe of Moghuls and the other nomads who allied themselves with them, after the first quarter of the sixteenth century. During Amir Timur's reign, the Moghuls under Kamar-ud-Din, one of their best leaders, seem to have been always beaten when met by the Amir's troops, yet they were never thoroughly repressed until the great conqueror had put forth all his strength and resources in following them up, in separate bodies, to the farthest confines of their territory. His problem was not how to beat the Moghuls in battle or to invade their country, but how to catch their mobile forces in sufficient numbers, to make an impression on the nation at large; while, on their part, the Moghuls never seem to have attempted an incursion into Timur's dominions, except when he and his troops were engaged in prosecuting a war elsewhere. Later, the same difficulty occurred to Ulugh Beg Mirza, who only succeeded in dealing them a heavy blow, through the accident of a piece of treachery on the part of one of their own people, by which he was afforded an unlooked-for opportunity. And later again—within the sixteenth century—when the Kirghiz and Kazáks had to a great extent supplanted the Moghuls in what had been the latter's own land, and the nominal Khans of the country (Sultan Said and his successor) had their headquarters at Kashghar, it seems evident, though Mirza Haidar says little about it, that the tactics of the nomads left them practically masters of the situation. Yet even in those days, when brought to battle, they are said usually to have been beaten. Perhaps the only power which the Moghuls stood in fear of, after the days of Timur, was that of the Uzbegs, when these were first rising to power. Under Shaibáni Khan the confederated tribes of Uzbegs still possessed the characteristics and qualities of nomadic nations, and it is not a little remarkable that the Moghuls, so far from dealing with them as they were accustomed to do with others in the low countries, enlisted under Shaibáni in large numbers, and assisted him against the more civilised forces of Baber and the Khorasáni Mirzas. They seem to have feared to measure themselves with those who could use their own tactics against them, or fight them, indeed, with their own weapons.

In many places in Mirza Haidar's history, as well as in the Zafar-Náma and other books, mention is made of the ‘cities’ or ‘towns’ of Moghulistan; but as the same words must necessarily be used when speaking of the settled countries of Mávará-un-Nahr, Turkistan, and Alti-Shahr, they are somewhat misleading terms to apply to the auls, or encampments, of a nomadic people. One native writer, whose book dates from the first half of the fourteenth century, presents, in a few words, a telling picture of Moghulistan in his day—or part of Turkistan as it was then still called. “Since the region has been devastated by the arms of the Tatars,” he writes, “it is inhabited only by a scanty population. According to what I have been assured by a man who has travelled through the country, there is nothing to be seen in Turkistan but ruins, and more or less obliterated remains. From a distance one sees a well-built village, the environs of which are covered with beautiful verdure; but on approaching, in the hope of meeting with some inhabitants, there are found only houses completely deserted. The population is composed entirely of nomads—that is, of shepherds and graziers who never occupy themselves with cultivating the land or sowing crops. There is no other verdure but that of the steppes, which grows naturally.”^57a That towns, in the true sense of the word, had existed in the land is thus correct, but they had been built when others possessed and governed it, and before it had become the home of the Mongolian nomads. The Uighurs, a Turki tribe of considerable cultivation by comparison, had owned the greater part, if not the whole, of the country up to less than a century prior to the rise of the Mongols, and were probably the founders of several towns of more or less importance; while the whole of Moghul-istan had, during the interval, been occupied by the Kara Khitai, whose people, although perhaps much mixed with nomad tribesmen, seem also to have been capable of building cities and carrying on cultivation. The advent of the Mongolian hordes, however, under Chingiz and his successors, put an end to all such practices, and from that time till the date when Mirza Haidar's history closes (and probably for long after also), the country reverted to a purely pastoral condition. When, therefore, we read of the cities of Taráz, Bálásaghun, Aimal, Bishbálik, Almáligh, etc., within the Moghul period, it can hardly be that Moghul cities are intended, but rather encampments—some of them, perhaps, central in situation and well inhabited—standing on or near the sites of the remains of these places.

In the more advanced of the countries conquered by the Mongolian armies—in Persia, Mávará-un-Nahr, Turkistan, etc. —no obliteration or even systematic destruction of towns (except in the course of the wars), and no reversion to a nomadic level, seems to have taken place; but the difference in the case of Moghulistan was that, in that country, the nomadic tribesmen of the steppes immediately to the eastward —the true Mongolia—pressed in, and appropriating the land for their own habitation, took root, while in the lower countries they settled as rulers only. Those of the Mongols who, after the first invasion, stayed in the conquered countries with their governing Khans or chiefs, probably intermarried, after a time, with the settled population, and were soon absorbed; while in what became known—and partly for this very reason—as ‘Moghulistan,’ or the ‘land of the Mongols,’ the invaders found a suitable home, and establishing themselves as one of the nations of the soil, became, for a time at least, the dominant one. As generations passed, they tended, no doubt, to lose their identity by intermarrying with other races already sparsely inhabiting the region, but in this instance their absorption would be a slow process, as compared with the few left among the overwhelming populations of the lower countries in the west. The aul was probably a tribal community, and the number of the Moghuls was perhaps greater than that of their neighbours, while the life of the steppes rendered a certain degree of isolation inevitable. All these circumstances would combine to retard a fusion of races, though it may not, as far as the evidence goes, have obviated it in the end.

Here, then, no cities sprang up, while those already in existence soon fell to ruin. But the Musulmán writers, who constantly confuse the words for ‘city’ and ‘country,’ and even ‘nation,’ would be unlikely to draw any distinction between a built and permanent town, and an encampment of felt tents—an urdu or an aul, as the Turki words are. In several cases Mirza Haidar mentions towns of Moghulistan as existing in the form of ruins only, and he is explicit on this point. But he nowhere describes one as an inhabited centre at his own time, though it is only reasonable to suppose that he would, at least, have made some mention of them had they existed, in the same way that he speaks of, and even describes, those of Alti-Shahr. The aul, or collection of felt tents, pitched without order or any view to permanency, near the banks of a stream, and in the centre of some district where pasture was near at hand, was probably the nearest approach to a town at the period our history belongs to. Here, possibly, a square or oblong shed of brown mud bricks, ornamented with yaks' tails, antelopes' heads, and rows of small, coloured flags, may have stood to represent the urdu proper, or reception-room and court-house of the chief; while round it were scattered the dome-shaped tents of willow laths, covered with sheets of felt—all grimy and greasy—and ready at any moment to be taken down by the women of the tribe, and packed, with the rest of their domestic belongings, on the backs of the camels. Of forts, walls, or streets there could have been no sign. In the daytime, the ground on which the encampment stood would have been black with the dried droppings of sheep, a foot in depth, which, whirled into the air by the west wind, would pervade, with its pungent smell, the valley for a mile round, and cover everything, even the surface of the river, with a film of black. By the evening, this unsavoury carpet would be overlaid by thousands of sheep, driven in from the neighbouring glens and packed close, in scarcely separated flocks, for the night, while outside these, long rows of camels would kneel at their tethering-ropes, and groups of shaggy ponies stand fastened to the doors of their masters' tents. Near at hand, it may be, some ruined walls or weather-worn mounds pointed to the remains of an Uighur town, or fort, destroyed hundreds of years ago, and having no more connection with the life of the people of the aul than have the ruins of an Elizabethan castle, or a Norman keep, with the inhabitants of a neighbouring county town in England at the present day.

Encampments such as these would not only leave no trace of where they stood, but even their names would be unlikely to endure in history. Such were, no doubt, At-Báshi, Kuchkar, Jumgál, Jud Kuzi, and others, so often spoken of in the Second Part of the Tarikh-i-Rashidi, and several more that are mentioned in the Zafar-Náma and the Tarikh-i-Jahán Kushai, now impossible to identify. They were typical of the Moghuls as a race—of a nation devoid of constructive instincts, destined only to fallow the land and then make place for others.

The period subsequent to the conquest of Chingiz's successors was one when disorder and intolerance prevented European travellers, who might have left a description behind them, from traversing the country of the Moghuls; but a side-light is shed on the subject by a brief mention in Rubruk's narrative of his visit to Mangu Kaán (Chingiz's grandson) at Karakorum in the year 1253, and consequently only just at the outset of the establishment of the Mongols in the region in question. Kara-korum was then the Mongol capital: it numbered among its inhabitants many Chinese, Uighurs, and other comparatively cultivated people, and was, presumably, if not the only permanent Mongolian town, at any rate by far the best of them. Yet the walls only measured about a mile in circumference, and Rubruk relates of it: “You must understand that if you set aside the Kaán's own palace, it is not as good as the borough of St. Dennis; and as for the palace, the abbey of St. Dennis is worth ten of it! There are two streets in the town, one of which is occupied by the Saracens, and in that is the marketplace. The other street is occupied by the Cathayans, who are all craftsmen … There are also twelve idol temples belonging to different nations, two Mahummeries, in which the law of Mahomet is preached, and one Church of the Christians at the extremity of the town. The town is enclosed by a mud wall and has four gates.”^60a The Chinese travellers of the thirteenth century give no description of the inhabited centres of Moghul-istan which they passed through, though one of them, Chang Té (who seems to have had an eye for irrigation) mentions briefly that at Almáligh there were reservoirs in the marketplaces, “connected by running water.” Farther westward also, in the valley of the Chu, he remarks that the country was intersected in all directions by canals which irrigated the fields, while numerous ancient walls and other ruins were seen which he attributed to the days of the Kitan or the Kara Khitai.^60b But all these marks of civilisation had been swept away in Mirza Haidar's time, as he himself implies in his description of the antiquities of that part of the Khanate which, he says, was formerly known as ‘Kara Khitai.’

In attempting to make clear the condition of Moghulistan and the neighbouring regions of Central Asia, perhaps the chief perplexity is experienced in unravelling the nomenclature of places and people. The names of countries and towns not only changed with time, but different nations applied, frequently, a different designation to one and the same place. Thus, names often arose at a certain period, were employed by writers for a time, and again fell out of use. The Mongols, for instance, during their ascendency, gave names of their own to many places which, after the decline of their power, became obsolete. In the same way, the conquests of Timur seem to have given birth to names that are peculiar to that period alone, and were perhaps only in vogue among those connected with the conqueror's court or his armies. This circumstance, in addition to the habit of applying nicknames to tribes and nations, may account for many of the difficulties that surround the identification of names mentioned by various authors, and should act as a warning, in the case of the tribes, not to attach too readily a racial significance to every name that is met with.

To the Chaghatais of Mávará-un-Nahr and the west, Moghul-istan was known, in the 13th and 14th centuries, by the name of Jatah, and though this was only a term of depreciation, or a nickname (as will be explained below), it is employed in the gravest way by several Persian authors of the Timuri period, whose works have become standards of historical reference. What is perhaps more curious to remark is, that the name of Bishbálik, which so often occurs in mediæval histories and travels, and in the Chinese historical annals, is that by which the Chinese knew the Khanate of Moghulistan, during the earlier part of the period over which Mirza Haidar's history extends. This name had originally no connection with the Moghuls or their dominion, but was a survival from the days when the region had belonged to the Uighurs. Properly it was the name of a city only, which had been built by the Uighurs, and, having become their capital, had lent its name to the whole kingdom. The meaning, in Turki, is ‘Five Cities,’ and seems, possibly, to have indicated the capital of the five divisions, or provinces, into which the country of the Uighurs, at that time, (about the middle of the ninth century) was divided; or otherwise, it may have meant that the tribe was divided into five sections, or the town (as one authority has it) into five quarters.^62a However this may be, the Chinese knew the country by its Turki name (which they sometimes translated into its Chinese equivalent—Wu-chêng), while they gave the city itself the Chinese style of Pei-ting, or ‘Northern Court’; and subsequently (early in the fifteenth century) changed that of the whole country from ‘Bishbálik’ into ‘Ili-bálik.’

The town of Bishbálik was situated on, or near, the site of the modern Urumtsi, and the country of which it was the chief place, extended to the westward and north-westward, as well as beyond the southern slopes of the Tian Shan. Like the rest of this part of Asia, it fell into the empire of Chingiz Khan, and, after his death, passed to his son Chaghatai. Later again, in the time of the Chinese Mings, the official historians of that dynasty described the limits of the region in such a way, as to leave no doubt that the country they termed Bishbálik was, indeed, Moghulistan. “Bie-shi-ba-li,” says the Ming Shi,^62b “is a great empire in the Si Yü [countries of the west]. It is bordered on the south by Yü-tien [Khotan], on the north by the country of the Wa-la [the Oirát Kalmáks], on the west by Sa-ma-rh-han [Samarkand], and to the east it is contiguous with Huo-chou [Kara Khoja]. It is distant [probably the urdu of the Khan is meant] from Kia-Yü-Kuan in the southeast, 3700 li. It is believed that Bie-shi-ba-li occupies the same tracts as, in ancient times, Yenki or Kui-tsz.”^62c As a description of the land and people, the Ming history adds:— “The country of Ili-ba-li is surrounded by deserts. It extends 3000 li from east to west and 2000 li from north to south. There are no cities or palace buildings. The people are nomads living in felt tents, and exchanging their abode, together with their herds, in accordance with the existence of water and pasture land. They are of a fierce appearance. Their common food is flesh and kumis. They are dressed in the same fashion as the Wa-la.”

Many embassies are recorded in the Ming Shi as having passed between Bishbálik, or Ili-bálik, and the Chinese capital, which make it appear that the Khans of Moghulistan and the Dughlát Amirs paid tribute to China. Whether the position of tributaries was imposed upon them by superior force, or whether, as is far more probable, the missions were sent to cultivate the friendship of a powerful neighbour, and to profit by an exchange of presents, is nowhere intimated; but the result remains, that from the time of Khizir Khwája, about the year 1391, down to the reign of Isan Bugha II. in 1456, each successive Khan (as we have seen in Section II.) sent one or more tribute-bearing missions to the Ming court. After the latter date, it appears to have been settled that ‘Ili-bali’ was to send tribute every three years, but no further mention is made of any special mission, and it is possible that not long afterwards, the growing weakness of the Mings caused the custom to fall into disuse.

It may be thought strange, perhaps, that Mirza Haidar's history nowhere speaks of intercourse with China, or mentions that the Moghul Khans performed these acts of homage to her Emperors. Whether he omitted any allusion to them, from a feeling that the payment of tribute was derogatory to his ancestors, or whether he thought the subject not worth recording, must remain a matter of conjecture. In all likelihood the latter was the reason, as we shall see, further on, when referring to similar missions from Uighuristán. The proceeding was, presumably, looked upon as a mere form, or indeed a farce, and therefore attracted no attention on the part of the historian. Still, his silence on the point cannot be taken to disprove the statements of the Chinese, for these are explicit and persistent, and can hardly be otherwise than correct as records of bare facts. What is remarkable, however, is that the same Khans and Amirs who were bowing the knee to China, whether in good faith or otherwise, had no hesitation in measuring their strength with so great a soldier as Timur. The fact that his power was near and visible did not inspire them with respect, or deter them from raiding into his territory and otherwise provoking his vengeance. But the Chinese, then as now, seem to have possessed the art of attracting the outward forms of submission from distant States, though they had no power to exact the reality.

Passing now across the mountains to the south-east, an entirely different land and people present themselves, in the province that may be most appropriately and correctly called Alti-Shahr, or the ‘Six Cities’ of Eastern Turkistan. Here the low ranges and open valleys of the steppes, are changed for gigantic mountains on the one hand, and sandy deserts on the other; the aul of felt tents for the town of brown mud-bricks and close-packed bazars; the grazing grounds and hill-side torrents for cultivated fields and irrigation canals; while, above all, the thriftless, irresponsible nomad is replaced by the cultivator and artisan, with all the elements of stability that their industry confers upon a people. Though the area is large, the culturable and habitable spots in it are, out of all proportion, small. One modern traveller describes it as a huge desert fringed by a few small patches of cultivation. Another tells us that a bird's-eye view of the country would show a huge bare desert, surrounded on three sides by barren mountains, along the bases of which would be seen some vivid green spots, showing out sharp and distinct like streaks of green paint on a sepia picture. At the western end, the cultivation is of greater extent and more continuous than in the eastern half, where the oases are small and separated from each other by stretches of desert, which increase in length as the traveller passes eastward; while the eastern extremity is desert pure and simple. The oases, however, are fertile enough in themselves, for every drop of the water brought down by the streams from the mountains, is drawn off into irrigating canals, and made to reach as far as possible toward the desert, for agricultural purposes.

All except the shifting sands of the central waste, appears to require only water to render the ground fertile; but water is precisely the boon that is withheld. Though the monsoon clouds roll in every summer across the mountain masses on the south, they seldom do more than tantalise the cultivator, who watches them in the hope of rain. Indeed, rain but rarely falls, and a Chinese traveller of ancient days^64a has recorded the incredulity of the people, when told that water for cultivation fell from heaven, onto the favoured soil of his country, and rendered it independent of melted snow from the mountains. They laughed, and cried: “How can heaven provide enough for all?”^64b Snow may be less of a rarity, but so dry is the atmosphere, that when a fall occurs, it evaporates after a few hours, and leaves the surface of the ground scarcely moistened.

That a land of this nature should support only a small population, and be too poor, as Mirza Haidar tells us, to maintain an army on its own produce, is not surprising. Whether its weakness as a State is owing to this or to whatever other cause, it has always been an easy prey to invaders, and has seldom had a native ruler within historic times. Its population has been a Turki one for ages past, and the Uighur branch of that race may be regarded (as far as historic times are concerned) as the original owners of the soil, and the parent stock of the bulk of the present inhabitants.^65a That in later times, at least, they were not an aggressive race appears evident from the little we hear of them, and that they had some capacity for crafts and literature seems also to be established. No doubt the tendency of such a people would be to live peaceably under any government strong enough to repel external enemies; so that when Mirza Haidar tells us that Alti-Shahr was “free from the discord of men and the trampling of hoofs, and became an asylum for the contented and the prosperous,” he is probably drawing a picture of the country not only true of his own time, but one that serves for several centuries both before and after it.

During the periods that the Dughlát Amirs and Moghul Khans held sway, we hear of expeditions being sent to overrun Badakhshán, Ladak, and other weak States, but these were evidently undertaken by foreign rulers with their foreign troops, and not by the people of the country; indeed, we come much more frequently upon records of invasions which they themselves underwent at the hands of various enemies, such as the Arabs, the Mongols, the Kara Khitai, and even the Kalmáks. In the raids of the Moghuls into Western Turkistan and Mávará-un-Nahr, in their wars with Timur and Ulugh Beg, and their long campaigns with the Uzbegs, it is probable that the natives of Alti-Shahr took little part, for they are never mentioned as combatants. They had, in short (and have still), all the attributes of a lowland and unwarlike people, whose wealth excites the cupidity of aggressive neighbours, but the nature of whose country and customs prevent them from becoming themselves aggressive.

It would be interesting to learn what the armies were composed of, that invaded, in the reigns of Abá Bakr and Sultan Said, Badakhshán, Chitral, etc., Ladak, Tibet and Kashmir. In all likelihood the numbers were very small—to be counted in some instances by hundreds rather than by thousands—while most of the men were probably mercenaries from countries other than Alti-Shahr. Mirza Haidar nowhere specifies the races which furnished the rank and file of these forces. When entering on the conquest of Kashghar, in 1514, he gives an analysis of the chiefs of Sultan Said's army, nearly all of whom were Moghuls of various clans, or members of tribes who had long previously thrown in their lot with the Moghuls, and the number of tribal followers that each chief brought with him is specified in each case. If the figures given are correct—and as they are not mere round numbers, they appear as if intended to be exact—it is evident that the tribal following which each chief could muster was a mere handful, for the total of the tribesmen mentioned does not approach that of the entire army of 4700 men, as he states it.^66a The remainder must have been mercenaries and adventurers who were, no doubt, to be found in abundance all over Central Asia in those times, in the persons of Kipcháks, Turkomans, Afghans, Kárluks and what not. On this occasion, too, a great effort was being made and a prize worth winning was at stake; the army was raised, moreover, in Farghána and Moghulistan, and not in peaceful Alti-Shahr. Thus it was probably a much more numerous one than those afterwards employed on distant expeditions beyond the mountains, though it may be fairly conjectured that the composition was very similar in all cases. In the expedition of Sultan Said against Ladak, Kashmir and Tibet in 1532, the author puts the total of the army at the round figure of 5000 men, but in this instance he gives none of the minute particulars that he records with regard to the 4700 and their supports, who invaded Kashghar. The round number is likely, therefore, to be one of the many similar exaggerations in which his book abounds; for it is improbable that as large a force would have been thought necessary for this enterprise as for the wresting of Kashghar and the whole of Alti-Shahr from so formidable an enemy as Mirza Abá Bakr. He tells us, it is true, that Ladak was incapable of supporting the Khan's army, but this might have been the case with even half 5000 men and their complement of horses.

Perhaps the most noteworthy feature of this land of the Six Cities, and the one that has chiefly struck the imagination of both ancient and modern writers, is the central desert with its moving sands and buried towns. It is referred to in Chinese writings of more than 2000 years old, by travellers who gave the region the name of Liu Sha, or ‘Moving Sands,’ from its chief characteristic and most obvious peculiarity;^67a and it was made known to Europeans through the graphic accounts of it which Marco Polo left on record. The phenomenon of the shifting sands could hardly have escaped Mirza Haidar, and the story he tells of the overwhelming of Katak, with its mosque and minaret, is one of the best pieces of description in his book. It is almost an exact counterpart of that told by Hiuen Tsang in the eighth century, of a town between Khotan and Pima (Pain?) which was said to have been overwhelmed by the same agency, some hundreds of years previously. In this case, neglect in the proper worship of a Buddhist idol was the cause, while in the later one the Musulmans detected the wrath of God. The earlier calamity too, is said to have been predicted by a pious Arhát seven days before it occurred. At first a great storm of wind arose, which carried sand and soil before it, while “on the seventh day,” continues the narrative, “in the evening, just after the division of the night, it rained sand and earth and filled the city … The town of Ho-lo-lo Kia is now a great sand mound. The kings of neighbouring countries, and persons in power from distant spots, have, many times, wished to excavate the mound and take away the precious things buried there; but as soon as they have arrived at the borders of the place, a furious wind has sprung up, dark clouds have gathered together from the four quarters of heaven, and they have become lost.”^67b

Similar stories are in the mouth of nearly every native of the country down to the present time, and several have been recorded by Dr. Bellew and Sir Douglas Forsyth. These travellers themselves visited some of the sand-buried ruins in the neighbourhood of Yangi Hisár. One of them was the fort of a Uighur chief called Tokhta Rashid, which had been destroyed about the eleventh century by Arsalan Khan, and afterwards overwhelmed by the sand. Another was the Mazár, or shrine, of one Hazrat Begum, which had been first swallowed up, and again, at a later date, left free by the receding dunes. The neighbourhood of the latter ruin is described as “a perfect sea of loose sand, advancing in regular wave lines from north-west to south-east. The sand dunes are mostly from ten to twenty feet high, but some are seen, like little hills, full a hundred feet high, and in some spots higher. They cover the plain, of which the hard clay is seen between their rows, with numberless chains of two or three or more together in a line, and follow in successive rows one behind the other, just like the marks left by wave ripples on a sandy beach, only on a large scale. Towards the south-east these sand dunes all present a steep bank in the shape of a crescent, the horns of which slope forwards and downwards, in points, to the ground …” The process of submergence, Dr. Bellew found to be usually a very gradual one, until the symmetry of the dune, becoming broken by an obstructing object, its loose materials subside, and thus overwhelm the obstruction. In the instance of one of the buildings inspected, it was found that “a chain of three crescentic dunes, side by side, had advanced in line across the plain, till one of the outer crescents had struck the walls of the court of the tenement, and growing up, had, in time, overtopped, and thus overflowed and filled its area by its downfall; whilst the other two crescents at its side, continuing their unobstructed course, maintained their proper form uninjured.”^68a The rate of progression the writer was unable to determine, as it depends on the varying force of the propelling power, the slope of the land, and the obstructions on its surface. The operation, however, is the same as in the well-known instance of Eccles church, on the coast of Norfolk, only on a larger scale. By 1839 the whole of the church, except a portion of the tower, had been buried; by 1862 the tower had nearly emerged again, while in 1892 the whole building rose free from the level of the strand, the dunes having passed to its landward side.

The phenomenon thus seen in operation, explains how the town of Katak, and others mentioned by Mirza Haidar, became engulfed, and confirms the stories still current in Eastern Turkistan of ruined towns, or buildings, now and then appearing for a while and being again submerged.^68b In the extreme east of the country, the sandy desert is found at its worst, and it is in connection with this quarter that most of the tales of weird horrors have their origin. How deeply the superstitious mind of the Asiatic may be impressed by these wastes of moving sands, and how little reason there is to wonder at the stories of ghosts, demons, and visions with which he has invested the region, may be judged by General Prejevalski's vivid description of it. “The effect of these bare yellow hillocks,” he writes, “is most dreary and depressing when you are among them, and can see nothing but the sky and the sand; not a plant, not an animal is visible, with the single exception of the yellowish-grey lizards (Phrynocephalus Sp.) which trail their bodies over the loose soil and mark it with the patterns of their tracks. A dull heaviness oppresses the senses in this inanimate sea of sand. No sounds are heard, not even the chirping of the grasshopper; the silence of the tomb surrounds you.”^69a

Hiuen Tsang's description scarcely varies from that of the Russian traveller. “These sands,” he says, “extend like a drifting flood for a great distance, piled up or scattered before the wind. There is no trace left behind by travellers, and oftentimes the way is lost, and so they wander hither and thither quite bewildered, without any guide or direction. So travellers pile up the bones of animals as beacons. There is neither water nor herbage to be found, and hot winds frequently blow. When these winds rise, both man and beast become confused and forgetful, and then they remain perfectly disabled. At times, sad and plaintive notes are heard and piteous cries, so that between the sights and sounds of this desert, men get confused and know not whither they go. Hence there are so many who perish on the journey. But it is all the work of demons and evil spirits.”^69b

And if the superstition of the Asiatic is moved by the mystic scenes of the desert, his cupidity is also stirred by the legends of buried riches which the submerged cities are supposed to contain. Traditions lose nothing from age or from being often repeated, and no doubt, the stories of hidden treasures are now —and, indeed, were in Mirza Haidar's time—ancient enough to acquire a very strong influence on numbers of the population. From time to time ornaments, vessels, images, and coins of great curiosity are unearthed, but their value to the finders, whose only interest lies in the worth of the metal they are made of, can scarcely be great. Perhaps the only systematic exploitation of the ancient sites, ever undertaken, is that of Mirza Abá Bakr, Amir of Kashghar, so fully described by our author. It may be dated about the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth century, and we may infer that nearly everything of intrinsic value was brought to light, while much that was of antiquarian interest was destroyed, so that when, at some future time, civilised explorers come to investigate the ruins, and find little to reward their labours, they may feel themselves indebted to the cupidity of Mirza Abá Bakr for their disappointment. The tales which the author tells of the riches accumulated by the Mirza, may safely be regarded as, in a great measure, fabulous; but it is precisely tales such as these that have given rise to the inflated estimates of buried wealth so common in the country, even at the present day.

Here and there valuable records of the past may still be forthcoming from the submerged towns, like those obtained in 1874, by Sir D. Forsyth, who enumerates a figure of Buddha of the tenth century, a clay figure of the Hindu monkey-god Hanuman, and Hindu women's ornaments, all pointing to that close intercourse with India which we know, from other sources, to have existed in times before Muhammadanism prevailed and crushed it. He also obtained several Greek coins of great antiquity and interest. Among these is mentioned especially one of Antimachus, dating about 140 B.C., and another, of Menander, from about the year 126 B.C., while a third, an iron one of Hermæus, might, it was thought, prove even older than either of these. But it is not necessarily among the ruins buried by the shifting sands, that relics of remote ages will be found. Very ancient remains are known already to exist at various points along the southern spurs of the Tian Shan, though nothing has yet been ascertained as to the age they belong to. It was near the town of Kuchar—the ancient Kuitze of the Chinese—that Captain Bower found the famous birch-bark manuscript, written in Sanskrit and dating from the fifth century, while he also points to ruins of cities which, though buried beneath the present level of the country, have no connection with the shifting sands.^71a

But it is time to turn from the land of the man to the man of the land.