PREFACE.

Tûrki is the ordinary language spoken in their families, and even at their* court, as well as by one-half of the population of Persia, particularly by the tribes around the capital, who compose the strength of the army, the Persian is the usual and almost only channel of written communication; nor am I aware that any work of note has, of late years, been written in the Tûrki tongue.

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

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

Allah

* The same was the case even under the Sufvi dynasty, as we learn from Kæmpfer. See Amanitat. Exotic. It may appear singular, that while all the neighbouring courts used the Persian as the language of polite intercourse and diplomacy, the Tûrki was the court language in Persia itself; but it arose from its being the mother tongue of the sovereign, who belonged to a Tûrki tribe.

Baber does not inform us, nor do we learn from any other quarter, at what period of his life he began to compose his Memoirs. Some considerations might lead us to suppose that he wrote them after his last invasion of India. That they must have been corrected after that period is certain, since in the first part of them he frequently refers to that event, and mentions some of his Begs as holding appointments in Hindustan. Perhaps, too, the idea of writing his Memoirs was more likely to have occur red to him after his success in India, than at any previous time, as he had then overcome all his difficulties, was raised to eminence and distinction, and had become not only an object of wonder and attention to others, but perhaps stood higher in his own estimation. His Memoirs may be divided into three parts, the first extending from his accession to the throne of Ferghâna, to the time when he was finally driven by Sheibâni Khan from his paternal kingdom, a period of about twelve years; the second reaching from his expulsion from Ferghana to his last invasion of Hindustân, a period of about twenty-two years; and the third containing his transactions in Hindustân, a period of little more than five. The whole of the first part, and the three first years of the second, are evidently written chiefly from recollection; and the style and manner in which they are composed, appear to me far to excel that of the rest of the work; not only from the clearer connexion given to the various parts of the story, and the space given to incidents in proportion to their importance, but from the superior unity and rapidity of the narrative. This is, perhaps, in other respects also, the most agreeable portion of the Memoirs. During a great part of the period to which they relate, he was unfortunate, and often a wanderer; but always lively, active, and bold; and the reader follows him in his various adventures with that delight which inevitably springs from the minute and animated recital of the hazardous exploits of a youthful warrior. A.D. 1519. The narrative, when renewed in the year 925 of the Hejira, after an interval of twelve years, partakes too much of the tedium of a journal, in which important and unimpor tant events find an equal space, and seems to be in a great measure the copy of one kept at the time. The same remark applies perhaps even more strongly to the greater part of the concluding portion of the work. In the earlier portions of the Memoirs we have a continuous narrative of details, such as a lively memory might furnish at the distance of many years. In the latter parts, trifling incidents are often recorded, which, if not committed to writing at the time, would soon have met the oblivion they merited. We are informed of minute particulars which can interest even the writer only by recalling particular events or peculiar trains of association-how often he eat a maajûn, or electuary—how often he got drunk, and what nameless men were his boon companions. These incidents, however curious as illustrative of manners or character, are repeated even to satiety. Yet these parts also contain the valuable accounts of Kabul and of Hindustân; he gives an occasional view of his aims and motives, of the management of some of his expeditions, and particularly of his conduct during the alarming mutiny of his troops; while the concluding portion of his Memoirs, where the form of a journal is resumed, appears to be hardly more than materials for his private use, intended to assist him in recalling to his memory such incidents as might have enabled

him to furnish a connected view of the transactions of that period. Still, however, all the three parts of his Memoirs, though the two last are evidently unfinished, present a very curious and valuable picture of the life and manners of a Tartar Prince, and convey an excellent idea of Baber's policy, and of his wars in Mâweralnaher, Afghânishtân, and India, as well as of his manners, genius, and habits of thinking; and perhaps no work ever composed introduces us so completely to the court and council, the public and private life of an Eastern Sultan.

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

Baber himself seems to have been satisfied with his labours, for, towards the close of his life, we find him sending a copy of his work from Hindustân to a friend in Kabul. The Memoirs continued to be held in the greatest veneration at the Courts of Delhi and Agra after his death. From some marginal notes which appear on both copies of the translation, as well as on the Tûrki original, it appears that the Emperor Humâiûn, even after he had ascended the throne, and not long before his death, had transcribed the Memoirs with his own hand. In the reign of Akber, they were translated from the original Tûrki into Persian by the celebrated Mirza Abdal-Rahîm, the son of the Biram Khan, who acted so conspicuous a part in the reigns of the Emperors Humâiûn and Akber.*

* As his translation is so often referred to in the following pages, and may be regarded as in some degree a second original, a few anecdotes of the life of the author may not be here misplaced:-When Humâiûn, after his long misfortunes, was restored to the throne of Delhi, in order to attach to his interests the chief men of the various principalities of Hindustân, he encouraged intermarriages between their families and those of his chief Tartar officers. He himself married one daughter of Ismael Khan, the nephew of Hassan Khan of Mewât, so often spoken of in the third part of these Memoirs, and gave another daughter to Biram Khan, his minister and favourite. Of this last marriage, Mirza Abdal-Rahîm was born at Lahore on the 17th of December, 1556, in the first year of Akber'st reign. His father, who was thus connected with the imperial family, and who was unfortunately too powerful for a subject, after having been goaded into rebellion, was killed in Guzerat when on his way to perform the pilgrimage of Mekka. Abdal-Rahim, his son, then only four years of age, was conveyed in safety to Ahmeda

+14 Sefer, A. H. 964. See the Maaser al Omra, vol. I. folio. Art. Abdal-Rahim, MS.-This work, which is well known in India, is a curious and very correct Biographical Dictionary of all the eminent statesmen and warriors who have flourished in that country since the time of Baber. It is in two large folio volumes.

number and variety of the literary undertakings of that extraordinary man, many of which he had conducted far towards a conclusion, would have excited surprise, had they been executed by a recluse schólar, who had no public duties to perform, and whose time was devoted to literature alone. As he was cut off in the full vigour of his mind indeed, but suddenly, and without warning, he was prevented from putting the last hand to any of his greater works; yet from the knowledge which you possess of his researches, you will perhaps agree with me in thinking, that the full extent of his powers cannot be justly estimated from anything that he has published. The facility with which he mastered an uncommon number of languages, ancient and modern, European and Oriental, the extent and ingenuity of his antiquarian inquiries into the Literary History of his own country, and even the beauty of his poetical genius, are surpassed by the sagacious and philosophical spirit which he evinced, in the latter period of his life, in his different Memoirs regarding the languages of the East, and particularly those of Hindustan, Bengal, the Dekhan, and Northern India. The acute discrimination, the various and patient research which he brought to the task, combine to render them, unfinished as they unfortunately are, and imperfect as, from the nature of the subject, they necessarily must be, one of the most valuable literary gifts that India has yet bestowed on the West. These, or the substance of them, will, it is hoped, be given to the world under the care of some one who may do justice both to them and their author. The turn of mind that directs to the successful prosecution of studies so remote from the beaten tracts of literature, is so rare, that even the unfinished essays of an accomplished observer, with all their defects, are of singular value, and inconceivably lessen the happier labour of succeeding inquirers.

If the share which I have had in completing and correcting for the press the following papers, which, however, are of a very different kind, shall enable the Public to benefit by one of the lesser labours of Dr Leyden, of which it would otherwise have been deprived-or if it adds, in any degree, to the idea justly entertained of his learning, industry, and judgment, I shall be satisfied. I could have wished, on his account, that the execution had been more perfect. It would have been pleasing to me to have offered a tribute worthy of a friend endued with so many rare and valuable talents, warmed

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by every manly and generous feeling, and rendered doubly dear to me, as the only companion of my youthful studies and cares, whom I have met, or can ever hope to meet, in this land of exile.

Though I well know, that no man is so likely as yourself to be alive to the defects of the following pages, no European having seen so much of the countries described in them, or inquired so successfully into their history, yet I present them to you with more confidence than I might otherwise have done, as I seem only to pay you a debt which I owe in common with my excellent friend. And perhaps you will not judge me too hardly, should it seem that I am not uninfluenced by the vanity of letting it be known, that I too may pride myself in having shared some portion of your regard. Believe me to be,