218

THE GREAT TARTAR TRIBES.

Proper, stretching round the Caspian, and advancing, by the Constantinopolitan tribes, considerably to the southeast of Europe. The Moghuls lie principally between the other two. These three tribes speak, it would appear, totally different languages - the name of Tartar or Tatar, by which they are generally designated in Europe, not being acknowledged by any of them, and appearing to have been appropriated only to a small clan of Moghuls. The Huns, who desolated the declining empire under Attila*, are thought by Mr. Erskine to have been of the Moghul race; and Zengiskhan, the mighty conqueror of the thirteenth century, was certainly of that family. Their princes, however, were afterwards blended, by family alliances, with those of the Turki; and several of them, reigning exclusively over conquered tribes of that descent, came gradually, though of proper Moghul ancestry, to reckon themselves as Turki sovereigns. Of this description was Taimur Beg, or Tamerlane, whose family, though descended from Zengis, had long been settled in the Turki kingdom of Samarkand; and from him the illustrious Baber, the hero of the work before us, a decided Turki in language, character, and prejudices, was lineally sprung. The relative condition of these enterprising nations, and their more peaceful brethren in the south, cannot be more clearly or accurately described than in the words of Mr. Erskine:

MR. ERSKINE'S MASTERLY VIEW OF THEIR RELATIONS. 219

of Peshawer and Kâbul, after which it appears to break into a variety of smaller ranges of hills that proceed in a westerly and southwesterly direction, generally terminating in the province of Khorasân. Near Herât, in that province, the mountains sink away; but the range appears to rise again near Meshhed, and is by some considered as resuming its course, running to the south of the Caspian and bounding Mazenderân, whence it proceeds on through Armenia, and thence into Asia Minor, finding its termination in the mountains of ancient Lycia. This immense range, which some consider as terminating at Herât, while it divides Bengal, Hindustân, the Penjab, Afghanistan, Persia, and part of the Turkish territory, from the country of the Moghul and Tûrki tribes, which, with few exceptions, occupy the whole extent of country from the borders of China to the sea of Azof, may also be considered as separating, in its whole course, nations of comparative civilization, from uncivilized tribes. To the south of this range, if we perhaps except some part of the Afghân territory, which, indeed, may rather be held as part of the range itself than as south of it, there is no nation which, at some period or other of its history, has not been the seat of a powerful empire, and of all those arts and refinements of life which attend a numerous and wealthy population, when protected by a government that permits the fancies and energies of the human mind to follow their natural bias. The degrees of civilization and of happiness possessed in these various regions may have been extremely different; but many of the comforts of wealth and abundance, and no small share of the higher treasures of cultivated judgment and imagination, must have been enjoyed by nations that could produce the various systems of Indian philosophy and science, a drama so polished as the Sakontala, a poet like Ferdousi, or a moralist like Sadi. While to the south of this range we every where see flourishing cities, cultivated fields, and all the forms of a regular government and policy, to the north of it, if we except China and the countries to the south of the Sirr or Jaxartes, and along its banks, we find tribes who, down to the present day, wander over their extensive regions as their forefathers did, little if at all more refined than they appear to have been at the very dawn of history. Their flocks are still their wealth, their camp their city, and the same government exists of separate chiefs, who are not much exalted in luxury or information above the commonest of their subjects around them."

These general remarks are followed up by an exact and most luminous geographical enumeration of all the branches of this great northern family, - accompanied with historical notices, and very interesting elucidations of various passages both in ancient and modern writers. The following observations are of more extensive application:

"The general state of society which prevailed in the age of Baber, within the countries that have been described, will be much better

220

BABER- STATE OF ASIA IN HIS DAYS.

understood from a perusal of the following Memoirs than from any prefatory observations that could be offered. It is evident that, in consequence of the protection which had been afforded to the people of Mâweralnaher by their regular governments, a considerable degree of comfort, and perhaps still more of elegance and civility, prevailed in the towns. The whole age of Baber, however, was one of great confusion. Nothing contributed so much to produce the constant wars, and eventual devastation of the country, which the Memoirs exhibit, as the want of some fixed rule of Succession to the Throne. The ideas of regal descent, according to primogeniture, were very indistinct, as is the case in all Oriental, and, in general, in all purely despotic kingdoms. When the succession to the crown, like every thing else, is subject to the will of the prince, on his death it necessarily becomes the subject of contention; - since the will of a dead king is of much less consequence than the intrigues of an able minister, or the sword of a successful commander. It is the privilege of liberty and of law alone to bestow equal security on the rights of the monarch and of the people. The death of the ablest sovereign was only the signal for a general war. The different parties at court, or in the haram of the prince, espoused the cause of different competitors, and every neighbouring potentate believed himself to be perfectly justified in marching to seize his portion of the spoil. In the course of the Memoirs, we shall find that the grandees of the court, while they take their place by the side of the candidate of their choice, do not appear to believe that fidelity to him is any very necessary virtue. The nobility, unable to predict the events of one twelvemonth, degenerate into a set of selfish, calculating, though perhaps brave partizans. Rank, and wealth, and present enjoyment, become their idols. The prince feels the influence of the general want of stability, and is himself educated in the loose principles of an adventurer. In all about him he sees merely the instruments of his power. The subject, seeing the prince consult only his pleasures, learns on his part to consult only his private convenience. In such societies, the steadiness of principle that flows from the love of right and of our country can have no place. It may be questioned whether the prevalence of the Mahommedan religion, by swallowing up civil in religious distinctions, has not a tendency to increase this indifference to country, wherever it is established."

"That the fashions of the East are unchanged, is, in general, certainly true; because the climate and the despotism, from the one or other of which a very large proportion of them arises, have continued the same. Yet one who observes the way in which a Musulman of rank spends his day, will be led to suspect that the maxim has sometimes been adopted with too little limitation. Take the example of his pipe and his coffee. The Kalliûn, or Hukkâ, is seldom out of his hand; while the coffee-cup makes its appearance every hour, as if it contained a necessary of life. Perhaps there are no enjoyments the loss of which he would feel more severely; or which, were we to judge only by the frequency of the call for them, we should suppose to have entered from a more remote period into the system of Asiatic HABITS NOT INFLEXIBLE - INSTITUTES OF CHENGÎZ. 221

life. Yet we know that the one (which has indeed become a necessary of life to every class of Musulmans) could not have been enjoyed before the discovery of America; and there is every reason to believe that the other was not introduced into Arabia from Africa, where coffee is indigenous, previously to the sixteenth century *; and what marks the circumstance more strongly, both of these habits have forced their way, in spite of the remonstrances of the rigorists in religion. Perhaps it would have been fortunate for Baber had they prevailed in his age, as they might have diverted him from the immoderate use first of wine, and afterwards of deleterious drugs, which ruined his constitution, and hastened on his end."

The Yasi, or institutions of Chengîz, are often mentioned.

"They seem," says Mr. Erskine, "to have been a collection of the old usages of the Moghul tribes, comprehending some rules of state and ceremony, and some injunctions for the punishment of particular crimes. The punishments were only two-death and the bastinado†; the number of blows extending from seven to seven hundred. There is something very Chinese in the whole of the Moghul system of punishment, even princes advanced in years, and in command of large armies, being punished by bastinado with a stick, by their father's orders. ‡ Whether they received their usage in this respect from the Chinese, or communicated it to them, is not very certain. As the whole body of their laws or customs was formed before the introduction of the Musulman religion, and was probably in many respects inconsistent with the Koran, as, for instance, in allowing the use of the blood of animals, and in the extent of toleration granted to other religions, it gradually fell into decay."

The present Moghul tribes, it is added, punish most offences by fines of cattle. The art of war in the days of Baber had not been very greatly matured; and though matchlocks and unwieldy cannon had been recently introduced from the West, the arms chiefly relied on were still the bow and the spear, the sabre and the battle-axe. Mining was practised in sieges, and cavalry seems to have formed the least considerable part of the army.

There is a second Introduction, containing a clear and brief abstract of the history of those regions from the time of Tamerlane to that of Baber, - together with an excellent Memoir on the annexed map, and an

222 BABER-SIMPLICITY AND GOOD SENSE OF HIS MEMOIRS.

account of the hills and rivers of Bokara, of which it would be idle to attempt any abstract.

As to the Memoirs themselves, we have already said that we think it in vain to recommend them as a portion of History with which our readers should be acquainted, - or consequently to aim at presenting them with any thing in the nature of an abstract, or connected account of the events they so minutely detail. All that we propose to do, therefore, is, to extract a few of the traits which appear to us the most striking and characteristic, and to endeavour, in a very short compass, to give an idea of whatever curiosity or interest the work possesses. The most remarkable thing about it, or at least that which first strikes us, is the simplicity of the style, and the good sense, varied knowledge, and extraordinary industry of the royal author. It is difficult, indeed, to believe that it is the work of an Asiatic, and a sovereign. Though copiously, and rather diffusely written, it is perfectly free from the ornamental verbosity, the eternal metaphor, and puerile exaggerations of most Oriental compositions; and though savouring so far of royalty as to abound in descriptions of dresses and ceremonies, is yet occupied in the main with concerns greatly too rational and humble to be much in favour with monarchs. As a specimen of the adventurous life of the chieftains of those days, and of Baber's manner of describing it, we may pass at once to his account of his being besieged in Samarkand, and the particulars of his flight after he was obliged to abandon it:

"During the continuance of the siege, the rounds of the rampart were regularly gone, once every night, sometimes by Kâsim Beg, and sometimes by other Begs and captains. From the Firozeh gate to the Sheikh-Zadeh gate, we were able to go along the ramparts on horseback; everywhere else we were obliged to go on foot. Setting out in the beginning of the night, it was morning before we had completed our rounds.

"One day Sheibâni Khan made an attack between the Iron gate and that of the Sheikh-Zadeh. As I was with the reverse, I immediately led them to the quarter that was attacked, without attending to the Washing-green gate or the Needlemakers' gate. That same day, from the top of the Sheikh-Zadeh's gateway, I struck a palish white-coloured horse an excellent shot with my cross-bow: it fell