their brethren at home any taste for the splendours which might have excited their own admiration. By the time that our intercourse with those regions was enlarged, our own career of improvement had been prosperously begun; and our superiority in the art, or at least the discipline of war, having given us a signal advantage in the conflicts to which that extending intercourse immediately led, naturally increased the aversion and disdain with which almost all races of men are apt to regard strangers to their blood and dissenters from their creed. Since that time the genius of Europe has been steadily progressive, whilst that of Asia has been at least stationary, and most probably retrograde; and the descendants of the feudal and predatory warriors of the West have at last attained a decided predominancy over those of their elder brothers in the East; to whom, at that period, they were unquestionably inferior in elegance and ingenuity, and whose hostilities were then conducted on the same system with our own. They, in short, have remained nearly where they were; while we, beginning with the improvement of our governments and military discipline, have gradually outstripped them in all the lesser and more ornamental attainments in which they originally excelled. This extraordinary fact of the stationary or degenerate condition of the two oldest and greatest families of mankind-those of Asia and Africa, has always appeared to us a sad obstacle in the way of those who believe in the general progress of the race, and its constant advancement towards a state of perfection. Two or three thousand years ago, those vast communities were certainly in a happier and more prosperous state than they are now; and in many of them we know that their most powerful and flourishing societies have been corrupted and dissolved, not by any accidental or extrinsic disaster, like foreign conquest, pestilence, or elemental devastation, but by what appeared to be the natural consequences of that very greatness and refinement which had marked and rewarded their earlier exertions. In Europe, hitherto, the case has certainly been different: For though darkness did fall upon its nations also, after the lights of Roman civilisation were extinguished, it is to be remembered that they did not burn out of themselves, but were trampled down by hosts of invading barbarians, and that they blazed out anew, with increased splendour and power, when the dulness of that superincumbent mass was at length vivified by their contact, and animated by the fermentation of that leaven which had all along been secretly working in its recesses. In Europe certainly there has been a progress: And the more polished of its present inhabitants have not only regained the place which was held of old by their illustrious masters of Greece and Rome, but have plainly outgone them in the most substantial and exalted of their improvements. Far more humane and refined than the Romans-far less giddy and turbulent and treacherous than the Greeks, they have given a security to life and property that was unknown to the earlier ages of the worldexalted the arts of peace to a dignity with which they were never before invested; and, by the abolition of domestic servitude, for the first time extended to the bulk of the popula tion those higher capacities and enjoyments which were formerly engrossed by a few. By the invention of printing, they have made all knowledge, not only accessible, but imperishable; and by their improvements in the art of war, have effectually secured themselves against the overwhelming calamity of barbarous invasion-the risk of subjugation by mere numerical or animal force: Whilst the alternations of conquest and defeat amongst civilised communities, who alone can now be formidable to each other, though productive of great local and temporary evils, may be regarded on the whole as one of the means of promoting and equalising the general civilisation. Rome polished and enlightened all the barbarous nations she subdued-and was herself polished and enlightened by her conquest of elegant Greece. If the European` parts of Russia had been subjected to the dominion of France, there can be no doubt that the loss of national independence would have been compensated by rapid advances both in liberality and refinement; and if, by a still more disastrous, though less improbable contingency, the Moscovite hordes were ever to overrun the fair countries to the south-west of them, it is equally certain that the invaders would speedily be softened and informed by the union; and be infected more certainly than by any other sort of contact, with the arts and the knowledge of the vanquished. All these great advantages, however-this apparently irrepressible impulse to improvement-this security against backsliding and decay, seems peculiar to Europe, and not capable of being communicated, even by her, to the most docile races of the other quarters of the world: and it is really extremely difficult to explain, upon what are called philosophical principles, the causes of this superiority. We should be very glad to ascribe it to our greater political Freedom-and no doubt, as a secondary cause, this is among the most powerful; as it is to the maintenance of that freedom that we are indebted for the selfestimation, the feeling of honour, the general equity of the laws, and the substantial security both from sudden revolution and from capricious oppression, which distinguish our portion of the globe. But we cannot bring ourselves to regard this freedom as a mere accident in our history, that is not itself to be accounted for, as well as its consequences: And when it is said that our greater stability * When we speak of Europe, it will be under. stood that we speak, not of the land, but of the people-and include, therefore, all the settlements and colonies of that favoured race, in whatever quarter of the globe they may now be established. Some situations seem more, and some less, favourable to the preservation of the original character, The Spaniards certainly degenerated in Peru-and the Dutch perhaps in Batavia;-but the English remain, we trust, unimpaired in America. and prosperity is owing to our greater freedom, | of its authors-the substantial advantages of we are immediately tempted to ask, by what honesty and fair dealing over the most ingethat freedom has itself been produced? In nious systems of trickery and fraud;-and the same way we might ascribe the superior even-though this is the last and hardest, as mildness and humanity of our manners, the well as the most precious, of all the lessons abated ferocity of our wars, and generally our of reason and experience-that the toleration. respect for human life, to the influence of a even of religious errors is not only prudent Religion which teaches that all men are equal and merciful in itself, and most becoming a in the sight of God, and inculcates peace and fallible and erring being, but is the surest charity as the first of our duties. But, besides and speediest way to compose religious differthe startling contrast between the profligacy, ences, and to extinguish that most formidable treachery, and cruelty of the Eastern Empire bigotry, and those most pernicious errors, after its conversion to the true faith, and the which are fed and nourished by persecution. simple and heroic virtues of the heathen re- It is the want of this knowledge, or rather of public, it would still occur to inquire, how it the capacity for attaining it, that constitutes has happened that the nations of European the palpable inferiority of the Eastern races descent have alone embraced the sublime and, in spite of their fancy, ingenuity, and truths, and adopted into their practice the restless activity, condemns them, it would mild precepts, of Christianity, while the peo- appear irretrievably, to vices and sufferings, ple of the East have uniformly rejected and from which nations in a far ruder condition disclaimed them, as alien to their character are comparatively free. But we are wanderand habits-in spite of all the efforts of the ing too far from the magnificent Baber and apostles, fathers, and martyrs, in the primitive his commentators, and must now leave these and most effective periods of their preaching? vague and general speculations for the facts How, in short, it has happened that the sensual and details that lie before us. and sanguinary creed of Mahomet has super- Zehir-ed-din Muhammed, surnamed Baber, seded the pure and pacific doctrines of Chris- or the Tiger, was one of the descendants of tianity in most of those very regions where it Zengiskhan and of Tamerlane; and though was first revealed to mankind, and first es- inheriting only the small kingdom of Fergtablished by the greatest of existing govern- hana in Bucharia, ultimately extended his ments? The Christian revelation is no doubt dominions by conquest to Delhi and the the most precious of all Heaven's gifts to the greater part of Hindostan; and transmitted to benighted world. But it is plain, that there his famous descendants, Akber and Aurengwas a greater aptitude to embrace and to zebe, the magnificent empire of the Moguls. profit by it in the European than in the Asiatic He was born in 1482, and died in 1530. race. A free government, in like manner, is Though passing the greater part of his time unquestionably the most valuable of all human in desperate military expeditions, he was an inventions-the great safeguard of all other educated and accomplished man; an elegant temporal blessings, and the mainspring of all poet; a minute and fastidious critic in all the intellectual and moral improvement:-But niceties and elegances of diction; a curious such a government is not the result of a lucky and exact observer of the statistical phenothought or happy casualty; and could only be mena of every region he entered; a great adestablished among men who had previously mirer of beautiful prospects and fine flowers; learned both to relish the benefits it secures, and, though a devoted Mahometan in his and to understand the connection between the way, a very resolute and jovial drinker of means it employs and the ends at which it aims. wine. Good-humoured, brave, munificent, We come then, though a little reluctantly, sagacious, and frank in his character, he to the conclusion, that there is a natural and in- might have been a Henry IV. if his training herent difference in the character and temper- had been in Europe; and even as he is, is ament of the European and the Asiatic races less stained, perhaps, by the Asiatic vices of -consisting, perhaps, chiefly in a superior cruelty and perfidy than any other in the list capacity of patient and persevering thought in of her conquerors. The work before us is a the former-and displaying itself, for the most faithful translation of his own account of his part, in a more sober and robust understanding, life and transactions; written, with some conand a more reasonable, principled, and inflexi- siderable blanks, up to the year 1508, in the ble morality. It is this which has led us, at form of a narrative-and continued afteronce to temper our political institutions with wards, as a journal, till 1529. It is here prospective checks and suspicious provisions illustrated by the most intelligent, learned, against abuses, and, in our different orders and least pedantic notes we have ever seen and degrees, to submit without impatience to annexed to such a performance; and by two those checks and restrictions;-to extend our or three introductory dissertations, more clear, reasonings by repeated observation and ex-masterly, and full of instruction than any it periment, to larger and larger conclusions has ever been our lot to peruse on the history and thus gradually to discover the paramount importance of discipline and unity of purpose in war, and of absolute security to person and property in all peaceful pursuits-the folly of all passionate and vindictive assertion of supposed rights and pretensions, and the certain recoil of long-continued injustice on the heads or geography of the East. The translation was begun by the late very learned and enterprising Dr. Leyden. It has been completed, and the whole of the valuable commentary added by Mr. W. Erskine, on the solicitation of the Hon. Mountstewart Elphinstone and Sir John Malcolm, the two indi viduals in the world best qualified to judge of the value or execution of such a work. The greater part of the translation was finished and transmitted to this country in 1817; but was only committed to the press in the course of last year. "The whole of Asia may be considered as divided into two parts by the great chain of mountains which runs from China and the Birman Empire on the east, to the Black Sea and the Mediterranean on the west. From the eastward, where it is of great breadth, it keeps a north-westerly course, rising in height as it advances, and forming the hill countries of Assâm, Bootân, Nepal, Sirinagar, Tibet, and Ladak. It encloses the valley of Kashmir, near which it seems to have gained its greatest the north of Peshawer and Kabul, after which it height, and thence proceeds westward, passing to appears to break into a variety of smaller ranges of hills that proceed in a westerly and south-westof Khorasan. Near Herât, in that province, the rise again near Meshhed, and is by some considmountains sink away; but the range appears to ered 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, Hindustan, the Penjab, Afghanistan, Persia, and part of the Turkish territory, from the country of the Moghul and Turki 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 civilisation, from uncivilised 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 has not been the seat of a powerful empire, and of nation which, at some period or other of its history, 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 civilisation and of happiness possessed in these various regions may have been wealth and abundance, and no small share of the extremely different; but many of the comforts of 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 day, wander over their extensive regions as their its banks, we find tribes who, down to the present 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 The preface contains a learned account of the Turki language, (in which these memoirs were written,) the prevailing tongue of Central Asia, and of which the Constantinopolitan Turkish is one of the most corrupted dialects, --some valuable corrections of Sir William Jones' notices of the Institutes of Taimur,-erly direction, generally terminating in the province and a very clear explanation of the method employed in the translation, and the various helps by which the great difficulties of the task were relieved. The first Introduction, however, contains much more valuable matters: It is devoted to an account of the great Tartar tribes, who, under the denomination of the Turki, the Moghul, and the Mandshur races, may be said to occupy the whole vast extent of Asia, north of Hindostan and part of Persia, and westward from China. Of these, the Mandshurs, who have long been the sovereigns of China, possess the countries immediately to the north and east of that ancient empire-the Turki, the regions immediately to the north and westward of India and Persia 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 : The learned translator conceives that the supposed name of this famous barbarian was truly only the denomination of his office. It is known that he succeeded his uncle in the government, though there were children of his alive. It is probable, therefore, that he originally assumed authority in the character of their guardian; and the word Atalik, in Tartar, signifies guardian, or quasi parens. 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 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 Mâweral. naher 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 primogeni. ture, 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 harem 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 Mussulman 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 life. Yet we know that the one (which has indeed become a necessary of life to every class of Mussulmans) 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 ond." La Roque, Traité Historique de i' Origine et du Progrés du Café, &c. Paris, 1716, 12mo. The Yasi, or institutions of Chengiz, 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 partic ular crimes. The punishments were only twodeath 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 Mussulman 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. a clear and brief abstract of the history of There is a second Introduction, containing those regions from the time of Tamerlane to that of Baber,-together with an excellent Memoir on the annexed map, and an 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 writ ten, 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 conmuch in favour with monarchs. As a speci cerns greatly too rational and humble to be men of the adventurous life of the chieftains * D'Herbelot, Biblioth. Orient. art. Turk. + Hist. de Timur Bec, vol. iii. pp. 227. 263. 326, &c. of those days, and of Baber's manner of de- | provision within the fort. I looked for aid and asscribing it, we may pass at once to his account sistance from the princes my neighbours; but each of his being besieged in Samarkand, and the of them had his attention fixed on some other object. For example, Sultan Hussain Mirza was unparticulars of his flight after he was obliged doubtedly a brave and experienced monarch, yet neither did he give me assistance, nor even send an ambassador to encourage me.' to abandon it : During the continuance of the siege, the rounds of the rampart were regularly gone, once every night, sometimes by Kasim 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. the city, and moves off privately in the night. He is obliged, in consequence, to evacuate The following account of his flight, we think, is extremely picturesque and interesting. "Having entangled ourselves among the great branches of the canals of the Soghd, during the darkness of the night, we lost our way, and after encountering many difficulties we passed Khwajeh Dîdàr about dawn. By the time of early morning prayers, we arrived at the hillock of Karbogh, and passing it on the north below the village of Kherdek, we made for Ilân-ûtî. On the road, I had a race with Kamber Ali and Kâsim Beg. My horse got the lead. As I turned round on my seat to see how far I had left them behind, my saddle-girth being slack, the saddle turned round, and I came to the ground right on my head. Although I im mediately sprang up and mounted, yet I did not recover the full possession of my faculties till the evening, and the world, and all that occurred at the time, passed before my eyes and apprehension like a dream, or a phantasy, and disappeared. The time of afternoon prayers was past ere we reached Ilàn-ûtî, where we alighted, and having killed a horse, cut him up, and dressed slices of his flesh; we stayed a little time to rest our horses, then mounting again, before day-break we alighted at the village of Khalileh. From Khalileh we proceeded to Dizak. At that time Tâher Dûldai, the son of Hâfez Muhammed Beg Dûldai, was governor of Dizak. Here we found nice fat flesh, bread of fine flour well baked, sweet melons, and excellent grapes in great abundance; thus passing from the extreme of famine to plenty, and from an estate of danger and calamity to peace and ease. "One day Sheibâni Khan made an attack between the Iron gate and that of the Sheikh-Zâdeh. 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 SheikhZadeh's gateway, I struck a palish white coloured horse an excellent shot with my cross-bow: it fell dead the moment my arrow touched it; but in the meanwhile they had made such a vigorous attack, near the Camel's Neck, that they effected a lodg. ment close under the rampart. Being hotly engaged in repelling the enemy where I was, I had entertained no apprehensions of danger on the other side, where they had prepared and brought with them twenty-five or twenty-six scaling-ladders, each of them so broad that two and three men could mount a-breast. He had placed in ambush, opposite to the city-wall, seven or eight hundred chosen men with these ladders, between the Ironsmiths' and Needlemakers' gates, while he himself moved to the other side, and made a false attack. Our attention was entirely drawn off to this attack; and the men in ambush no sooner saw the works opposite to them empty of defenders, by the watch having left them, than they rose from the place where they had lain in ambush, advanced with extreme speed, and applied their scaling-ladders all at once between the two gates that have been mentioned, exactly opposite to Muhammed Mazîd Terkhan's house. In my whole life, I never enjoyed myself so The Begs who were on guard had only two or much, nor at any period of it felt so sensibly the three of their servants and attendants about them. pleasures of peace and plenty. Enjoyment after Nevertheless Kuch Beg, Muhammed Kûli Kochin, suffering, abundance after want, come with inShah Sufi, and another brave cavalier, boldly assail- creased relish, and afford more exquisite delight. I ed them, and displayed signal heroism. Some of have four or five times, in the course of my life, the enemy had already mounted the wall, and passed in a similar manner from distress to ease, several others were in the act of scaling it, when and from a state of suffering to enjoyment: but this the four persons who have been mentioned arrived was the first time that I had ever been delivered at on the spot, fell upon them sword in hand, with the once from the injuries of my enemy, and the presgreatest bravery, and dealing out furious blows sure of hunger, and passed to the ease of security, around them, drove the assailants back over the and the pleasures of plenty. Having rested and wall, and put them to flight. Kuch Beg distin-enjoyed ourselves two or three days in Dizak, we guished himself above all the rest; and this was an exploit for ever to be cited to his honour. He twice during this siege performed excellent service by his valour. "It was now the season of the ripening of the grain, and nobody had brought in any new corn. As the siege had drawn out to great length, the inhabitants were reduced to extreme distress, and things came to such a pass, that the poor and meaner sort were forced to feed on dogs' and asses' flesh. Grain for the horses becoming scarce, they were obliged to be fed on the leaves of trees; and it was ascertained from experience, that the leaves of the mulberry and blackwood answered best. Many used the shavings and raspings of wood, which they soaked in water, and gave to their horses. For three or four months Sheibâni Khan did not approach the fortress, but blockaded it at some distance on all sides, changing his ground from time to time. "The ancients have said, that in order to maintain a fortress, a head, two hands, and two feet are necessary. The head is a captain, the two hands are two friendly forces that must advance from opposite sides; the two feet are water and stores of proceeded on to Uratippa. "Dekhat is one of the hill-districts of Uratippa. It lies on the skirts of a very high mountain, immediately on passing which you come on the country of Masîkha. The inhabitants, though Sarts, have large flocks of sheep, and herds of mares, like the Turks. The sheep belonging to Dekhat may amount to forty thousand. We took up our lodg ings in the peasants' houses. I lived at the house of one of the head men of the place. He was an aged man, seventy or eighty years old. His mother was still alive, and had attained an extreme old age, being at this time a hundred and eleven years old. One of this lady's relations had accompanied the army of Taimur Beg, when it invaded Hindustân. The circumstances remained fresh in her memory, and she often told us stories on that subject. In the district of Dekhat alone, there still were of this lady's children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren, to the number of ninety-six persons; and including those deceased. the whole amounted to two hundred. One of her great-grandchildren was at this time a young man of twenty-five or twenty-six years of age, with a fine black beard. While I Y |