Balkh, empty but for barking dogs
Editorial contextTravelling by night after crossing the Amu Darya on the way to Chinggis's camp, the party passed Balkh, a very large city whose people had recently revolted and fled, and all they heard inside was the barking of dogs. Bretschneider's note adds, from Rashid al-Din, that Balkh fell to Chinggis in 1221 and most of its people were massacred.
travelling during the night, we passed Ban-li a very large city, the inhabitants of which had revolted not long ago, and fled. We heard the barking of the dogs in the city.
About Inhabitants of Balkh under Mongol rule
Keep in mind
The diarist's 'revolted and fled' and Rashid al-Din's massacre are two versions of the city's fate; the travellers only passed by in the dark.
A Turkish king who will not stay in his own capital
Editorial contextKunduz (Huo) had a walled chief town and farmland, but its king was a Turk who ruled all the small kingdoms south of the Iron Gates. He did not live in the town: he kept moving 'like a bird'. Chains of neighbouring states in the old Tukhara lands are each described as having a capital but 'no chief ruler', being dependent on the Turks.
The king is of the Turkish clan; he governs all the little kingdoms to the south of the Iron Gates. He constantly shifts his dwelling, like a bird (his bird-dwelling), not constantly occupying this town.
About Western Turks
Continue in this sourceXuanzang's Records of the Western Regions629 to 645 · 12 passagesDressed like the Turks, crowned with a wooden horn
Editorial contextIn Himatala, near Badakhshan, people behaved and dressed like the Turks, in wool, skin and felt. Married women wore a wooden horn about three feet long on the head, with two branches standing for the husband's father and mother; when one parent-in-law died a branch was removed, and when both were dead the horn was given up.
In respect of their modes of behaviour and forms of etiquette, their clothes of wool, and skin, and felt, they are like the Turks. Their wives wear upon their head-dress a wooden horn about three feet or so in length. It has two branches (a double branch) in front, which signify father and mother of the husband.
About People of Himatala, living like the Turks
Continue in this sourceXuanzang's Records of the Western Regions629 to 645 · 12 passagesReading Gibbon on Genghis Khan to an Uzbek holy man
Editorial contextSheltering with a respected Uzbek pir (khaja) at Talikan, Moorcroft tried to translate into Persian the chapters of Gibbon's Decline and Fall about Genghis Khan and Timur. His host corrected the Persian style, was surprised a European knew so much about the 'Moguls', and admitted many facts were new to him. A European history of the Mongols thus travelled back to Central Asia.
Whilst under his protection, I attempted to render into Persian, for his use, the chapters of Gibbon which treat of Jangez Khan and Timur, in which the khaja took much interest, and corrected the style of the translation. He was much surprised that a European should have known so much of the history of the Moguls, and admitted that many of the facts were new to him
About Uzbeks
Continue in this sourceMoorcroft and Trebeck's travels to Ladakh, Kabul and Bukhara, 1819 to 18251819 to 1825 · 10 passagesHill people with 'Tartar' faces who say they came from the Moguls
Editorial contextElphinstone is puzzled by the Aimaqs and Hazaras: they live in the heart of Afghanistan but look, speak and behave quite differently. They have no history of their own origin and speak a dialect of Persian, yet their features and a tradition point to Mongol ancestry. He goes on to cite the historian Abu'l-Fazl, who says they are remnants of a Mongol prince's army.
Their features, however, refer them at once to the Tartar stock, and a tradition declares them to be the offspring of the Moguls. They are, indeed, frequently called by the name of Moguls to this day, and they are often confounded with the Moguls and Chagatyes, who still reside in the neighbourhood of Heraut.
About Aimaqs and Hazaras
Continue in this sourceElphinstone's account of Kabul and its Tartar neighbours1808 to 1809 · 11 passagesDozens of fortified towns, yet the people live in felt tents
Editorial contextBecause the land bordered the Turks, its people took up Turkish ways and were raided by them. They scattered, held dozens of strong walled towns each under its own chief, and lived in domed felt tents, moving about. Towns and tents side by side, in the same breath. Beal's English of this passage runs across pages 290 to 291.
[They took on] their [the Turks'] customs, and were also raided by them, and so defended their own borders. Therefore the people of this country are scattered in different districts, in several tens of strong walled towns, each with its own chief. They live in domed felt tents and move about from place to place.
Working translation
Original wording
其俗又見侵掠自守其境故此國人流離異域數十堅城各别立主穹廬毳帳遷徙往來
About People of Himatala, neighbours of the Turks
Continue in this sourceXuanzang's Records of the Western Regions629 to 645 · 12 passages'Have you a medicine of immortality?'
Editorial contextAt his first audience, in the Khan's camp south of the Hindu Kush, Chinggis welcomed the sage, fed him and asked outright for an elixir of immortality; Changchun answered that there were ways to preserve life but no medicine for immortality, and the Khan praised his honesty. At a later audience the sage firmly refused to drink the tung lo set before him, which Bretschneider explains as kumiss or other fermented milk (p.94). His teaching was translated into Mongol by the councillor A-hai and written down in both Chinese and Mongol (p.95).
After this he asked: "Sainted man, you have come from a great distance. Have you a medicine of immortality?" The master replied: "There are means for preserving life, but no medicines for immortality." Chinghiz lauded him for his sincerity and candour. By imperial order two tents were pitched for the master east of the emperor's tents.
About Chinggis Khan
Continue in this sourceThe Daoist master Changchun's journey to Chinggis Khan1220 to 1223 · 18 passagesA Turkish prince speared in a dream for raiding a monastery
Editorial contextThe New Monastery at Balkh was so rich that rulers coveted it. A son of the Turkish Yabghu khan (named on the previous page) led his whole horde to plunder it and camped nearby. That night he dreamed that the guardian god Vaisravana drove a long halberd through his chest; he woke in pain, sent for the monks to beg forgiveness, and died before the messenger returned.
[He gathered] his tribes and led his troops to fall on the monastery by surprise, meaning to seize its treasures. He camped in the open not far from here. That night he dreamed he saw the god Vaisravana, who said: 'What power have you, that you dare to destroy this monastery?' and drove a long halberd through him from chest to back. The khan woke in terror, with a pain in his heart.
Working translation
Original wording
其部落率其戎旅奄襲伽藍欲圖珍寳去此不逺屯軍野次其夜夢見毗沙門天曰汝有何力敢壊伽藍因以長㦸貫徹胷背可汗驚寤便苦心痛
About Western Turks (son of the Yabghu khan)
Keep in mind
A monastery's protective legend, told to discourage raiders.
Kunduz: a capital of mud huts and tents
Editorial contextThe capital of the powerful Uzbek ruler Murad Beg was, Wood says, one of the most wretched towns in his lands: a few hundred mud hovels mixed with straw sheds and Uzbek tents, with fields running into the town and a fortress that was just a walled mound. On the next page he describes the ruler's citadel as an irregular building of kiln-dried brick with a moat.
Kunduz, though the capital of Murad Beg, is one of the most wretched in his dominions. Five or six hundred mud hovels contain its fixed population, while dotted amongst these, and scattered at random over the suburbs, are straw-built sheds intermixed with the Uzbek tent or Kirgah. … Nothing, in short, can be imagined less resembling a metropolis.
About Uzbeks of Murad Beg's state
Keep in mind
Wood openly links the town's poverty to his low opinion of Uzbek character; the physical description is what he saw.
Victims' blood smeared on faces and beards
Editorial contextThe Aimaqs are quiet under their chiefs, Elphinstone says, but savage in war. He reports throwing prisoners off cliffs and shooting them with arrows, and one occasion, told him by a man who was there, when they drank their victims' blood. A footnote (garbled) compares this to the Mongols' treatment of prisoners.
I have authentic accounts of their throwing their prisoners from precipices and shooting them to death with arrows; and on an occasion at which a … with whom I have conversed assisted, they actually drank the warm blood of their victims, and rubbed it over their faces and beards.
About Aimaqs
Keep in mind
An atrocity story from a single informant, the kind of tale told about enemies; Elphinstone could not check it.
Timur's archers could not hit the giant Buddhas
Editorial contextAt Bamiyan, Mohan Lal repeats the local story that Timur, returning from India, ordered his best archers to shoot down the colossal statues, but that not one arrow struck them. He had just recounted that Hindus credited the statues to the five Pandava brothers of the Mahabharata; Muslims linked them with the pre-Islamic idols Lat and Manat.
Being tempted by his religion, he ordered his expert archers to discharge their arrows against the images, which he wished to level to the ground ; but none of the arrows struck them, the cause of which I know not.
About Timur (Tamerlane)
Keep in mind
Tradition, not history; the statues were in fact Buddhist, carved around the sixth century AD.
Tash Kurghan: domed houses of clay and sun-dried brick
Editorial contextMoorcroft describes the Uzbek-ruled market town of Tash Kurghan: about 20,000 one-storey houses of clay and sun-dried brick, domed 'in the usual fashion of the country', each in its own walled yard with fruit trees, along straight streets that crossed at right angles with water running down them.
Tash Kurghan is about three miles in circumference, and may comprise about twenty thousand houses. They are built of clay and sun-dried bricks, of one story, with domes in the usual fashion of the country, and each stands by itself in a walled enclosure, often containing fruit-trees.
About Uzbeks and Tajiks
Continue in this sourceMoorcroft and Trebeck's travels to Ladakh, Kabul and Bukhara, 1819 to 18251819 to 1825 · 10 passagesHazara wives who run the household
Editorial contextElphinstone is surprised to find that among the Hazaras, a tribe he calls nearly savage, women have more standing than anywhere nearby. They manage the house and property, are consulted on everything, are never beaten and are not secluded. He also records, from hearsay, lurid claims about their morals which he admits are contradictory.
The wife manages the house, takes care of the property, does her share of the honors, and is very much consulted in all her husband's measures. Women are never beaten, and they have no concealment.
About Hazaras
Keep in mind
From informants; the same page repeats gossip about Hazara women that Elphinstone himself calls inconsistent.
Roadside buildings of the Mughal emperors
Editorial contextOn the road west from Kunduz, Wood found a domed water cistern and a guard tower that he credits to the 'Mongol' emperors, meaning the Mughal dynasty of India founded by Babur. He admired them as public works for travellers, and notes that the emperors had kept post-houses all the way to Balkh.
At the bottom of their western slope stands a water-cistern, a dome-covered building, and a guard-tower … remnants of Mongol munificence, evincing, by their usefulness rather than their beauty, the philanthropic spirit of the monarch who erected them. … for during the palmy days of Baber's line the emperors of Hindustan had post-houses
About Mughal emperors of India (Babur's line), called 'Mongol' by Wood
Keep in mind
The attribution to the Mughals is Wood's own judgment.
Priests who dealt in slaves
Editorial contextWood says the Sunni Uzbeks of Kunduz treated persecution of Shia Muslims as proof of faith, and that their religious leaders were the biggest slave dealers, buying Shia captives and justifying it as good for the soul. Elsewhere he describes chained slave tributes on the road to Kunduz.
These mullahs, or priests, are the most notorious slave dealers in the land, and encourage the odious traffic among their disciples, by readily purchasing of them whatever victims of the Shiah creed they may entrap. The good of the soul is assigned as ample extenuation
About Uzbeks of Kunduz and their mullahs
Keep in mind
Wood writes as a hostile Protestant observer; the slave trade itself is confirmed by many sources.
An Afghan court ceremony 'borrowed from the Chinese Tartars'
Editorial contextConolly retells a Persian anecdote about presentation at the court of Ahmad Shah Durrani: two officers ran the visitor up to the king at a trot, shouted his name and whisked him away again. He calls the ceremony 'borrowed, apparently, from the Chinese Tartars', then admits this is only 'the Persian account'.
The Dooraunee ceremony of presentation at court is a very strange one, borrowed, apparently, from the Chinese Tartars, … the person upon whom the honour is to be conferred, being placed between two of the officers of the court, who run him up at a trot to within a certain distance of the king
About Durrani Afghans; Chinese Tartars (Manchus) as supposed source
Keep in mind
A secondhand Persian story; the 'Chinese Tartar' origin is Conolly's guess.
Chinggis Khan's terms to the Jin envoy
Editorial contextThe envoy's own report says nothing about his audience, so Bretschneider adds the entry from the Yuan shi, the official history of the Mongol dynasty. Chinggis reminds him that he had offered peace if the Jin ruler gave up everything north of the Yellow River and took the lesser title of wang (king), but his general Muqali had since conquered those lands anyway. On the next page the Khan adds that the Jin must also hand over the cities of Kuan si that still held out, and only then may their ruler keep the south as a king.
The emperor said to him: "I formerly asked of your sovereign to cede the land north of the Yellow River, and to reign over the country south of it with the title of wang (king). On these conditions I would have suspended the war. But now Mu-hua-li … has already conquered all these countries, and you are compelled to sue for peace."
About Chinggis Khan and the Jin envoy
Keep in mind
Not part of the envoy's report. Bretschneider notes that the Yuan shi dates the events of the western campaign a year too early.
The evil eye that eats a man's liver
Editorial contextIn a footnote Elphinstone records an Afghan belief that some Hazaras have a power of 'fascination': reading the damaged scan, they can eat out the liver of anyone they stare at. He calls it a fable, common in India and Persia and pinned on various tribes. It is a good example of a travelling rumour attached to a people seen as outsiders.
who … the liver of any person on whom they fix their eyes. This fable is very common in India and Persia, and is attributed to various tribes.
About Hazaras
Keep in mind
The words describing the power itself are badly garbled in the scan; the gloss gives the most likely reading.
Where 'Tartary' begins on the ground
Editorial contextCrossing the Akrobat pass north of Bamiyan, Burnes notes that he was leaving the kingdom of Kabul and entering Turkestan, 'which is denominated Tartary (more properly Tatary) by Europeans'. At the next village the first ruler was an Uzbek who paid his overlords partly in slaves taken in raids.
Toorkistan, which is denominated Tartary (more properly Tatary) by Europeans.
About Uzbeks of Turkestan
Continue in this sourceAlexander Burnes's journey from India to Bukhara, 1831 to 18331831 to 1833 · 14 passagesHazara villages guarded by loop-holed towers
Editorial contextMost Hazaras live in villages, not tents, though some use 'Tartar tents' like the Aimaqs. Each village has a defensive tower with a kettle-drum to sound the alarm. On the page before, Elphinstone says their houses are thatched and half sunk into the hillsides.
The Hazaurehs generally live in villages of from twenty to two hundred houses, though some live in Tartar tents like the Eimauks. Each village is defended by a high tower, capable of containing ten or twelve men, and full of loop-holes.
About Hazaras
Continue in this sourceElphinstone's account of Kabul and its Tartar neighbours1808 to 1809 · 11 passagesSell your wife, never your dog
Editorial contextWood notes a twist in Uzbek manners: asking a man to sell his wife was no offence, but asking to buy his dog was an insult, and 'dog-seller' was about the worst name one Uzbek could call another. He goes on to praise Uzbek women as fine housekeepers.
To ask an Uzbek to sell his wife would be no affront, but to ask him to sell his dog would be an unpardonable insult, "Suggee ferosh," or dog-seller, being about the most offensive epithet that one Uzbek can apply to another.
About Uzbeks of Kunduz
Continue in this sourceLieutenant Wood's winter journey to the source of the Oxus1836 to 1838 · 13 passagesTurkmen tents half-buried in snow
Editorial contextOn the desert road to Bukhara the caravan passed Turkmen tents. Mohan Lal notes that they had large herds, lived on meat, curds and bread, fed their horses on meat and gave them salt water, and spent the winter in tents half-buried in snow. He adds bluntly that plundering caravans was their real trade and that they held many Persian (Qizilbash) slaves.
There we observed a few tents of Turkmans; they possess large herds of cattle, and live upon meat, curd, and bread. They feed their horses generally with flesh, and give them salt-water to drink. They do not much mind the cold of the winter, which they pass in tents, half-buried under the snow. Plundering the caravans is the proper occupation of these Turkmans.
About Turkmens
Keep in mind
He saw the tents; the details of winter life and horse-feeding are probably what he was told.
The Tartar and the princess of Ghulghula
Editorial contextMohan Lal tells the legend of Shahr-i Ghulghula, the ruined fortress city by Bamiyan, said to have been built by an unbeliever before Muhammad's time. A Tartar from Badakhshan besieged it in vain until the ruler's daughter, in love with him, wrote telling him to cut off the water. He took the fort, married her, and then killed her for betraying her father.
A Tartar, native of Badakhshan, resolved to invade it, and laid siege to it. When he found great difficulty in subduing it, and was on the point of dismissing his camp, he fortunately received a letter, with the following contents, from the beautiful daughter of the Kafar, who had fallen in love with the Tartar
About 'A Tartar, native of Badakhshan' (legendary)
Keep in mind
A folk tale; in history Shahr-i Ghulghula was destroyed by Genghis Khan's army in 1221.
Murad Beg of Kunduz, 'a Tartar' and a robber
Editorial contextIn his preface Wilson blames the failure of the expedition on Murad Beg, the Uzbek chief of Kunduz, whom he calls 'a Tartar of activity and ambition, but a barbarian and a robber'. Moorcroft's own journal (T0023, n459, p.446) quotes Murad Beg answering a plea to keep his word: 'What have I, what has an Uzbek to do with character?' Here 'Tartar' means an Uzbek.
His death, and the dissensions which ensued amongst his sons, transferred the ascendancy to Murad Beg, a Tartar of activity and ambition, but a barbarian and a robber.
About Uzbeks (Qataghan) of Kunduz
Keep in mind
The editor's judgment, written from Moorcroft's papers and hostile to Murad Beg.
