Arthur Conolly, a lieutenant of Bengal cavalry, returned to India overland in 1829 to 1831 through Russia, the Caucasus, Persia, Herat, Kandahar and Sindh, often travelling disguised as a merchant or physician. His Journey to the North of India was published in two volumes in London in 1834. The corpus holds only volume II, which covers Herat, Afghanistan, Sindh, Afghan history and an essay on a possible Russian invasion of India through Khiva. His vivid chapters on Turkmen tents, marriage and funerals are in volume I, which is not in the corpus.
How they knew
Part eyewitness
Who “Tartar” means here
Only in passing: the Turkmen of the desert between Persia and Khiva ('these Tartars'), their Uzbek overlords, and 'Chinese Tartars' as the supposed source of an Afghan court custom.
Why read it
Useful mainly for Herat's Timurid ruins and for a British officer's view of the Turkmen and Uzbeks as a problem of Russian expansion.
Watch out
Only volume II is in the corpus, so the rich Turkmen material of volume I is missing. Conolly does not call the Timurids 'Tartars'; the Herat buildings are included here because Timur's dynasty is often so called in other sources.
The ruined Musalla of Herat, built by a Timurid king
Editorial contextNorth of Herat Conolly explored a 'pile of magnificent ruins', the Musalla, which he was told was built by a king of the house of Timur to receive the body of Imam Reza, then abandoned when the saint was buried at Mashhad. He describes a towering iwan, a court a hundred paces square decorated with mosaic of white quartz and coloured enamel tile, and domed halls. On the next page he counts the remains of twenty minarets.
A mile to the north of the city are the remains of what anciently was the wall of Heri, … is a pile of magnificent ruins, … the "Moosullah," or place of worship, built by a pious king of the house of Timour, to receive the remains of the Imaum Reza
White marble tombs of Timur's descendants at Gazur Gah
Editorial contextAt the shrine of the Sufi saint Khwaja Abdullah Ansari on the hills above Herat, Conolly walked through a walled garden where trees shaded 'several tombs of white marble built over the dust of the descendants of Timour-lung'. He adds that Timur's descendants built summer palaces and gardens on the same hill.
We deposited our slippers here, and then passed into a walled garden, the trees of which shaded several tombs of white marble built over the dust of the descendants of Timour-lung.
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
Editorial contextIn his essay on a possible Russian invasion of India, Conolly weighs whether Russia could win over the Turkmen, who then gave unwilling allegiance to 'their Oosbeg conquerors' at Khiva. He concludes the Turkmen would follow their interests, and that Russia, as in the Caucasus, might in time 'subdue these Tartars'. It shows 'Tartar' as a British strategic label for the Turkic peoples of the desert.
I am sure that the Toorkmuns would be chiefly influenced by what they thought their interests; and when I look to what we have done in Hindoostan, or, to speak nearer to the point, what the Russians have done in Persia, I cannot decide that they may not subdue these Tartars