Mohan Lal (1812-1877), a Kashmiri Pandit from Delhi trained at the English college there, went as Persian secretary to Alexander Burnes on his 1831-1833 mission through Kabul and over the Hindu Kush to Balkh and Bukhara. He then travelled on alone to Mashhad and the Persian camp at Herat. His diary, first printed in Calcutta in 1834, is here in the enlarged London edition of 1846, which adds his later visit to Britain and Germany. He writes as an eyewitness with an ear for local legends, and his own disgust at the slave trade he saw runs through the Turkestan chapters.
How they knew
Eyewitness
Who “Tartar” means here
'Tartary' is a loose name for Turkestan, the lands of Bukhara and the Turkic peoples north of the Hindu Kush. He calls one legendary conqueror from Badakhshan 'a Tartar', and once uses 'the Tartars' for the Turkmen raiders who seized villagers as slaves.
Why read it
A non-European eyewitness view of Bukhara, 'the largest and most populous and wealthy city in the whole region of Tartary', built of mud, wood and mats, and of the ruins and tall tales of ancient Balkh.
Watch out
Mohan Lal travelled with Burnes, so his account is not independent of Burnes's Travels into Bokhara. He writes in an English that is not his first language, and he repeats local legends alongside what he saw.
Editorial contextMohan Lal calls Bukhara the largest, most populous and richest city 'in the whole region of Tartary', and says it had 360 mosques and colleges, though he was not impressed by the students' Persian and Arabic. Shops opened only after the owners had finished their morning tea and closed at three, when trade moved to the Registan square.
Bokhara is the largest and most populous and wealthy city in the whole region of Tartary. The splendid mosques and magnificent colleges, which are 360 in number, contain students who are unqualified both in the Persian and Arabic languages, but they write a very good hand.
Balkh, 'mother of cities', a mass of ruins and dust
Editorial contextMohan Lal found the ancient city of Balkh reduced to ruins and dust among orchards, with a broad bazaar roofed crudely with rafters, hay and mud, whose shops opened only on Tuesdays. An Uzbek customs officer searched their baggage. Locals called Balkh the mother of cities, founded by a son of Noah.
This was formerly a very large and populous city, but at present nothing is to be seen except a mass of ruins and dust. Orchards are scattered in every spot … The bazar of Balk, though broad, is irregularly roofed with rafters, hay, and mud.
Editorial contextBehind its famous mosques, Bukhara was built of humble materials. Most houses had one storey, a few more than two, made of mud, wood and mats. The great roofed bazaar built by the late king, with its long straight line of shops hung with Chinese porcelain and Russian bottles, impressed him most.
The houses are mostly of one story high; some of them of more than two; they are neatly constructed of mud, wood, and mats, which prevent the falling of the dust from the roof. … The large bazar, which is roofed, has a very striking appearance.
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.
Editorial contextNear Mashhad the caravan passed villages wrecked by Turkmen raiders. At Tibris, which Mohan Lal says was 'harassed by the Tartars', most of the people had been carried off as slaves, and the survivors ran up weeping to ask the travellers for news of their captive families. Here 'Tartars' simply means the Turkmen slave-raiders.
Tibris, a fine walled village, contains very few inhabitants, who are harassed by the Tartars. Some time ago it was destroyed by the Alamans, and most of the residents made slaves. On our approach, the villagers ran up to us, shedding a flood of tears
A goat that walked the rooftops from Balkh to Mazar
Editorial contextMohan Lal records two local marvels. An old mud fort outside Balkh was said to grow taller at night (he wanted to check, but the caravan left). And the city had once been so vast that its roofs touched all the way to Mazar, so that a goat climbed onto a roof in Balkh and came down the next day in Mazar, some 20 kilometres away.
Without the city of Balk is an old mud fort, called Chihal Gazi, which, people say, in the night increases in its height. I wished to stop and verify the fact, but our caravan started at the very eve. … a goat climbed up one of the roofs in Balk, and descended next day at Mazar, whither his master followed him also.
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.
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