SECTION IV.
THE PEOPLE—MOGHUL, TURK, AND UIGHUR.[1]
Men from the regions near the Volga's mouth,
Mixed with the rude, black archers of the South;
. . . . . . Chiefs of the Uzbek race,
Waving their heron crests with martial grace;
Turkomans, countless as their flocks, led forth
From th' aromatic pastures of the North;
Wild warriors of the turquoise hills,—and those
Who dwell beyond the everlasting snows
Of Hindoo Kosh, in stormy freedom bred, . . . .
—Veiled Prophet of Khorasan.
In the foregoing Section, it has been found convenient to use the word Moghulistan for the region occupied by the descendants of the Mongols, subsequent to the time of Chaghatai Khan, though it has been necessary, when speaking of the people or their language from a racial point of view, to employ, occasionally, the terms Mongol and Mongolian rather than Moghul. The distinction may not be a very satisfactory one, and need not be carried farther than is absolutely needed to differentiate between the earlier racial attributes, and the later national, or political, aspects of the land and people. It is not easy, however, to distinguish, nominally, between the Mongols of Mongolia proper, before they spread to the westward under Chingiz Khan, and the same people when, at a later date, having separated from the land of their ancestors, they had come to close quarters with the Musulman inhabitants of the western states of Central Asia. These neighbours mispronounced the name of the new-comers' original nation and, afterwards becoming their historians, handed it down to posterity under what appears to be an altered form. Fortunately it was not greatly changed by either Persian or Turki writers, yet the slight modification they made has led, in modern times, to doubts whether the terms Mongol and Moghul were intended
- ↑ This section was read, in MS., by Sir H. Howorth, who had the kindness to add some marginal notes. These I have distinguished by subscribing his initials.
