Asiatic Society,[1] where the writer has summarised, in a consecutive manner, most of that which can be gathered on the subject, from European sources and from translations of Asiatic authors; and (2) in Erskine's History of India under Baber and Humayun. The learned translator of Baber's Memoirs had read widely among the Musulman authors, and compiled, in his last work, a more complete epitome of Chaghatai history, from original sources, than is to be found in any other European writings—unless possibly in those of Russian Orientalists, whose books, indeed, are sealed to most European readers. The source from which Mr. Erskine chiefly drew his information was the Tarikh-i-Rashidi, which he not only studied, but, as we have seen in the Preface, partially translated in a summarised form. The Tarikh-i-Rashidi, however, does not begin at the beginning of the Chaghatai history, but at an arbitrary point, dating nearly a hundred years after the allotment of his empire by Chingiz Khan, and at the period when the Khans of Moghulistan, having separated themselves from those of Mávará-un-Nahr, a distinct history of their branch became possible. In order, then, to furnish a foundation for Mirza Haidar's chronicle, it is necessary to fill in, however briefly, this gap of a hundred years, and, in doing so, to take a rapid glance at the two allotments which bordered on that of Chaghatai Khan—the one on the west and the other on the east—for the affairs of all three are, to some extent, interwoven at certain periods.
In assigning his dominions to his four sons, Chingiz Khan appears to have followed an ancient Mongol custom. The sons of a chief usually ruled, as their father's deputies, over certain nations or clans, and at his death each received, as an appanage, the section of the population which had been under his care. Thus the distribution was rather tribal than territorial, and the tribes, which were in most cases nomadic, sometimes shifted their abode, or were driven, by enemies, to migrate from one district to another. These movements, as a fact, do not seem to have occurred very frequently, nor to have altered the position of the main body of the people to any great extent. It will be more convenient, therefore, and far more intelligible, to state the distribution of Chingiz's dominions, as far as possible, in territorial terms.
Juji, or Tushi, the eldest son of Chingiz, died some months
- ↑ Vol. xx., New Series, pp. 72, seq.
