The emperor Baber was sixth in descent from Tamerlane, who died in 1405.
Tamerlane's conquests were world-wide, but they never formed a
homogeneous empire. Even in his lifetime he parceled them out to sons
and grandsons. Half a century later Trans-oxiana was divided into many
independent kingdoms each governed by a descendant of the great
conqueror.
When Baber was born (1482), an uncle was King of Samarkand and Bokhara;
another uncle ruled Badakhshan; another was King of Kabul. A relative
was the powerful King of Khorasan. These princes were of the family of
Tamerlane, as was Baber's father,--Sultan Omer Sheikh Mirza, who was the
King of Ferghana. Two of Baber's maternal uncles, descendants of Chengiz
Khan, ruled the Moghul tribes to the west and north of Ferghana; and two
of their sisters had married the Kings of Samarkand and Badakhshan. The
third sister was Baber's mother, wife of the King of Ferghana.
The capitals of their countries were cities like Samarkand, Bokhara, and
Herat. Tamerlane's grandson--Ulugh Beg--built at Samarkand the chief
astronomical observatory of the world, a century and a half before Tycho
Brahe (1576) erected Uranibourg in Denmark. The town was filled with
noble buildings,--mosques, tombs, and colleges. Its walls were five
miles in circumference[2].
[Footnote 2: Paris was walled in 1358; so Froissart tells us.]
Its streets were paved (the streets of Paris were not paved till the
time of Henri IV.), and running water was distributed in pipes. Its
markets overflowed with fruits. Its cooks and bakers were noted for
their skill. Its colleges were full of learned men, poets[3], and
doctors of the law. The observatory counted more than a hundred
observers and calculators in its corps of astronomers. The products of
China, of India, and of Persia flowed to the bazaars.
[Footnote 3: "In Samarkand, the Odes of Baiesanghar Mirza are so
popular, that there is not a house in which a copy of them may not be
found."--Baber's. 'Memoirs.']
Bokhara has always been the home of learning. Herat was at that time the
most magnificent and refined city of the world[4]. The court was
splendid, polite, intelligent, and liberal. Poetry, history,
philosophy, science, and the arts of painting and music were cultivated
by noblemen and scholars alike. Baber himself was a poet of no mean
rank. The religion was that of Islam, and the sect the orthodox Sunni;
but the practice was less precise than in Arabia. Wine was drunk; poetry
was prized; artists were encouraged. The mother-language of Baber was
Turki (of which the Turkish of Constantinople is a dialect). Arabic was
the language of science and of theology. Persian was the accepted
literary language, though Baber's verses are in Turki as well.
[Footnote 4: Baber spent twenty days in visiting its various palaces,
towers, mosques, gardens, colleges--and gives a list of more than fifty
such sights.]
We possess Baber's 'Memoirs' in the original Turki and in Persian
translations also. In what follows, the extracts will be taken from
Erskine's translation[5], which preserves their direct and manly charm.
[Footnote 5: 'Memoirs of Baber, Emperor of Hindustan, written by
himself, and translated by Leyden and Erskine,' etc. London,
1826, quarto.]
To understand them, the foregoing slight introduction is necessary. A
connected sketch of Baber's life and a brief history of his conquests
can be found in 'The Mogul Emperors of Hindustan[6].' We are here more
especially concerned with his literary work. To comprehend it, something
of his history and surroundings must be known.
[Footnote 6: By Edward S. Holden, New York, 1895, 8vo, illustrated.]