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Updated: September 10, 2025
Even after the ravages of that conqueror, however, Timour and the Emperor Baber, who had a right to judge of the comparative excellence of the countries of the East, bear witness to the beauty of Sogdiana. Timour, who had fixed his imperial seat in Samarcand, boasted he had a garden 120 miles in extent.
Modern, vol. iii. p. 346. I am here assuming that the Magyars are not of the Turkish stock; vid. Gibbon and Pritchard. Vol. v. p. 248. P. 127, ed. 1817. Travels in Syria, vol. i. p. 369, ed. 1787. Hor. Epist. ii 1, 155. Supr. p. 26. Montesquieu. Murray. Caldecott's Baber. Vid. Quarterly Review, vol. lii. p. 396-7. Univ. Hist. mod. vol. v. p. 262, etc. Ibid. vol. iv. p. 353. Meyendorff. Moorcroft.
Baber's own memoirs, Memoirs of Zehir-ed-din Muhammed Baber, emperor of Hindustan, one of the priceless documents of history, show the manner in which he conceived his mission. Here is his account of the supreme incident in his spiritual life; "In January, 1527, messengers came from Mehdi Khwajeh to announce that Sanka, the Rana of Mewar, and Hassan Khan Mewati, were on their march from the west.
The wise religion of Buddha shall run to the north and the west. It will be the victory of the spirit. A conqueror and leader will appear stronger and more stalwart than Jenghiz Khan and Ugadai. He will be more clever and more merciful than Sultan Baber and he will keep power in his hands until the happy day when, from his subterranean capital, shall emerge the King of the World.
For I could not afford a private sedan chair, though I knew that Baber had written that "no traveller in Western China who possesses any sense of self-respect should journey without a sedan chair, not necessarily as a conveyance, but for the honour and glory of the thing.
At that time, according to Baber, "two or three sentences in the book of Ser Marco to the effect that after crossing high mountains he reached a fertile country containing many villages and towns, and inhabited by a very immoral population," constituted the only existing description of the district. In spite of the importance of this route it remained until a few years ago very insecure.
Baber expatiates on the grain and fruit and game of its northern parts; of the tulips, violets, and roses of another portion of it; of the streams and gardens of another. Its plains are said by travellers to abound in wood, its rivers in fish, its valleys in fruit-trees, in wheat and barley, and in cotton. The quince, pomegranate, fig, apricot, and almond all flourish in it.
The Chinese distances in li agree in both estimates; but, whereas Mr. Jensen allows three li for a mile, Mr. Baber allows four and a-half, a wide difference indeed. For convenience sake I have made use of the telegraph figures, but Mr. Baber was so scrupulously accurate in all that he wrote that I have no doubt the telegraph distances are over-estimated.
Baber tells the dramatic story of one of the greatest of the floods. It occurred in 1786 when the fall of a cliff in the Ta Tu dammed the river completely for a time. Let Baber tell the rest:
Probably in remote valleys off the regular trails a stray field might now and then have been found, innocently or intentionally overlooked by the inspector, but in the main poppy-growing had really been stamped out; and this where a generation ago that careful observer, Baber, estimated that poppy-fields constituted a third of the whole cultivation. Credit where credit is due.
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