PREFACE.
Although this is the first time that a translation of the Tarikh-i-Rashidi, into English, has been presented to the public, it is necessary to explain that translators and historians have already used the book, to some extent, as a source from which to draw facts for their writings. Not only has its scope and its general purport, as a history of the Moghuls, been familiar to Orientalists for some fifty years, but much of its contents has also been made known, in a more or less scattered way, while its name is frequently found quoted in support of one historical passage or another. And if this is the case in English writings, it is the same when we refer to the works of Continental authors who have occupied themselves with the annals of Central Asia. Yet, though the value of the book has been acknowledged in this indirect manner, no complete translation into any European language has hitherto been made. The nearest approach to an adequate translation, so far as I am able to ascertain, was that made by the late Mr. W. Erskine of the E. I. Company's service, more than half a century ago, and some fourteen years after the publication of the Memoirs of Baber. Mr. Erskine's work, however, has never been put into print, and seems, indeed, to be very little known outside the MS. department of the British Museum. It appears to have been taken in hand in 1840, after his retirement from the Company's service, and to have been completed at the beginning of the next year.[1] It consists of 221 folio pages closely written, and, in one form or another, includes the greater part of the Tarikh-i-Rashidi. But the work varies greatly in character; in some places the author has set himself to translate fully and accurately from the text, and has been at pains to produce a rendering that would seem to be intended for publication; in other places lengthy passages—sometimes whole folios—are
- ↑ From a note in the margin, it appears that he finished it on the 4th of January, 1841. The MS. is numbered at the British Museum, Add. 26,612.
