[31] See Gregorief’s “Russian policy regarding Central Asia”, quoted in Schuyler’s Turkistan, App. IV.
[32] The Mission was well received, started to return to Petrograd, was attacked by Turkmans, went back to Bukhara, and there stayed until it could attempt the devious route which brought it to the capital in 1725.
[33] One might say jestingly that the spirit in the book had rebelled since 1725 against enforced and changing masquerade as a phantasm of two other books!
[34] Neither Ilminski nor Smirnov mentions another “Babur-nama” Codex than Kehr’s.
[35] A Correspondent combatting my objection to publishing a second edition of the Memoirs, backed his favouring opinion by reference to ‘Umar Khayyam and Fitzgerald. Obviously no analogy exists; Erskine’s redundance is not the flower of a deft alchemy, but is the prosaic consequence of a secondary source.
[36] The manuscripts relied on for revising the first section of the Memoirs, (i.e. 899 to 908 AH.-1494 to 1502 AD.) are the Elphinstone and the Ḥaidarābād Codices. To variants from them occurring in Dr. Kehr’s own transcript no authority can be allowed because throughout this section, his text appears to be a compilation and in parts a retranslation from one or other of the two Persian translations (Wāqi‘āt-i-bāburī) of the Bābur-nāma. Moreover Dr. Ilminsky’s imprint of Kehr’s text has the further defect in authority that it was helped out from the Memoirs, itself not a direct issue from the Turkī original.
Information about the manuscripts of the Bābur-nāma can be found in the JRAS for 1900, 1902, 1905, 1906, 1907 and 1908.
The foliation marked in the margin of this book is that of the Ḥaidarābād Codex and of its facsimile, published in 1905 by the Gibb Memorial Trust.
[37] Bābur, born on Friday, Feb. 14th. 1483 (Muḥarram 6, 888 AH.), succeeded his father, ‘Umar Shaikh who died on June 8th. 1494 (Ramẓān 4, 899 AH.).
[38] pād-shāh, protecting lord, supreme. It would be an anachronism to translate pādshāh by King or Emperor, previous to 913 AH. (1507 AD.) because until that date it was not part of the style of any Tīmūrid, even ruling members of the house being styled Mīrzā. Up to 1507 therefore Bābur’s correct style is Bābur Mīrzā. (Cf. f. 215 and note.)