546 JOURNEY OF BENEDICT GOES.
lasted under the reign of four successive Khans of Eastern Chagatai. In his old age he made the pilgrimage and died at Medina.1 His son Mahomed Shah inherited his honours, but the territories of Kashgar and Khotan had been annexed by Timur, and remained for some time subject to the descendants of that conqueror, who were in the habit of confiding those provinces to one of their own chief officers. Whilst it was administered by these, Said Ali, the son of Mahomed, made repeated attempts to recover his grandfather's dominions, and at length succeeded. It is needless to follow the -history of this dynasty in further detail. During their time the country seems sometimes to have been divided into different states, of which Kashgar and Khotan were the chief, and sometimes to have been united under the prince of Kashgar. The last prince of the dynasty, Abubakr
Khan, was also one of the most powerful. He reigned for forty- 3
eight years, and made considerahle conquests beyond the mountain ranges. He it was also who transferred the seat of government to Yarkand. But about 1515, Abusaid, son of Ahmed, son of Yunus Khan of Eastern Chagatai, being a refugee in Farghana, organized an expedition against Kashgar and Yarkand, which he succeeded in capturing, adding afterwards to his conquests parts of Badakh.shan, of Tibet, and of Kashmir. When Goes travelled through the country, the king, Mahomed Khan, whom he found upon the throne of Kashgar (of which Yarkand was now the capital) appears to have been a descendant of this Abusaid.3 His power, we gather from Goes, extended at least over the territory of Aksu, and probably in some degree over the whole country at the base of the Thian Shan to the Chinese frontier, including Kamil ; for what Goes calls the kingdom of Cialis or Chalis, embracing Karashahr and Kamil with the intermediate towns of Turfan and Pijan, was ruled by a son of the
1 According to Notices et Extraits (quoted below), Khudaidad ruled for ninety years. He is mentioned by Shah Rukh's envoys to China, as coming to meet them near the Mongol frontier (Not. et Extraits, xiv, pt. i, p. 388).
2 See Notices et Extraits, as quoted at p. 548.
3 He was probably the Mahomed Sultan, sixth son of Abdul Rashid Khan, who is mentioned in Quatremère's extracts (see p. 548) as governing the city of Kashgar during the reign of his brother Abdulkerim, towards the end of the sixteenth century.
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