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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

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means " idol temple." The city was now completely sacked and ruined, and its T.N.

population massacred and enslaved. At Atrar, which was garrisoned by fifty thousand of Khwahrizm Shah's troops—he himself fled from the capital by Nishabor to Absukiin, where he died 22nd Zi Hijj 617 H.=1220 A.D., (Vambery)—not a soul was left alive, the whole population being led out in batches of fifty and butchered on the plain outside the walls.

On his return march from the Indus, Changiz sent his son Aoktay in mid-winter to Ghazni and Ghor, there to wipe out in the blood of the people the disaster his troops had suffered at the hands of Jalaluddin in the fight at Parwan.

He did this so effectually during a campaign of two years, that not a trace of P. the aboriginal Aryan stock, the Gabar or fire-worshiper of Iran, is now to be found in the country. The only inhabitants of that mountain tract—the real Kohl KO of Orientals, the Paropamisus of the Greeks, the Indian Caucasus of Europeans—at the present day, are the descendants of the army of occupation left there by him. And though still pure Moghol in race type, and many of their customs, they know nought of their antecedents. They have entirely lost their language before that of their subsequent Persian rulers, and are now only known amongst their Afghan neighbours as the poor, mean, despicable, and heretic Hazdra (evidently the designation of their original military divisional settlements), whom as being Shia it is lawful to oppress, enslave, and sell. The remarkable persistence of the race type of these Moghols during six hundred years is easily explained by the isolation of their position in an inaccessible and easily defended mountain country, whose natural outlets and affinities are more with the cognate races of the Oxus valley than with the foreign Aryan tribes of the Kabul highlands and the basin of Kandahar. But to return to our subject.

Whilst Aoktay was marching to Kabul on this errand, Changiz went into winter T. N.

quarters in Gabari or the Gabar country (the country of the fire-worshipers, now known as Pakli and Swat) to wait the return of his envoys to the Emperor of Hindustan, Sultan Said, at Delhi, to ask his permission for a passage to Chin through Farajal and Kamrûd. During these three months he sent out parties in all directions to forage the country and reduce the forts held by the Irac troops amongst the mountains, whilst he spent his time in consulting the fates by burning the Shaua or " Sheep scapula," a custom still common amongst the Hazara or Moghol of the Ghazni highlands. The omens by these were unpropitious, and his envoys, at the . same time, returning with an unfavourable reply, Changiz at once set out across the snowy mountains, whilst it was yet winter, and, with great difficulty and loss of life made his way by Kabul and Kashghar to Turkistan.

His route was probably across the Swat country into the Ktinar valley, where P. Chagan Sarae, or " white hostelry," from its name attests Moghol occupation, and thence up the Chitral valley, called also Kashkar through the easy Barogil Pass, which is practicable for half of the year, on to the plain of Kashgha.r. Such at least was the route taken by part of his army, if not by Changiz himself, who, according to the author of the Tabcati Nasiri (a personal actor at Tolak in the defence against his invasion of Ghor), rejoined his camp with the heavy baggage, left at Naman Pushta in Tokharistan, and took it on with him to Samarcand, where he spent the spring and summer.

Here in 621 H.=1224 A.D. he held a Curultdy, and divided his conquests amongst his V.B.

sons. To Aoktay he gave the Eastern Tartar country, comprising China and Mongolia; & Y.C.

its capital was Khanbaligh=Pekin. To Batu, the son and successor of Jûji, he gave the Northern Tartar country, including Dasht Kapchak ; its capital was Saray on the Volga. To Chaghtay he gave the middle Tartar kingdom, which comprised Mogho]istan, that is Zunghar on the north, and Kashghar on the south, Mawaranahar, Khwahrizm, and Afghanistan : its capital was Almaligh. And to Tuli he gave Khurasan and Iran ; its capital was Tabriz.

Having thus disposed of his empire Changiz returned to his seat at Karakoram, R.S.

or Shaman Gara, and in Zi Hijj 621 H.=1225 A.D., after an absence of seven years,