Page:The Tarikh-i-Rashidi - Mirza Muhammad Haidar, Dughlát - tr. Edward D. Ross (1895).djvu/110

 Rh so-called 'Moghul' line of kings. It will hardly be disputed that not alone Baber himself, but some of his more immediate ancestors, were to all intents and purposes Turks; and this was the case not only in the acquisition of language and manners, but by intermixture of blood; while his successors, whose portraits, painted in India, are extant at the present day, show no trace in their features of descent from a Mongoloid race. It is said that Baber's grandfather (Sultan Abu Said of Khorasan, 1452–67) was described by a Khivan contemporary, who visited him, as a very handsome man with a full beard and unlike a Moghul. Another, and perhaps more perfect, instance of the same thing is the description given in the Tarikh-i-Rashidi of the personal appearance of Yunus, Khan of Moghulistan, in 1456, or some two centuries only after the death of Chaghatai Khan—who was certainly a pure Mongol. Yunus is reported, by one who says that he expected to see a beardless man, "like any other Turk of the desert," to have had a full beard and Tájik (i.e., Aryan) features; and brief though this description is, it tells so significant a tale of a changed race, that it is probably as trustworthy a record, as a portrait painted by even a superior artist to those of Hindustan. In the case of the few families of the chiefs, there would be a tendency to change much more rapidly than in that of the bulk of the people. Their custom was to give their relations in marriage to the friendly rulers of foreign countries, and, in exchange, to take to wife a member of those rulers' families; if one Khan subjugated another, he usually demanded a daughter or a sister in marriage; while it was no doubt possible, and perhaps fashionable, for the governing classes to add foreign wives to their harems, in the same way that Musulmans of means and position have loved to do at all periods and in most countries.

In these circumstances, the physical characteristics of the original race would soon pass away among the families of the chiefs, and with them would go the language and the customs. But with the mass of the tribes-people it would be otherwise. There appears to be no description of them indicating a resemblance to the Turks; on the contrary, the description of Yunus implies a difference between him and the mass of his people. Moreover, we may assume that the rank and file of the Moghuls would not have the same opportunities for rapidly connecting themselves in blood relationship with their neighbours; conse-