Page:The Tarikh-i-Rashidi - Mirza Muhammad Haidar, Dughlát - tr. Edward D. Ross (1895).djvu/83

52 region which, he tells us more than once, was, when combined with Farghána, termed Mangalai Suyah or "Facing the Sun." This territory would almost exactly correspond to the provinces of Farghána and the Chinese Turkistan of modern times, less the districts of Karashahr, Turfán and Hami in the extreme east; or, in other words, to Farghána and Alti-Shahr. But even if we were to give the entire country the double name of "Moghulistan and Mangalai Suyah," there would still remain some difficulties of definition. At first sight it would appear that the author describes the limits very exactly; but this is not quite the case, and for two reasons. In the first place, he sets forth the provinces that composed it on several occasions, but does not always make them the same: the other is that, in common with all Asiatics who attempt to describe an area, he names a district or a geographical feature as a boundary, but does not mention whether it should be included or excluded—whether the limiting district, range or lake lay beyond or within the area he is describing. In addition to these uncertainties there is also the inconsistency that Farghána, as a whole, was seldom included within the actual possessions of the Khans of Moghulistan. They always regarded it as theirs by right, but they rarely held more than a few positions, or districts, within its limits, and even these they were usually unable to keep for any length of time. Practically, therefore, Farghána can scarcely be held to have formed a part of their dominions, although it may have been comprised in the geographical term "Mangalai Suyah." With this reservation, however, and in order to show what the author describes, it would seem as well that Farghána should be included nominally with Moghulistan and Alti-Shahr; so that, after making due allowance for the fluctuations that occurred at different periods, the following may be regarded (as nearly as possible) as a statement of the extent of the dominions of the Moghul Khans, from about the middle of the fourteenth century to the middle of the sixteenth.

There was no central division, but the province of Moghulistan proper—or Jatah, as it was also called during the early part of that period—being a "steppe" or pastoral country, and the homeland of the dominant tribe, was therefore the principal division. Its western boundary marched with the province of Shásh, the modern Táshkand, which seems to have contained