138 LIVES OF THE MOGHUL EMPERORS. 
The Emperor Baber was of Tartar race, and de- 
scended in the fifth degree from Timur Beg, being 
born of Omer Sheikh, son of Abusaid Mirza, grand- 
child of Miran Shah, Timur’s third son ; whence he 
always speaks of himself as being a Turk. By his 
mother’s side he descended from the great Jengyz 
Khan, being the grandson of Yunis Khan, a celebrated 
Moghul prince. “ All Baber’s affections, however,” 
says Mr. Erskine,* c< were with the Turks, and he 
often speaks of the Moghuls with a mingled sentiment 
of hatred and contempt.” He was born on the sixth 
Moharrum 888, answering to the fourteenth of Febru- 
ary a. d. 1483. Very little is known of his early life. 
He first saw the light upon the edge of the desert 
to the north-east of the Caspian Sea ; and though 
brought up among the rude tribes who inhabited this 
wild tract, he at a very early age showed his talents 
for government, and finally settled himself upon the 
throne of Delhi, which gradually increased in extent 
and splendour until its decline after the prosperous 
reign of Aurengzebe, the fifth in direct descent from 
this illustrious progenitor. 
At the age of eleven years, Baber, on the death of 
his father, ascended the throne of Ferghana, a small 
principality which forms the kingdom of Kokan, 
bounded on the east by Kashgar, a country on the 
western limit of Chinese or Independent Tartary ; on 
the west by Samerkund ; on the south by the hill 
country on the confines of Badakshan in Great Buk- 
hara, and on the north by Otrar, in Turkistan. 
Introduction to the Memoirs of Baber, p. xxvi. 
