PREFACE. 
J N 1875, when the late Mr. R. B. Shaw returned from duty in 
Kash. gh. ar and Yarqand, he brought with him a number of Turk! 
and Persian manuscripts which he had collected during a residence 
in those towns of nearly a year. Several of these works were historical 
and some were of great rarity. They comprised, I believe, the Jahdn 
Kushdl of Alau-d-din Atau-l-Mulk, Juwaini, the TarlJch-i-Bashldl of 
Mlrza Haidar, the TazJciralu-l-Bvgkra and the Ta zkira-i-Khwaj a gem 
of Muhammad Sadiq, Kashghari. Of these I have seen none but the 
last named; but from certain documents left by Mr. Shaw which his 
nephew, Captain E. E. Younghusband, has been so kind as to lend me, 
it is to be inferred that all were intended to be used by their accom¬ 
plished possessor, in elucidating either the history or the language of 
Eastern Turkistan. A few translated sheets of the TdrlJch-i-Rashldl 
are to be found among these documents, and a portion of the memoirs of 
Sultan Satuk Bughra is actually in print—text and translation—as an 
appendix to Mr. Shaw's Turk! Grammar. 1 It was on the memoirs of 
Khojas, however, that most work had been done, and this was the book 
that he was occupied with up to the last. There is evidence that his 
intention was to bring out a revised Turk! text, with a translation, and 
I think it quite likely that both text and translation were finished at the 
time of his death, at Mandalay, in June 1879. 
All that is now to be found of matter connected with this book may 
be stated as follows 
(1) Seventy-three small folio sheets (146 pages) of the original 
manuscript of Muhammad Sadiq. These are consecutive 
as far as they go and represent, I should estimate, about 
three quarters, or four- fifths, of the entire work. 
(2) One hundred and twenty octavo pages of Mr. Shaw's TurkI 
text printed at the Baptist Mission Press at Calcutta. 
These are revised and ready for publication, together with 
four long slips of galley proofs in continuation. This 
printed text ends at the same point in the narrative as the 
manuscript. 
1 See A sketch of the TurJci language in Journal, Asiatic Society of Bengal, 
Calcutta, 1880. 
