Senkovski brought it over from his archetype; Mr. Salemann sent it to me in its original Turki form. (JRAS. 1900,āburnā p. 474). Senkovski's own colophon is as follows:—
"_J'ai achevé cette copie le 4 Mai, 1824, à St. Petersburg; elle a éte faite d'àpres un exemplaire appartenant à Nazar Bai Turkistani, négociant Boukhari, qui etait venu cette année à St. Petersburg. J. Senkovski._"
The colophon Senkovski copied from his archetype is to the following purport:—
"_Known and entitled Waqi`nama-i-padshahi (Record of Royal Acts), [this] autograph and composition (bayad u navisht) of Mulla `Abdu'l-wahhāb the Teacher, of Ghaj-davan in Bukhara—God pardon his mistakes and the weakness of his endeavour!—was finished on Monday, Rajab 5, 1121 (Aug. 31st, 1709).—Thank God!_"
It will be observed that the title Waqi`nama-i-padshahi suits the plan of dual histories (of Babur and Humayun) better than does the "Babur-nama" of Timur-pulad's note, that the colophon does not claim for the Mulla to have copied the elder book (1494-1530) but to have written down and composed one under a differing title suiting its varied contents; that the Mulla's deprecation and thanks tone better with perplexing work, such as his was, than with the steadfast patience of a good scribe; and that it exonerates the Mulla from suspicion of having caused his compilation to be accepted as Babur's authentic text. Taken with its circumstanding matters, it may be the dénoument of the play.
The fame and long literary services of the _Memoirs of Baber_ compel me to explain why these volumes of mine contain a verbally new English translation of the _Babur-nama_ instead of a second edition of the _Memoirs_. My explanation is the simple one of textual values, of the advantage a primary source has over its derivative, Babur's original text over its Persian translation which alone was accessible to Erskine.
If the _Babur-nama_ owed its perennial interest to its valuable multifarious matter, the _Memoirs_ could suffice to represent it, but this it does not; what has kept interest in it alive through some four centuries is the autobiographic presentment of an arresting personality its whole manner, style and diction produce. It is characteristic throughout, from first to last making known the personal quality of its author. Obviously that quality has the better chance of surviving a transfer of Babur's words to a foreign tongue when this can be effected by imitation of them. To effect this was impracticable to Erskine who did not see any example of the Turki text during the progress of his translation work and had little acquaintance with Turki. No blame attaches to his results; they have been the one introduction of Babur's writings to English readers for almost a century; but it would be as sensible to expect a potter to shape a vessel for a specific purpose without a model as a translator of autobiography to shape the new verbal container for Babur's quality without seeing his own. Erskine was the pioneer amongst European workers on Baburiana—Leyden's fragment of unrevised attempt to translate the Bukhara Compilation being a negligible matter, notwithstanding friendship's deference to it; he had ready to his hand no such valuable collateral help as he bequeathed to his successors in the Memoirs volume. To have been able to help in the renewal of his book by preparing a second edition of it, revised under the authority of the Haidarabad Codex, would have been to me an act of literary piety to an old book-friend; I experimented and failed in the attempt; the wording of the Memoirs would not press back into the Turki mould. Being what it is, sound in its matter and partly representative of Babur himself, the all-round safer plan, one doing it the greater honour, was to leave it unshorn of its redundance and unchanged in its wording, in the place of worth and dignity it has held so long.