The Rashīdī History 4.2.1

4.2.1

Chaghatai's own capital was at Almáligh, in the valley of the Upper Ili, near the site of the present Kulja, and consequently in the extreme east of his dominion. His reason for fixing it in that remote position, instead of at Bokhara or Samarkand, was probably one of necessity. His Mongol tribesmen and followers — the mainstay of his power — were passionately fond of the life of the steppes: the only existence worthy of men and conquerors, was that passed in the felt tents of their ancestors, among the flocks and herds that they tended in time of peace, and led with them on their distant campaigns. The dwellers in houses and towns were, in their eyes, a degenerate and effeminate race; — the tillers of the soil, slaves who toiled like cattle, in order that their betters might pass their time in luxury. They would serve no Khan who did not pass a life worthy of free-born men and "gentlemen rovers"; and Chaghatai and his immediate successors probably saw, as his later descendants are described by Mirza Haidar to have seen, that the one way of retaining the allegiance of his own people, was to humour their desires in this respect, and live, with them, a nomad's life.