The Nāṣirī Generations 251.2

251.2

This is the affair about which the Fanakati makes such a great blunder previously noticed in the account of Aghuz Khan. He there stated, that, “when Ughuz became firmly established in his sovereignty, and had secured his conquests, he sent a party from among his sons and kinsmen, and a considerable army, into the east, into the land called, in the writer’s time, Mughulistan. Four thousand years after, one among the Badshahs of the Khita-is moved against them, crossed the river Kara-Muran in the night, fell upon them, and slew the whole of them [the males] and made their wives and children captives, and only two persons escaped — Kayan and Naguz — with their wives, who fled to Iraganah-Kun, where they and their posterity dwelt 400 years.” It will easily be perceived what a muddle we have here : he has confounded the two events, and makes a sudden leap from Aghuz Khan to the period of the massacre of the Jala-irs. After the death of Dutumin, his Khatun, Matulun — or, as some write it, Manulun — an error probably of n for t — who was a talented woman, with eight of her sons, and her numerous herds and flocks, took up her residence in the retired tract of country—some say hill tract — named, but somewhat doubtfully, Alush or Ulush Arki or Argi — but the first name is also written Alus or Ulus — and Koliish — [Ulus-i-Aurgah or Urgah — the Ourga or Kuren of modern maps ? in about Lon. 108° Lat. 48°] whilst her ninth son, Kaidu, was absent.