The Nāṣirī Generations 256.4.5

256.4.5

In another place this very "Ilk" Khan, or "Ilk Turkan," is said to be "one of the Lion Khans—Lion Hoei or Lion Uighurs of Visdelu, whose northern capital was Almaligh, a well known city in the middle age history of Central Asia, which is said to mean City of Apples" [there is no baligh, however, in the word], but in what tongue is not said. ... "It is fixed on the site of the modern [!] city of Old Kuldja, on the river Ili," but who fixed it is not said. In Col. Walker's last Map (1875) Kuldja figures as Ili! A line or two after we have, "I have no doubt, therefore, that it was its chief [the chief of Almaligh], the Lion Khan of the Uighurs," &c., . . . the metropolitan city of the Lion Khans," &c., &c. See Nos. IX. and X. of that dynasty, note to page 905. Page 277, of the same paper, the writer says:—"The deposed Khan of Turkistan had his seat of empire at Samarkand," it was at "Bilasagun" before, and, just above, p. 269, "Almaligh" was "the metropolitan city"; and, by way of improving this, at page 272, I find that "At Khan" [At Khan—the Kara-Khita-i, who, with Baniko of Taraz, fought the battle with Sultan Sanjar] "is probably the dispossessed Khan of Turkistan," his "Ilk Khan," and, at p. 282, that "the old royal race of the Turkish Sultans of Turkistan still held subordinate authority at Samrkand"!! In no History is the chief of Bilasa-ghun ever styled Sultan, which was the title of the head of the Afrasiyabi dynasty.