in 1379. Kharezm continued under the descendants
of Timur, a dependency on Khorassan, till that province
was subdued by Sultan Shakbakt, commonly
called Sheibani Khan. Soon after, Shakbakt was '
slain by Shah Ismail Sofi, in 1510,* and Kharezm
once more came under the dominion of Persia. Two
years later, however, the inhabitants, revolting against
their governors, set up Sultan Ilbars, who, coming
with his Uzbegs out of Turkistan, was proclaimed
Khan, in 1512, at Vezir, or Sellizure (i.e., Shehr-
vezir), and it is his descendants who now have possession
o f the country.
The history of the Uzbeg Khans of Kharezm has
been written by Abul Ghazi, and translated, so that
it is quite unnecessary for me to mention all their
names, but only the most notable, and those to whom
reference may be made hereafter. During the latter
half of the sixteenth century reigned Hajim Muhammad,
at the time that the first Englishman, in 1558, entered
the kingdom in the person of Anthony Jenkinson,
who calls him Azim, and says that all the land between
Urgenj and the Caspian was called the land of Turkman,
and was subject to Azim Khan and his five
brothers. When Jenkinson returned, he took with
him four envoys from Hajim Khan to the Tsar, and
subsequently, in 1595, fresh envoys were sent from
Kharezm to solicit the friendship of the Tsar Feodor.
Hajim was succeeded by his son, Arab Muhammad,
in whose reign, about 1603, 1,000 Cossacks of the
Ural, or Yaik, made a descent upon Urgenj, and
killed more than 1,000 inhabitants, but were themselves
ultimately destroyed. After Arab Muhammad
came Izfendiar Khan, and later still, Abulghazi Behadur
* For Sheibani’s reign, see Howorth’ s “ Mongols,” ii., 691—713.
Khan, to whom we are indebted for the history. He
succeeded to the Kharezmian throne in 1642, reigned
lawlessly till 1663, and then resigned his throne to his
son, Anusha, with the design o f spending the rest of
his days religiously, but he soon died. Anusha was
followed by his son Erenk, who was poisoned in 1687,
and the conspirators set up in his place Shah Niaz
Khan, who, in 1700, sent an envoy to Peter the Great,
asking him to take Kharezm under his protection.
Peter complied by letter, and confirmed his friendly
message three years later to Arab Muhammad, the
next Khan, who was then pressed by Bokhara. Arab
appears to have been followed by Haji Muhammad
Behadur Khan, who, in I7i4> sent an envoy to
Petersburg, offering in grand language to help the Tsar
at any time with 50,000 horses, and to allow Russian
caravans to pass through his country, a four months’
journey to China. T h e envoy said his master’s
residence was Khiva, which consisted only of tents
and huts, and not fixed, in summer, to one place.
This Khan was soon displaced, and succeeded by
Yadighar, who had a very short reign, ending in
a revolution, the outcome of which was to place on
the throne, according to .Howorth, an imported Khan,
Arank, or Evrenk, a Karakalpak from the old royal
house subsisting among the Kunkurats in the delta
of the Oxus. Next followed Shirgazi Khan, in whose
reign the Khivans came into full contact with the
Russians, to the dire loss at first of the latter.
The attack upon Urgenj of the Cossack freebooters
j ust referred to was followed by two subsequent attacks
of a similar character, and equally disastrous to the
Cossacks. In 1717, however, Peter the Great having
heard of gold in the bed of , the Oxus,. and wishing