[Footnote 1: I am indebted for his character and history to
D'Herbelot, (Bibliotheque Orientale, Mahmud, p. 533 - 537,)
M. De Guignes, (Histoire des Huns, tom. iii. p. 155 - 173,)
and our countryman Colonel Alexander Dow, (vol. i. p. 23 -
83.) In the two first volumes of his History of Hindostan,
he styles himself the translator of the Persian Ferishta;
but in his florid text, it is not easy to distinguish the
version and the original. Note: The European reader now
possesses a more accurate version of Ferishta, that of Col.
Briggs. Of Col. Dow's work, Col. Briggs observes, "that the
author's name will be handed down to posterity as one of the
earliest and most indefatigable of our Oriental scholars.
Instead of confining himself, however, to mere translation,
he has filled his work with his own observations, which have
been so embodied in the text that Gibbon declares it
impossible to distinguish the translator from the original
author." Preface p. vii. - M.]