CHAPTER IV.

THE LEYDEN AND ERSKINE MEMOIRS OF BABER.

The fame and long literary services of the _Memoirs of Baber_ compel me to explain why these volumes of mine contain a verbally new English translation of the _Babur-nama_ instead of a second edition of the _Memoirs_. My explanation is the simple one of textual values, of the advantage a primary source has over its derivative, Babur's original text over its Persian translation which alone was accessible to Erskine.

If the _Babur-nama_ owed its perennial interest to its valuable multifarious matter, the _Memoirs_ could suffice to represent it, but this it does not; what has kept interest in it alive through some four centuries is the autobiographic presentment of an arresting personality its whole manner, style and diction produce. It is characteristic throughout, from first to last making known the personal quality of its author. Obviously that quality has the better chance of surviving a transfer of Babur's words to a foreign tongue when this can be effected by imitation of them. To effect this was impracticable to Erskine who did not see any example of the Turki text during the progress of his translation work and had little acquaintance with Turki. No blame attaches to his results; they have been the one introduction of Babur's writings to English readers for almost a century; but it would be as sensible to expect a potter to shape a vessel for a specific purpose without a model as a translator of autobiography to shape the new verbal container for Babur's quality without seeing his own. Erskine was the pioneer amongst European workers on Baburiana—Leyden's fragment of unrevised attempt to translate the Bukhara Compilation being a negligible matter, notwithstanding friendship's deference to it; he had ready to his hand no such valuable collateral help as he bequeathed to his successors in the Memoirs volume. To have been able to help in the renewal of his book by preparing a second edition of it, revised under the authority of the Haidarabad Codex, would have been to me an act of literary piety to an old book-friend; I experimented and failed in the attempt; the wording of the Memoirs would not press back into the Turki mould. Being what it is, sound in its matter and partly representative of Babur himself, the all-round safer plan, one doing it the greater honour, was to leave it unshorn of its redundance and unchanged in its wording, in the place of worth and dignity it has held so long.

Brought to this point by experiment and failure, the way lay open to make bee-line over intermediaries back to the fountain-head of re-discovered Turki text preserved in the Haidarabad Codex. Thus I have enjoyed an advantage no translator has had since `Abdu'r-rahim in 1589.

Concerning matters of style and diction, I may mention that three distinct impressions of Babur's personality are set by his own, Erskine's and de Courteille's words and manner. These divergencies, while partly due to differing textual bases, may result mainly from the use by the two Europeans of unsifted, current English and French. Their portrayal might have been truer, there can be no doubt, if each had restricted himself to such under-lying component of his mother-tongue as approximates in linguistic stature to classic Turki. This probability Erskine could not foresee for, having no access during his work to a Turki source and no familiarity with Turki, he missed their lessoning.

Turki, as Babur writes it—terse, word-thrifty, restrained and lucid,—comes over neatly into Anglo-Saxon English, perhaps through primal affinities. Studying Babur's writings in verbal detail taught me that its structure, idiom and vocabulary dictate a certain mechanism for a translator's imitation. Such are the simple sentence, devoid of relative phrasing, copied in the form found, whether abrupt and brief or, ranging higher with the topic, gracious and dignified—the retention of Babur's use of "we" and "I" and of his frequent impersonal statement—the matching of words by their root-notion—the strict observance of Babur's limits of vocabulary, effected by allotting to one Turki word one English equivalent, thus excluding synonyms for which Turki has little use because not shrinking from the repeated word; lastly, as preserving relations of diction, the replacing of Babur's Arabic and Persian aliens by Greek and Latin ones naturalized in English. Some of these aids towards shaping a counterpart of Turki may be thought small, but they obey a model and their aggregate has power to make or mar a portrait.

(1) Of the uses of pronouns it may be said that Babur's "we" is neither regal nor self-magnifying but is co-operative, as beseems the chief whose volunteer and nomad following makes or unmakes his power, and who can lead and command only by remittent consent accorded to him. His "I" is individual. The _Memoirs_ varies much from these uses.

(2) The value of reproducing impersonal statements is seen by the following example, one of many similar:—When Babur and a body of men, making a long saddle-journey, halted for rest and refreshment by the road-side; "There was drinking," he writes, but Erskine, "I drank"; what is likely being that all or all but a few shared the local _vin du pays_.

(3) The importance of observing Babur's limits of vocabulary needs no stress, since any man of few words differs from any man of many. Measured by the Babur-nama standard, the diction of the _Memoirs_ is redundant throughout, and frequently over-coloured. Of this a pertinent example is provided by a statement of which a minimum of seven occurrences forms my example, namely, that such or such a man whose life Babur sketches was vicious or a vicious person (_fisq_, _fāsiq_). Erskine once renders the word by "vicious" but elsewhere enlarges to "debauched, excess of sensual enjoyment, lascivious, libidinous, profligate, voluptuous". The instances are scattered and certainly Erskine could not feel their collective effect, but even scattered, each does its ill-part in distorting the Memoirs portraiture of the man of the one word.[35]

POSTSCRIPT OF THANKS.

I take with gratitude the long-delayed opportunity of finishing my book to express the obligation I feel to the Council of the Royal Asiatic Society for allowing me to record in the Journal my Notes on the Turki Codices of the _Babur-nama_ begun in 1900 and occasionally appearing till 1921. In minor convenience of work, to be able to gather those progressive notes together and review them, has been of value to me in noticeable matters, two of which are the finding and multiplying of the Haidarabad Codex, and the definite clearance of the confusion which had made the Bukhara (reputed) _Babur-nama_ be mistaken for a reproduction of Babur's true text.

Immeasurable indeed is the obligation laid on me by the happy community of interests which brought under our roof the translation of the biographies of Babur, Humayun, and Akbar. What this has meant to my own work may be surmised by those who know my husband's wide reading in many tongues of East and West, his retentive memory and his generous communism in knowledge. One signal cause for gratitude to him from those caring for Baburiana, is that it was he made known the presence of the Haidarabad Codex in its home library (1899) and thus led to its preservation in facsimile.

It would be impracticable to enumerate all whose help I keep in grateful memory and realize as the fruit of the genial camaraderie of letters.

ANNETTE S. BEVERIDGE.

PITFOLD, SHOTTERMILL, HASLEMERE. _August, 1921._

THE MEMOIRS OF BABUR

SECTION I. FARGHĀNA.

In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.

In[36] the month of Ramẓān of the year 899 (June 1494) and [Sidenote: Ḥaidarābād MS. fol. 1b.] in the twelfth year of my age,[37] I became ruler[38] in the country of Farghāna.

(_a. Description of Farghāna._)

Farghāna is situated in the fifth climate[39] and at the limit of settled habitation. On the east it has Kāshghar; on the west, Samarkand; on the south, the mountains of the Badakhshān border; on the north, though in former times there must have been towns such as Ālmālīgh, Ālmātū and Yāngī which in books they write Tarāz,[40] at the present time all is desolate, no settled population whatever remaining, because of the Mughūls and the Aūzbegs.[41]

Farghāna is a small country,[42] abounding in grain and fruits. It is girt round by mountains except on the west, _i.e._ towards Khujand and Samarkand, and in winter[43] an enemy can enter only on that side.

[Sidenote: Fol. 2.] The Saiḥūn River (_daryā_) commonly known as the Water of Khujand, comes into the country from the north-east, flows westward through it and after passing along the north of Khujand and the south of Fanākat,[44] now known as Shāhrukhiya, turns directly north and goes to Turkistān. It does not join any sea[45] but sinks into the sands, a considerable distance below [the town of] Turkistān.

Farghāna has seven separate townships,[46] five on the south and two on the north of the Saiḥūn.

Of those on the south, one is Andijān. It has a central position and is the capital of the Farghāna country. It produces much grain, fruits in abundance, excellent grapes and melons. In the melon season, it is not customary to sell them out at the beds.[47] Better than the Andijān _nāshpātī_,[48] there is none. After Samarkand and Kesh, the fort[49] of Andijān is the largest in Mawārā'u'n-nahr (Transoxiana). It has three gates. Its citadel (_ark_) is on its south side. Into it water goes by nine channels; out of it, it is strange that none comes at even a single place.[50] Round the outer edge of the ditch[51] runs a gravelled highway; the width of this highway divides the fort from the suburbs surrounding it.

Andijān has good hunting and fowling; its pheasants grow [Sidenote: Fol. 2b.] so surprisingly fat that rumour has it four people could not finish one they were eating with its stew.[52]

Andijānīs are all Turks, not a man in town or bāzār but knows Turkī. The speech of the people is correct for the pen; hence the writings of Mīr `Alī-shīr _Nawā'ī_,[53] though he was bred and grew up in Hīrī (Harāt), are one with their dialect. Good looks are common amongst them. The famous musician, Khwāja Yūsuf, was an Andijānī.[54] The climate is malarious; in autumn people generally get fever.[55]

Again, there is Aūsh (Ūsh), to the south-east, inclining to east, of Andijān and distant from it four _yīghāch_ by road.[56] It has a fine climate, an abundance of running waters[57] and a most beautiful spring season. Many traditions have their rise in its excellencies.[58] To the south-east of the walled town (_qūrghān_) lies a symmetrical mountain, known as the Barā Koh;[59] on the top of this, Sl. Maḥmūd Khān built a retreat (_ḥajra_) and lower down, on its shoulder, I, in 902AH. (1496AD.) built another, having a porch. Though his lies the higher, mine is the better placed, the whole of the town and the suburbs being at its foot.

The Andijān torrent[60] goes to Andijān after having traversed [Sidenote: Fol. 3.] the suburbs of Aūsh. Orchards (_bāghāt_)[61] lie along both its banks; all the Aūsh gardens (_bāghlār_) overlook it; their violets are very fine; they have running waters and in spring are most beautiful with the blossoming of many tulips and roses.

On the skirt of the Barā-koh is a mosque called the Jauza Masjid (Twin Mosque).[62] Between this mosque and the town, a great main canal flows from the direction of the hill. Below the outer court of the mosque lies a shady and delightful clover-meadow where every passing traveller takes a rest. It is the joke of the ragamuffins of Aūsh to let out water from the canal[63] on anyone happening to fall asleep in the meadow. A very beautiful stone, waved red and white[64] was found in the Barā Koh in `Umar Shaikh Mīrzā's latter days; of it are made knife handles, and clasps for belts and many other things. For climate and for pleasantness, no township in all Farghāna equals Aūsh.

Again there is Marghīnān; seven _yīghāch_[65] by road to the west of Andijān,—a fine township full of good things. Its apricots (_aūrūk_) and pomegranates are most excellent. One sort of pomegranate, they call the Great Seed (_Dāna-i-kalān_); its sweetness has a little of the pleasant flavour of the small apricot (_zard-alū_) and it may be thought better than the Semnān pomegranate. [Sidenote: Fol. 3b.] Another kind of apricot (_aūrūk_) they dry after stoning it and putting back the kernel;[66] they then call it _subḥānī_; it is very palatable. The hunting and fowling of Marghīnān are good; _āq kīyīk_[67] are had close by. Its people are Sārts,[68] boxers, noisy and turbulent. Most of the noted bullies (_jangralār_) of Samarkand and Bukhārā are Marghīnānīs. The author of the Hidāyat[69] was from Rashdān, one of the villages of Marghīnān.

Again there is Asfara, in the hill-country and nine _yīghāch_[70] by road south-west of Marghīnān. It has running waters, beautiful little gardens (_bāghcha_) and many fruit-trees but almonds for the most part in its orchards. Its people are all Persian-speaking[71] Sārts. In the hills some two miles (_bīrshar`ī_) to the south of the town, is a piece of rock, known as the Mirror Stone.[72] It is some 10 arm-lengths (_qārī_) long, as high as a man in parts, up to his waist in others. Everything is reflected by it as by a mirror. The Asfara district (_wilāyat_) is in four subdivisions (_balūk_) in the hill-country, one Asfara, one Warūkh, one Sūkh and one Hushyār. When Muḥammad _Shaibānī_ Khān defeated Sl. Maḥmūd Khān and Alacha Khān and took Tāshkīnt and Shāhrukhiya,[73] I went into the Sūkh and Hushyār [Sidenote: Fol. 4.] hill-country and from there, after about a year spent in great misery, I set out _(`azīmat_) for Kābul.[74]

Again there is Khujand,[75] twenty-five _yīghāch_ by road to the west of Andijān and twenty-five _yīghāch_ east of Samarkand.[76] Khujand is one of the ancient towns; of it were Shaikh Maṣlaḥat and Khwāja Kamāl.[77] Fruit grows well there; its pomegranates are renowned for their excellence; people talk of a Khujand pomegranate as they do of a Samarkand apple; just now however, Marghīnān pomegranates are much met with.[78] The walled town (_qūrghān_) of Khujand stands on high ground; the Saiḥūn River flows past it on the north at the distance, may be, of an arrow's flight.[79] To the north of both the town and the river lies a mountain range called Munūghul;[80] people say there are turquoise and other mines in it and there are many snakes. The hunting and fowling-grounds of Khujand are first-rate; _āq kīyīk_,[81] _būghū-marāl_,[82] pheasant and hare are all had in great plenty. The climate is very malarious; in autumn there is much fever;[83] people rumour it about that the very sparrows get fever and say that the cause of the malaria is the mountain range on the north (_i.e._ Munūghul).

Kand-i-badām (Village of the Almond) is a dependency of Khujand; though it is not a township (_qaṣba_) it is rather a good approach to one (_qaṣbacha_). Its almonds are excellent, hence its name; they all go to Hormuz or to Hindūstān. It is five or [Sidenote: Fol. 4b.] six _yīghāch_[84] east of Khujand.

Between Kand-i-badām and Khujand lies the waste known as Hā Darwesh. In this there is always (_hamesha_) wind; from it wind goes always (_hameshā_) to Marghīnān on its east; from it wind comes continually (_dā'im_) to Khujand on its west.[85] It has violent, whirling winds. People say that some darweshes, encountering a whirlwind in this desert,[86] lost one another and kept crying, "Hāy Darwesh! Hāy Darwesh!" till all had perished, and that the waste has been called Hā Darwesh ever since.

Of the townships on the north of the Saiḥūn River one is Akhsī. In books they write it Akhsīkīt[87] and for this reason the poet As̤iru-d-dīn is known as _Akhsīkītī_. After Andijān no township in Farghāna is larger than Akhsī. It is nine _yīghāch_[88] by road to the west of Andijān. `Umar Shaikh Mīrzā made it his capital.[89] The Saiḥūn River flows below its walled town (_qūrghān_). This stands above a great ravine (_buland jar_) and it has deep ravines (_`uṃiq jarlār_) in place of a moat. When `Umar Shaikh Mīrzā made it his capital, he once or twice cut other ravines from the outer ones. In all Farghāna no fort is so strong as Akhsī. *Its suburbs extend some two miles further [Sidenote: Fol. 5.] than the walled town.* People seem to have made of Akhsī the saying (_mis̤al_), "Where is the village? Where are the trees?" (_Dih kujā? Dirakhtān kujā?_) Its melons are excellent; they call one kind Mīr Tīmūrī; whether in the world there is another to equal it is not known. The melons of Bukhārā are famous; when I took Samarkand, I had some brought from there and some from Akhsī; they were cut up at an entertainment and nothing from Bukhārā compared with those from Akhsī. The fowling and hunting of Akhsī are very good indeed; _āq kīyīk_ abound in the waste on the Akhsī side of the Saihūn; in the jungle on the Andijān side _būghū-marāl_,[90] pheasant and hare are had, all in very good condition.

Again there is Kāsān, rather a small township to the north of Akhsī. From Kāsān the Akhsī water comes in the same way as the Andijān water comes from Aūsh. Kāsān has excellent air and beautiful little gardens (_bāghcha_). As these gardens all lie along the bed of the torrent (_sā'ī_) people call them the "fine front of the coat."[91] Between Kāsānīs and Aūshīs there is rivalry about the beauty and climate of their townships.

In the mountains round Farghāna are excellent summer-pastures (_yīlāq_). There, and nowhere else, the _tabalghū_[92]grows, a tree (_yīghāch_) with red bark; they make staves of it; they [Sidenote: Fol. 5b.] make bird-cages of it; they scrape it into arrows;[93] it is an excellent wood (_yīghāch_) and is carried as a rarity[94] to distant places. Some books write that the mandrake[95] is found in these mountains but for this long time past nothing has been heard of it. A plant called _Āyīq aūtī_[96] and having the qualities of the mandrake (_mihr-giyāh_), is heard of in Yītī-kīnt;[97] it seems to be the mandrake (_mihr-giyāh_) the people there call by this name (_i.e._ _āyīq aūtī_). There are turquoise and iron mines in these mountains.

If people do justly, three or four thousand men[98] may be maintained by the revenues of Farghāna.

(_b. Historical narrative resumed._)[99]

As `Umar Shaikh Mīrzā was a ruler of high ambition and great pretension, he was always bent on conquest. On several occasions he led an army against Samarkand; sometimes he was beaten, sometimes retired against his will.[100] More than once he asked his father-in-law into the country, that is to say, my grandfather, Yūnas Khān, the then Khān of the Mughūls in the camping ground (_yūrt_) of his ancestor, Chaghatāī Khān, the second son of Chīngīz Khān. Each time the Mīrzā brought The Khān into the Farghāna country he gave him lands, but, partly owing to his misconduct, partly to the thwarting of the [Sidenote: Fol. 6.] Mughūls,[101] things did not go as he wished and Yūnas Khān, not being able to remain, went out again into Mughūlistān. When the Mīrzā last brought The Khān in, he was in possession of Tāshkīnt, which in books they write Shash, and sometimes Chāch, whence the term, a Chāchī, bow.[102] He gave it to The Khān, and from that date (890AH.-1485AD.) down to 908AH. (1503AD.) it and the Shāhrukhiya country were held by the Chaghatāī Khāns.

At this date (_i.e._, 899AH.-1494AD.) the Mughūl Khānship was in Sl. Maḥ=mūd Khān, Yūnas Khān's younger son and a half-brother of my mother. As he and `Umar Shaikh Mīrzā's elder brother, the then ruler of Samarkand, Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā were offended by the Mīrzā's behaviour, they came to an agreement together; Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā had already given a daughter to Sl. Maḥmūd Khān;[103] both now led their armies against `Umar Shaikh Mīrzā, the first advancing along the south of the Khujand Water, the second along its north.

Meantime a strange event occurred. It has been mentioned [Sidenote: Fol. 6b] that the fort of Akhsī is situated above a deep ravine;[104] along this ravine stand the palace buildings, and from it, on Monday, Ramẓān 4, (June 8th.) `Umar Shaikh Mīrzā flew, with his pigeons and their house, and became a falcon.[105]

He was 39 (lunar) years old, having been born in Samarkand, in 860AH. (1456AD.) He was Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā's fourth son,[106] being younger than Sl. Aḥmad M. and Sl. Muḥammad M. and Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā. His father, Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā, was the son of Sl. Muḥammad Mīrzā, son of Tīmūr Beg's third son, Mīrān-shāh M. and was younger than `Umar Shaikh Mīrzā, (the elder) and Jahāngīr M. but older than Shāhrukh Mīrzā.

_c. `Umar Shaikh Mīrzā's country._

His father first gave him Kābul and, with Bābā-i-Kābulī[107] for his guardian, had allowed him to set out, but recalled him from the Tamarisk Valley[108] to Samarkand, on account of the Mīrzās' Circumcision Feast. When the Feast was over, he gave him Andijān with the appropriateness that Tīmūr Beg had given Farghāna (Andijān) to his son, the elder `Umar Shaikh Mīrzā. This done, he sent him off with Khudāī-bīrdī _Tūghchī Tīmūr-tāsh_[109] for his guardian.

_d. His appearance and characteristics._

He was a short and stout, round-bearded and fleshy-faced [Sidenote: Fol. 7.] person.[110] He used to wear his tunic so very tight that to fasten the strings he had to draw his belly in and, if he let himself out after tying them, they often tore away. He was not choice in dress or food. He wound his turban in a fold (_dastar-pech_); all turbans were in four folds (_chār-pech_) in those days; people wore them without twisting and let the ends hang down.[111] In the heats and except in his Court, he generally wore the Mughūl cap.

_e. His qualities and habits._

He was a true believer (_Ḥanafī maẕhablīk_) and pure in the Faith, not neglecting the Five Prayers and, his life through, making up his Omissions.[112] He read the Qur'ān very frequently and was a disciple of his Highness Khwāja `Ubaidu'l-lāh (_Aḥrārī_) who honoured him by visits and even called him son. His current readings[113] were the two Quintets and the _Mas̤nawī_;[114] of histories he read chiefly the _Shāh-nāma_. He had a poetic nature, but no taste for composing verses. He was so just that when he heard of a caravan returning from Khitāī as overwhelmed by snow in the mountains of Eastern Andijān,[115] and that of its thousand heads of houses (_awīlūq_) two only had escaped, he sent his overseers to take charge of all goods and, though no heirs were [Sidenote: Fol. 7b.] near and though he was in want himself, summoned the heirs from Khurāsān and Samarkand, and in the course of a year or two had made over to them all their property safe and sound.

He was very generous; in truth, his character rose altogether to the height of generosity. He was affable, eloquent and sweet-spoken, daring and bold. Twice out-distancing all his braves,[116] he got to work with his own sword, once at the Gate of Akhsī, once at the Gate of Shāhrukhiya. A middling archer, he was strong in the fist,—not a man but fell to his blow. Through his ambition, peace was exchanged often for war, friendliness for hostility.

In his early days he was a great drinker, later on used to have a party once or twice a week. He was good company, on occasions reciting verses admirably. Towards the last he rather preferred intoxicating confects[117] and, under their sway, used to lose his head. His disposition[118] was amorous, and he bore many a lover's mark.[119] He played draughts a good deal, sometimes even threw the dice.

_f. His battles and encounters._

He fought three ranged battles, the first with Yūnas Khān, [Sidenote: Fol. 8.] on the Saiḥūn, north of Andijān, at the Goat-leap,[120] a village so-called because near it the foot-hills so narrow the flow of the water that people say goats leap across.[121] There he was beaten and made prisoner. Yūnas Khān for his part did well by him and gave him leave to go to his own district (Andijān). This fight having been at that place, the Battle of the Goat-leap became a date in those parts.

His second battle was fought on the Urūs,[122] in Turkistān, with Aūzbegs returning from a raid near Samarkand. He crossed the river on the ice, gave them a good beating, separated off all their prisoners and booty and, without coveting a single thing for himself, gave everything back to its owners.

His third battle he fought with (his brother) Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā at a place between Shāhrukhiya and Aūrā-tīpā, named Khwāṣ.[123] Here he was beaten.

_g. His country._

The Farghāna country his father had given him; Tāshkīnt and Sairām, his elder brother, Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā gave, and they were in his possession for a time; Shāhrukhiya he took by a ruse and held awhile. Later on, Tāshkīnt and Shāhrukhiya passed out of his hands; there then remained the Farghāna country and Khujand,—some do not include Khujand in [Sidenote: Fol. 8b.] Farghāna,—and Aūrā-tīpā, of which the original name was Aūrūshnā and which some call Aūrūsh. In Aūrā-tīpā, at the time Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā went to Tāshkīnt against the Mughūls, and was beaten on the Chīr[124] (893AH.-1488AD.) was Ḥafiẓ Beg _Dūldāī_; he made it over to `Umar Shaikh M. and the Mīrzā held it from that time forth.

_h. His children._

Three of his sons and five of his daughters grew up. I, Z̤ahīru'd-dīn Muḥammad Bābur,[125] was his eldest son; my mother was Qūtlūq-nigār Khānīm. Jahāngīr Mīrzā was his second son, two years younger than I; his mother, Fāṯima-sulṯān by name, was of the Mughūl _tūmān_-begs.[126] Nāṣir Mīrzā was his third son; his mother was an Andijānī, a mistress,[127] named Umīd. He was four years younger than I.

`Umar Shaikh Mīrzā's eldest daughter was Khān-zāda Begīm,[128] my full sister, five years older than I. The second time I took Samarkand (905AH.-1500AD.), spite of defeat at Sar-i-pul,[129] I went back and held it through a five months' siege, but as no sort of help or reinforcement came from any beg or ruler thereabouts, I left it in despair and got away; in that throneless time (_fatrat_) Khān-zāda Begīm fell[130] to Muḥammad _Shaibānī_ Khān. She had one child by him, a pleasant boy,[131] [Sidenote: Fol. 9.] named Khurram Shāh. The Balkh country was given to him; he went to God's mercy a few years after the death of his father (916AH.-1510AD.). Khān-zāda Begīm was in Merv when Shāh Ismā`īl (_Ṣafawī_) defeated the Aūzbegs near that town (916AH.-1510AD.); for my sake he treated her well, giving her a sufficient escort to Qūndūz where she rejoined me. We had been apart for some ten years; when Muḥammadī _kūkūldāsh_ and I went to see her, neither she nor those about her knew us, although I spoke. They recognized us after a time.

Mihr-bānū Begīm was another daughter, Nāṣir Mīrzā's full-sister, two years younger than I. Shahr-bānū Begīm was another, also Nāṣir Mīrzā's full-sister, eight years younger than I. Yādgār-sulṯān Begīm was another, her mother was a mistress, called Āghā-sulṯān. Ruqaiya-sulṯān Begīm was another; her mother, Makhdūm-sulṯān Begīm, people used to call the Dark-eyed Begīm. The last-named two were born after the Mīrzā's death. Yādgār-sulṯān Begīm was brought up by my grandmother, Aīsān-daulat Begīm; she fell to `Abdu'l-laṯīf Sl., a son of Ḥamza Sl. when Shaibānī Khān took Andijān and Akhsī (908AH.-1503AD.). She rejoined me when (917AH.-1511AD.) in Khutlān I defeated Ḥamza Sl. and other sulṯāns and took Ḥiṣār. Ruqaiya-sulṯān Begīm fell in that [Sidenote: Fol. 9b.] same throneless time (_fatrat_) to Jānī Beg Sl. (_Aūzbeg_). By him she had one or two children who did not live. In these days of our leisure (_furṣatlār_)[132] has come news that she has gone to God's mercy.

_i. His ladies and mistresses._

Qūtlūq-nigār Khānīm was the second daughter of Yūnas Khān and the eldest (half-) sister of Sl. Maḥmūd Khān and Sl. Aḥmad Khān.

(_j. Interpolated account of Bābur's mother's family._)

Yūnas Khān descended from Chaghatāī Khān, the second son of Chīngīz Khān (as follows,) Yūnas Khān, son of Wais Khān, son of Sher-`alī _Aūghlān_, son of Muḥammad Khān, son of Khiẓr Khwāja Khān, son of Tūghlūq-tīmūr Khān, son of Aīsān-būghā Khān, son of Dāwā Khān, son of Barāq Khān, son of Yīsūntawā Khān, son of Mūātūkān, son of Chaghatāī Khān, son of Chīngīz Khān.

Since such a chance has come, set thou down[133] now a summary of the history of the Khāns.

Yūnas Khān (d. 892 AH.-1487 AD.) and Aīsān-būghā Khān (d. 866 AH.-1462 AD.) were sons of Wais Khān (d. 832 AH.-1428 AD.).[134] Yūnas Khān's mother was either a daughter or a grand-daughter of Shaikh Nūru'd-dīn Beg, a Turkistānī Qīpchāq favoured by Tīmūr Beg. When Wais Khān died, the Mughūl horde split in two, one portion being for Yūnas Khān, the greater for Aīsān-būghā Khān. For help in getting the upper hand in the horde, Aīrzīn (var. Aīrāzān) one of the Bārīn _tūmān_-begs and Beg Mīrik _Turkmān_, one of the Chīrās _tūmān_-begs, took Yūnas Khān (aet. 13) and with him [Sidenote: Fol. 10.] three or four thousand Mughūl heads of houses (_awīlūq_), to Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā (_Shāhrukhī_) with the fittingness that Aūlūgh Beg M. had taken Yūnas Khān's elder sister for his son, `Abdu'l-`azīz Mīrzā. Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā did not do well by them; some he imprisoned, some scattered over the country[135] one by one. The Dispersion of Aīrzīn became a date in the Mughūl horde.

Yūnas Khān himself was made to go towards `Irāq; one year he spent in Tabrīz where Jahān Shāh _Barānī_ of the Black Sheep Turkmāns was ruling. From Tabrīz he went to Shīrāz where was Shāhrukh Mīrzā's second son, Ibrāhīm Sulṯān Mīrzā.[136] He having died five or six months later (Shawwal 4, 838 AH.-May 3rd, 1435 AD.), his son, `Abdu'l-lāh Mīrzā sat in his place. Of this `Abdu'l-lāh Mīrzā Yūnas Khān became a retainer and to him used to pay his respects. The Khān was in those parts for 17 or 18 years.

In the disturbances between Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā and his sons, Aīsān-būghā Khān found a chance to invade Farghāna; he plundered as far as Kand-i-badām, came on and, having plundered Andijān, led all its people into captivity.[137] Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā, after seizing the throne of Samarkand, led an army out to beyond Yāngī (Tarāz) to Aspara in Mughūlistān, [Sidenote: Fol. 10b.] there gave Aīsān-būghā a good beating and then, to spare himself further trouble from him and with the fittingness that he had just taken to wife[138] Yūnas Khān's elder sister, the former wife of `Abdu'l-`azīz Mīrzā (_Shāhrukhī_), he invited Yūnas Khān from Khurāsān and `Irāq, made a feast, became friends and proclaimed him Khān of the Mughūls. Just when he was speeding him forth, the Sāghārīchī _tūmān_-begs had all come into Mughūlistān, in anger with Aīsān-būghā Khān.[139] Yūnas Khān went amongst them and took to wife Aīsān-daulat Begīm, the daughter of their chief, `Alī-shīr Beg. They then seated him and her on one and the same white felt and raised him to the Khānship.[140]

By this Aīsān-daulat Begīm, Yūnas Khān had three daughters. Mihr-nigār Khānīm was the eldest; Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā set her aside[141] for his eldest son, Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā; she had no child. In a throneless time (905 AH.) she fell to Shaibānī Khān; she left Samarkand[142] with Shāh Begīm for Khurāsān (907 AH.) and both came on to me in Kābul (911 AH.). At the time Shaibānī Khān was besieging Nāṣir Mīrzā in Qandahār and I set out for Lamghān[143] (913 AH.) they went to Badakhshān with Khān Mīrzā (Wais).[144] When Mubārak Shāh invited Khān Mīrzā into Fort Victory,[145] they were [Sidenote: Fol. 11.] captured, together with the wives and families of all their people, by marauders of Ābā-bikr _Kāshgharī_ and, as captives to that ill-doing miscreant, bade farewell to this transitory world (_circa_ 913 AH.-1507 AD.).

Qūtlūq-nigār Khānīm, my mother, was Yūnas Khān's second daughter. She was with me in most of my guerilla expeditions and throneless times. She went to God's mercy in Muḥarram 911 AH. (June 1505 AD.) five or six months after the capture of Kābul.

Khūb-nigār Khānīm was his third daughter. Her they gave to Muḥammad Ḥusain _Kūrkān Dūghlāt_ (899 AH.). She had one son and one daughter by him. `Ubaid Khān (_Aūzbeg_) took the daughter (Ḥabība).[146] When I captured Samarkand and Bukhārā (917 AH.-1511 AD.), she stayed behind,[147] and when her paternal uncle, Sayyid Muḥammad _Dūghlāt_ came as Sl. Sa`īd Khān's envoy to me in Samarkand, she joined him and with him went to Kāshghar where (her cousin), Sl. Sa`īd Khān took her. Khūb-nigār's son was Ḥaidar Mīrzā.[148] He was in my service for three or four years after the Aūzbegs slew his father, then (918 AH.-1512 AD.) asked leave to go to Kāshghar to the presence of Sl. Sa`īd Khān.

"Everything goes back to its source. Pure gold, or silver or tin."[149]

People say he now lives lawfully (_tā'ib_) and has found the right way (_ṯarīqā_).[150] He has a hand deft in everything, penmanship and painting, and in making arrows and arrow-barbs [Sidenote: Fol. 11b.] and string-grips; moreover he is a born poet and in a petition written to me, even his style is not bad.[151]

Shāh Begīm was another of Yūnas Khān's ladies. Though he had more, she and Aīsān-daulat Begīm were the mothers of his children. She was one of the (six) daughters of Shāh Sulṯān Muḥammad, Shāh of Badakhshān.[152] His line, they say, runs back to Iskandar Fīlkūs.[153] Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā took another daughter and by her had Ābā-bikr Mīrzā.[154] By this Shāh Begīm Yūnas Khān had two sons and two daughters. Her first-born but younger than all Aīsān-daulat Begīm's daughters, was Sl. Maḥmūd Khān, called Khānika Khān[155] by many in and about Samarkand. Next younger than he was Sl. Aḥmad Khān, known as Alacha Khān. People say he was called this because he killed many Qālmāqs on the several occasions he beat them. In the Mughūl and Qālmāq tongues, one who will kill (_aūltūrgūchī_) is called _ālāchī_; Alāchī they called him therefore and this by repetition, became Alacha.[156] As occasion arises, the acts and circumstances of these two Khāns will find mention in this history (_tārīkh_).

Sulṯān-nigār Khānīm was the youngest but one of Yūnas Khān's children. Her they made go forth (_chīqārīb īdīlār_) [Sidenote: Fol. 12.] to Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā; by him she had one child, Sl. Wais (Khān Mīrzā), mention of whom will come into this history. When Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā died (900 AH.-1495 AD.), she took her son off to her brothers in Tāshkīnt without a word to any single person. They, a few years later, gave her to Adik (Aūng) Sulṯān,[157] a Qāzāq sulṯān of the line of Jūjī Khān, Chīngīz Khān's eldest son. When Shaibānī Khān defeated the Khāns (her brothers), and took Tāshkīnt and Shāhrukhiya (908 AH.), she got away with 10 or 12 of her Mughūl servants, to (her husband), Adik Sulṯān. She had two daughters by Adik Sulṯān; one she gave to a Shaibān sulṯān, the other to Rashīd Sulṯān, the son of (her cousin) Sl. Sa`īd Khān. After Adik Sulṯān's death, (his brother), Qāsim Khān, Khān of the Qāzāq horde, took her.[158] Of all the Qāzāq khāns and sulṯāns, no one, they say, ever kept the horde in such good order as he; his army was reckoned at 300,000 men. On his death the Khānīm went to Sl. Sa`īd Khān's presence in Kāshghar. Daulat-sulṯān Khānīm was Yūnas Khān's youngest child. [Sidenote: Fol. 12b.] In the Tāshkīnt disaster (908 AH.) she fell to Tīmūr Sulṯān, the son of Shaibānī Khān. By him she had one daughter; they got out of Samarkand with me (918 AH.-1512 AD.), spent three or four years in the Badakhshān country, then went (923 AH.-1420 AD.) to Sl. Sa`īd Khān's presence in Kāshghar.[159]

(_k. Account resumed of Bābur's father's family._)

In `Umar Shaikh Mīrzā's _ḥaram_ was also Aūlūs Āghā, a daughter of Khwāja Ḥusain Beg; her one daughter died in infancy and they sent her out of the _ḥaram_ a year or eighteen months later. Fāṯima-sulṯān Āghā was another; she was of the Mughūl _tūmān_-begs and the first taken of his wives. Qarāgūz (Makhdūm sulṯān) Begīm was another; the Mīrzā took her towards the end of his life; she was much beloved, so to please him, they made her out descended from (his uncle) Minūchihr Mīrzā, the elder brother of Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā. He had many mistresses and concubines; one, Umīd Āghāchā died before him. Latterly there were also Tūn-sulṯān (var. Yun) of the Mughūls and Āghā Sulṯān.

_l. `Umar Shaikh Mīrzā's Amīrs._

There was Khudāī-bīrdī _Tūghchī Tīmūr-tāsh_, a descendant of the brother of Āq-būghā Beg, the Governor of Hīrī (Herāt, for Timūr Beg.) When Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā, after besieging Jūkī Mīrzā (_Shāhrukhī_) in Shāhrukhiya (868AH.-1464AD.) gave the Farghāna country to `Umar Shaikh Mīrzā, he put this Khudāī-bīrdī [Sidenote: Fol. 13.] Beg at the head of the Mīrzā's Gate.[160] Khudāī-bīrdī was then 25 but youth notwithstanding, his rules and management were very good indeed. A few years later when Ibrāhīm _Begchīk_ was plundering near Aūsh, he followed him up, fought him, was beaten and became a martyr. At the time, Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā was in the summer pastures of Āq Qāchghāī, in Aūrā-tīpā, 18 _yīghāch_ east of Samarkand, and Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā was at Bābā Khākī, 12 _yīghāch_ east of Hīrī. People sent the news post-haste to the Mīrzā(s),[161] having humbly represented it through `Abdu'l-wahhāb _Shaghāwal_. In four days it was carried those 120 _yīghāch_ of road.[162]

Ḥāfiẓ Muḥammad Beg _Dūldāī_ was another, Sl. Malik _Kāshgharī's_ son and a younger brother of Aḥmad Ḥājī Beg. After the death of Khudāī-bīrdī Beg, they sent him to control `Umar Shaikh Mīrzā's Gate, but he did not get on well with the Andijān begs and therefore, when Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā died, went to Samarkand and took service with Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā. At the time of the disaster on the Chīr, he was in Aūrā-tīpā and made it over to `Umar Shaikh Mīrzā when the Mīrzā passed through on his way to Samarkand, himself taking [Sidenote: Fol. 13b.] service with him. The Mīrzā, for his part, gave him the Andijān Command. Later on he went to Sl. Maḥmūd Khān in Tāshkīnt and was there entrusted with the guardianship of Khān Mīrzā (Wais) and given Dīzak. He had started for Makka by way of Hind before I took Kābul (910AH. Oct. 1504AD.), but he went to God's mercy on the road. He was a simple person, of few words and not clever.

Khwāja Ḥusain Beg was another, a good-natured and simple person. It is said that, after the fashion of those days, he used to improvise very well at drinking parties.[163]

Shaikh Mazīd Beg was another, my first guardian, excellent in rule and method. He must have served (_khidmat qīlghān dūr_) under Bābur Mīrzā (_Shāhrukhī_). There was no greater beg in `Umar Shaikh Mīrzā's presence. He was a vicious person and kept catamites.

`Alī-mazīd _Qūchīn_ was another;[164] he rebelled twice, once at Akhsī, once at Tāshkīnt. He was disloyal, untrue to his salt, vicious and good-for-nothing.

Ḥasan (son of) Yaq`ūb was another, a small-minded, good-tempered, smart and active man. This verse is his:—

"Return, O Huma, for without the parrot-down of thy lip, The crow will assuredly soon carry off my bones."[165]

[Sidenote: Fol. 14.] He was brave, a good archer, played polo (_chaughān_) well and leapt well at leap-frog.[166] He had the control of my Gate after `Umar Shaikh Mīrzā's accident. He had not much sense, was narrow-minded and somewhat of a strife-stirrer.

Qāsim Beg _Qūchīn_, of the ancient army-begs of Andijān, was another. He had the control of my Gate after Ḥasan Yaq`ūb Beg. His life through, his authority and consequence waxed without decline. He was a brave man; once he gave some Aūzbegs a good beating when he overtook them raiding near Kāsān; his sword hewed away in `Umar Shaikh Mīrzā's presence; and in the fight at the Broad Ford (Yāsī-kījīt _circa_ 904AH.-July, 1499AD.) he hewed away with the rest. In the guerilla days he went to Khusrau Shāh (907AH.) at the time I was planning to go from the Macha hill-country[167] to Sl. Maḥmūd Khān, but he came back to me in 910AH. (1504AD.) and I shewed him all my old favour and affection. When I attacked the Turkmān Hazāra raiders in Dara-i-khwush (911AH.) he made better advance, spite of his age, than the younger men; I gave him Bangash as a reward and later on, after returning to Kābul, made him Humāyūn's guardian. He went to God's mercy [Sidenote: Fol. 14b.] about the time Zamīn-dāwar was taken (_circa_ 928AH.-1522AD.). He was a pious, God-fearing Musalmān, an abstainer from doubtful aliments; excellent in judgment and counsel, very facetious and, though he could neither read nor write (_ummiy_), used to make entertaining jokes.

Bābā Beg's Bābā Qulī (`Alī) was another, a descendant of Shaikh `Alī _Bahādur_.[168] They made him my guardian when Shaikh Mazīd Beg died. He went over to Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā when the Mīrzā led his army against Andijān (899AH.), and gave him Aūrā-tīpā. After Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā's death, he left Samarkand and was on his way to join me (900AH.) when Sl. `Alī Mīrzā, issuing out of Aūrā-tīpā, fought, defeated and slew him. His management and equipment were excellent and he took good care of his men. He prayed not; he kept no fasts; he was like a heathen and he was a tyrant.

`Alī-dost T̤aghāī[169] was another, one of the Sāghārīchī _tumān_-begs and a relation of my mother's mother, Aīsān-daulat Begīm. I favoured him more than he had been favoured in `Umar Shaikh Mīrzā's time. People said, "Work will come from his hand." But in the many years he was in my presence, no work to speak of[170] came to sight. He must have served Sl. [Sidenote: Fol. 15.] Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā. He claimed to have power to bring on rain with the jade-stone. He was the Falconer (_qūshchī_),worthless by nature and habit, a stingy, severe, strife-stirring person, false, self-pleasing, rough of tongue and cold-of-face.

Wais _Lāgharī_,[171] one of the Samarkand _Tūghchī_ people, was another. Latterly he was much in `Umar Shaikh Mīrzā's confidence; in the guerilla times he was with me. Though somewhat factious, he was a man of good judgment and counsel.

Mīr Ghiyās̤ T̤aghāi was another, a younger brother of `Ali-dost T̤aghāī. No man amongst the leaders in Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā's Gate was more to the front than he; he had charge of the Mīrzā's square seal[172] and was much in his confidence latterly. He was a friend of Wais _Lāgharī_. When Kāsān had been given to Sl. Maḥmūd Khān (899AH.-1494AD. ), he was continuously in The Khān's service and was in high favour. He was a laugher, a joker and fearless in vice.

`Ali-darwesh _Khurāsānī_ was another. He had served in the Khurāsān Cadet Corps, one of two special corps of serviceable young men formed by Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā when he first began [Sidenote: Fol. 15b.] to arrange the government of Khurāsān and Samarkand, and, presumably, called by him the Khurāsān Corps and the Samarkand Corps. `Alī-darwesh was a brave man; he did well in my presence at the Gate of Bīshkārān.[173] He wrote the _naskh ta`līq_ hand clearly.[174] His was the flatterer's tongue and in his character avarice was supreme.

Qaṃbar-`alī _Mughūl_ of the Equerries (_akhtachī_) was another. People called him The Skinner because his father, on first coming into the (Farghāna) country, worked as a skinner. Qaṃbar-`alī had been Yūnas Khān's water-bottle bearer,[175] later on he became a beg. Till he was a made man, his conduct was excellent; once arrived, he was slack. He was full of talk and of foolish talk,—a great talker is sure to be a foolish one,—his capacity was limited and his brain muddy.

(_l. Historical narrative._)

At the time of `Umar Shaikh Mīrzā's accident, I was in the Four Gardens (_Chār-bāgh_) of Andijān.[176] The news reached Andijān on Tuesday, Ramẓan 5 (June 9th); I mounted at once, with my followers and retainers, intending to go into the fort but, on our getting near the Mīrzā's Gate, Shīrīm T̤aghāī[177] took hold of my bridle and moved off towards the Praying Place.[178] It had crossed his mind that if a great ruler like Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā came in force, the Andijān begs would make over to him [Sidenote: Fol. 16.] me and the country,[179] but that if he took me to Aūzkīnt and the foothills thereabouts, I, at any rate, should not be made over and could go to one of my mother's (half-) brothers, Sl. Maḥmūd Khān or Sl. Aḥmad Khān.[180] When Khwāja Maulānā-i-qāẓī[181] and the begs in the fort heard of (the intended departure), they sent after us Khwāja Muḥammad, the tailor,[184] an old servant (_bāyrī_) of my father and the foster-father of one of his daughters. He dispelled our fears and, turning back from near the Praying [Sidenote: Fol. 16b.] Place, took me with him into the citadel (_ark_) where I dismounted. Khwāja Maulānā-i-qāẓī and the begs came to my presence there and after bringing their counsels to a head,[185] busied themselves in making good the towers and ramparts of the fort.[186] A few days later, Ḥasan, son of Yaq`ūb, and Qāsim _Qūchīn_, arrived, together with other begs who had been sent to reconnoitre in Marghīnān and those parts.[187] They also, after waiting on me, set themselves with one heart and mind and with zeal and energy, to hold the fort.

(_Author's note on Khwāja Maulānā-i-qāẓī._) He was the son of Sl. Aḥmad Qāẓī, of the line of Burhānu'd-dīn `Alī _Qīlīch_[182] and through his mother, traced back to Sl. Aīlīk _Māẓī_.[183] By hereditary right (_yūsūnlūq_) his high family (_khānwādalār_) must have come to be the Refuge (_marji`_) and Pontiffs (_Shaikhu'l-islām_) of the (Farghāna) country.

Meantime Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā took Aūrā-tīpā, Khujand and Marghīnān, came on to Qabā,[188] 4 _yīghāch_ from Andijān and there made halt. At this crisis, Darwesh Gau, one of the Andijān notables, was put to death on account of his improper proposals; his punishment crushed the rest.

Khwāja Qāẓī and Aūzūn (Long) Ḥasan,[189] (brother) of Khwāja Ḥusain, were then sent to Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā to say in effect that, as he himself would place one of his servants in the country and as I was myself both a servant and (as) a son, he would attain his end most readily and easily if he entrusted the service to me. He was a mild, weak man, of few words who, without his begs, decided no opinion or compact (_aun_), action or move; they paid attention to our proposal, gave it a harsh answer and moved forward.

But the Almighty God, who, of His perfect power and without mortal aid, has ever brought my affairs to their right issue, made such things happen here that they became disgusted at having advanced (_i.e._ from Qabā), repented indeed that they had ever set out on this expedition and turned back with nothing done.

One of those things was this: Qabā has a stagnant, morass-like Water,[190] passable only by the bridge. As they were many, there was crowding on the bridge and numbers of horses and [Sidenote: Fol. 17.] camels were pushed off to perish in the water. This disaster recalling the one they had had three or four years earlier when they were badly beaten at the passage of the Chīr, they gave way to fear. Another thing was that such a murrain broke out amongst their horses that, massed together, they began to die off in bands.[191] Another was that they found in our soldiers and peasants a resolution and single-mindedness such as would not let them flinch from making offering of their lives[192] so long as there was breath and power in their bodies. Need being therefore, when one _yīghāch_ from Andijān, they sent Darwesh Muḥammad Tarkhān[193] to us; Ḥasan of Yaq'ūb went out from those in the fort; the two had an interview near the Praying Place and a sort of peace was made. This done, Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā's force retired.

Meantime Sl. Maḥmūd Khān had come along the north of the Khujand Water and laid siege to Akhsī.[194] In Akhsī was Jahāngīr Mīrzā (aet. 9) and of begs, `Alī-darwesh Beg, Mīrzā Qulī _Kūkūldāsh_, Muḥ. Bāqir Beg and Shaikh `Abdu'l-lāh, Lord of the Gate. Wais _Lāgharī_ and Mīr Ghiyās̤ T̤aghāī had been there too, but being afraid of the (Akhsī) begs had gone off to Kāsān, Wais _Lāgharī's_ district, where, he being Nāṣir Mīrzā's guardian, the Mīrzā was.[195] They went over to Sl. Maḥmūd Khān when he got near Akhsī; Mīr Ghiyās̤ entered his service; [Sidenote: Fol. 17b.] Wais _Lāgharī_ took Nāṣir Mīrzā to Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā, who entrusted him to Muh. Mazīd Tarkhān's charge. The Khān, though he fought several times near Akhsī, could not effect anything because the Akhsī begs and braves made such splendid offering of their lives. Falling sick, being tired of fighting too, he returned to his own country (_i.e._ Tāshkīnt).

For some years, Ābā-bikr _Kāshgharī Dūghlāt_,[196] bowing the head to none, had been supreme in Kāshgar and Khutan. He now, moved like the rest by desire for my country, came to the neighbourhood of Aūzkīnt, built a fort and began to lay the land waste. Khwāja Qāzī and several begs were appointed to drive him out. When they came near, he saw himself no match for such a force, made the Khwāja his mediator and, by a hundred wiles and tricks, got himself safely free.

Throughout these great events, `Umar Shaikh Mīrzā's former begs and braves had held resolutely together and made daring offer of their lives. The Mīrzā's mother, Shāh Sulṯān Begīm,[197] and Jaḥāngīr Mīrzā and the _ḥaram_ household and the begs came from Akhsī to Andijān; the customary mourning was fulfilled and food and victuals spread for the poor and destitute.[198]

[Sidenote: Fol. 18.] In the leisure from these important matters, attention was given to the administration of the country and the ordering of the army. The Andijān Government and control of my Gate were settled (_mukarrar_) for Ḥasan (son) of Yaq'ūb; Aūsh was decided on (_qarār_) for Qāsim _Qūchīn_; Akhsī and Marghīnān assigned (_ta'īn_) to Aūzun Ḥasan and `Alī-dost T̤aghāī. For the rest of `Umar Shaikh Mīrzā's begs and braves, to each according to his circumstances, were settled and assigned district (_wilāyat_) or land (_yīr_) or office (_mauja_) or charge (_jīrga_) or stipend (_wajh_).

When Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā had gone two or three stages on his return-march, his health changed for the worse and high fever appeared. On his reaching the Āq Sū near Aūrā-tīpā, he bade farewell to this transitory world, in the middle of Shawwāl of the date 899 (mid July 1494 AD.) being then 44 (lunar) years old.

_m. Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā's birth and descent._

He was born in 855 AH. (1451 AD.) the year in which his father took the throne (_i.e._ Samarkand). He was Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā's eldest son; his mother was a daughter of Aūrdū-būghā Tarkhān (_Arghūn_), the elder sister of Darwesh Muḥammad Tarkhān, and the most honoured of the Mīrzā's wives.

_n. His appearance and habits._

He was a tall, stout, brown-bearded and red-faced man. He had beard on his chin but none on his cheeks. He had very [Sidenote: Fol. 18b.] pleasing manners. As was the fashion in those days, he wound his turban in four folds and brought the end forward over his brows.

_o. His characteristics and manners._

He was a True Believer, pure in the Faith; five times daily, without fail, he recited the Prayers, not omitting them even on drinking-days. He was a disciple of his Highness Khwāja `Ubaidu'l-lāh (_Aḥrārī_), his instructor in religion and the strengthener of his Faith. He was very ceremonious, particularly when sitting with the Khwāja. People say he never drew one knee over the other[199] at any entertainment of the Khwāja. On one occasion contrary to his custom, he sat with his feet together. When he had risen, the Khwāja ordered the place he had sat in to be searched; there they found, it may have been, a bone.[200] He had read nothing whatever and was ignorant (_`amī_), and though town-bred, unmannered and homely. Of genius he had no share. He was just and as his Highness the Khwāja was there, accompanying him step by step,[201] most of his affairs found lawful settlement. He was true and faithful to his vow and word; nothing was ever seen to the contrary. He had courage, and though he never happened to get in his own hand to work, gave sign of it, they say, in some of his encounters. [Sidenote: Fol. 19.] He drew a good bow, generally hitting the duck[202] both with his arrows (_aūq_) and his forked-arrows (_tīr-giz_), and, as a rule, hit the gourd[203] in riding across the lists (_maidān_). Latterly, when he had grown stout, he used to take quail and pheasant with the goshawks,[204] rarely failing. A sportsman he was, hawking mostly and hawking well; since Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā, such a sporting _pādshāh_ had not been seen. He was extremely decorous; people say he used to hide his feet even in the privacy of his family and amongst his intimates. Once settled down to drink, he would drink for 20 or 30 days at a stretch; once risen, would not drink again for another 20 or 30 days. He was a good drinker;[205] on non-drinking days he ate without conviviality (_basīṯ_). Avarice was dominant in his character. He was kindly, a man of few words whose will was in the hands of his begs.

_p. His battles._

He fought four battles. The first was with Ni'mat _Arghūn_, Shaikh Jamāl _Arghūn's_ younger brother, at Āqār-tūzī, near Zamīn. This he won. The second was with `Umar Shaikh Mīrzā at Khwaṣ; this also he won. The third affair was when he encountered Sl. Maḥmūd Khān on the Chīr, near Tāshkīnt [Sidenote: Fol. 19b.](895 AH.-1469 AD.). There was no real fighting, but some Mughūl plunderers coming up, by ones and twos, in his rear and laying hands on his baggage, his great army, spite of its numbers, broke up without a blow struck, without an effort made, without a coming face to face, and its main body was drowned in the Chīr.[206] His fourth affair was with Ḥaidar _Kūkūldāsh_ (_Mughūl_), near Yār-yīlāq; here he won.

_q. His country._

Samarkand and Bukhārā his father gave him; Tāshkīnt and Sairām he took and held for a time but gave them to his younger brother, `Umar Shaikh Mīrzā, after `Abdu'l-qadūs (_Dūghlāt_) slew Shaikh Jamāl (_Arghūn_); Khujand and Aūrātīpā were also for a time in his possession.

_r. His children._

His two sons did not live beyond infancy. He had five daughters, four by Qātāq Begīm.[207]

Rābi`a-sulṯān Begīm, known as the Dark-eyed Begīm, was his eldest. The Mīrzā himself made her go forth to Sl. Maḥmūd Khān;[208] she had one child, a nice little boy, called Bābā Khān. The Aūzbegs killed him and several others of age as unripe as his when they martyred (his father) The Khān, in Khujand, (914 AH.-1508 AD.). At that time she fell to Jānī Beg Sulṯān (_Aūzbeg_). [Sidenote: Fol. 20.]

Ṣāliḥa-sulṯān (Ṣalīqa) Begīm was his second daughter; people called her the Fair Begīm. Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā, after her father's death, took her for his eldest son, Sl. Mas`ūd Mīrzā and made the wedding feast (900 AH.). Later on she fell to the Kāshgharī with Shāh Begīm and Mihr-nigār Khānim.

`Āyisha-sulṯān Begīm was the third. When I was five and went to Samarkand, they set her aside for me; in the guerilla times[209] she came to Khujand and I took her (905 AH.); her one little daughter, born after the second taking of Samarkand, went in a few days to God's mercy and she herself left me at the instigation of an older sister.

Sulṯānīm Begīm was the fourth daughter; Sl. `Alī Mīrzā took her; then Tīmūr Sulṯān (_Aūzbeg_) took her and after him, Mahdī Sulṯān (_Aūzbeg_).

Ma`sūma-sulṯān Begīm was the youngest of Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā's daughters. Her mother, Ḥabība-sulṯān Begīm, was of the Arghūns, a daughter of Sl. Ḥusain _Arghūn's_ brother. I saw her when I went to Khurāsān (912 AH.-1506 AD.), liked her, asked for her, had her brought to Kābul and took her (913 AH.-1507 AD.). She had one daughter and there and then, went to God's mercy, through the pains of the birth. Her name was at once given to her child.

_s. His ladies and mistresses._

Mihr-nigār Khānīm was his first wife, set aside for him by his father, Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā. She was Yūnas Khān's eldest [Sidenote: Fol. 20b.] daughter and my mother's full-sister.

Tarkhān Begīm of the Tarkhāns was another of his wives.

Qātāq Begīm was another, the foster-sister of the Tarkhān Begīm just mentioned. Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā took her _par amours_ (_`āshiqlār bīlā_): she was loved with passion and was very dominant. She drank wine. During the days of her ascendancy (_tīrīklīk_), he went to no other of his _ḥaram_; at last he took up a proper position (_aūlnūrdī_) and freed himself from his reproach.[210]

Khān-zāda Begīm, of the Tīrmīẕ Khāns, was another. He had just taken her when I went, at five years old, to Samarkand; her face was still veiled and, as is the Turkī custom, they told me to uncover it.[211]

Laṯīf Begīm was another, a daughter's child of Aḥmad Ḥājī Beg _Dūldāī_ (_Barlās_). After the Mīrzā's death, Ḥamza Sl. took her and she had three sons by him. They with other sulṯāns' children, fell into my hands when I took Ḥiṣār (916 AH.-1510 AD.) after defeating Ḥamza Sulṯān and Tīmūr Sulṯān. I set all free.

Ḥabība-sulṯān Begīm was another, a daughter of the brother of Sl. Ḥusain _Arghūn_.

_t. His amīrs._

Jānī Beg _Dūldāī_ (_Barlās_) was a younger brother of Sl. Malik _Kāshgharī_. Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā gave him the Government of Samarkand and Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā gave him the control of his own Gate.[212] He must have had singular habits and [Sidenote: Fol. 21.] manners;[213] many strange stories are told about him. One is this:—While he was Governor in Samarkand, an envoy came to him from the Aūzbegs renowned, as it would seem, for his strength. An Aūzbeg, is said to call a strong man a bull (_būkuh_). "Are you a _būkuh_?" said Jānī Beg to the envoy, "If you are, come, let's have a friendly wrestle together (_kūrāshālīng_)." Whatever objections the envoy raised, he refused to accept. They wrestled and Jānī Beg gave the fall. He was a brave man.

Aḥmad Ḥājī (_Dūldāī Barlās_) was another, a son of Sl. Malik _Kāshgharī_. Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā gave him the Government of Hīrī (Harāt) for a time but sent him when his uncle, Jānī Beg died, to Samarkand with his uncle's appointments. He was pleasant-natured and brave. Wafā'ī was his pen-name and he put together a dīwān in verse not bad. This couplet is his:

"I am drunk, Inspector, to-day keep your hand off me, "Inspect me on the day you catch me sober."

Mīr `Alī-sher Nāwā'ī when he went from Hīrī to Samarkand, was with Aḥmad Ḥājī Beg but he went back to Hīrī when Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā (Bāī-qarā) became supreme (873 AH.-1460 AD.) and he there received exceeding favour.

[Sidenote: Fol. 21b.] Aḥmad Ḥājī Beg kept and rode excellent _tīpūchāqs_,[214] mostly of his own breeding. Brave he was but his power to command did not match his courage; he was careless and what was necessary in his affairs, his retainers and followers put through. He fell into Sl. `Alī Mīrzā's hands when the Mīrzā defeated Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā in Bukhārā (901 AH.), and was then put to a dishonourable death on the charge of the blood of Darwesh Muḥammad Tarkhān.[215]

Darwesh Muḥammad Tarkhān (_Arghūn_) was another, the son of Aūrdū-būghā Tarkhān and full-brother of the mother of Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā and Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā.[216] Of all begs in Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā's presence, he was the greatest and most honoured. He was an orthodox Believer, kindly and darwesh-like, and was a constant transcriber of the Qu'rān.[217] He played chess often and well, thoroughly understood the science of fowling and flew his birds admirably. He died in the height of his greatness, with a bad name, during the troubles between Sl. `Alī Mīrzā and Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā.[218]

`Abdu'l-`alī Tarkhān was another, a near relation of Darwesh Muḥammad Tarkhān, possessor also of his younger sister,[219] that is to say, Bāqī Tarkhān's mother. Though both by the Mughūl rule (_tūrā_) and by his rank, Darwesh Muḥammad Tarkhān was the superior of `Abdu'l-`alī Tarkhān, this Pharoah regarded him not at all. For some years he had the Government of Bukhārā. His retainers were reckoned at [Sidenote: Fol. 22.] 3,000 and he kept them well and handsomely. His gifts (_bakhshīsh_), his visits of enquiry (_purshīsh_), his public audience (_dīwān_), his work-shops (_dast-gāh_), his open-table (_shīlān_) and his assemblies (_majlis_) were all like a king's. He was a strict disciplinarian, a tyrannical, vicious, self-infatuated person. Shaibānī Khān, though not his retainer, was with him for a time; most of the lesser (Shaibān) sulṯāns did themselves take service with him. This same `Abdu'l-`alī Tarkhān was the cause of Shaibānī Khān's rise to such a height and of the downfall of such ancient dynasties.[220]

Sayyid Yūsuf, the Grey Wolfer[221] was another; his grandfather will have come from the Mughūl horde; his father was favoured by Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā (_Shāhrukhī_). His judgment and counsel were excellent; he had courage too. He played well on the guitar (_qūbuz_). He was with me when I first went to Kābul; I shewed him great favour and in truth he was worthy of favour. I left him in Kābul the first year the army rode out for Hindūstān; at that time he went to God's mercy.[222]

Darwesh Beg was another; he was of the line of Aīku-tīmūr Beg,[223] a favourite of Tīmūr Beg. He was a disciple of his Highness Khwāja `Ubaidu'l-lāh (_Aḥrārī_), had knowledge of the science of music, played several instruments and was naturally [Sidenote: Fol. 22b.] disposed to poetry. He was drowned in the Chīr at the time of Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā's discomfiture.

Muḥammad Mazīd Tarkhān was another, a younger full-brother of Darwesh Muḥ. Tarkhān. He was Governor in Turkistān for some years till Shaibānī Khān took it from him. His judgment and counsel were excellent; he was an unscrupulous and vicious person. The second and third times I took Samarkand, he came to my presence and each time I shewed him very great favour. He died in the fight at Kūl-i-malik (918 AH.-1512 AD.).

Bāqī Tarkhān was another, the son of `Abdu'l-`alī Tarkhān and Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā's aunt. When his father died, they gave him Bukhārā. He grew in greatness under Sl. `Alī Mīrzā, his retainers numbering 5 or 6,000. He was neither obedient nor very submissive to Sl. `Alī Mīrzā. He fought Shaibānī Khān at Dabūsī (905 AH.) and was crushed; by the help of this defeat, Shaibānī Khān went and took Bukhārā. He was very fond of hawking; they say he kept 700 birds. His manners and habits were not such as may be told;[224] he grew up with a Mīrzā's state and splendour. Because his father had shewn favour to Shaibānī Khān, he went to the Khān's presence, but that inhuman ingrate made him no sort of return in favour and kindness. [Sidenote: Fol. 23.] He left the world at Akhsī, in misery and wretchedness.

Sl. Ḥusain _Arghūn_ was another. He was known as Qarā-kūlī because he had held the Qarā-kūl government for a time. His judgment and counsel were excellent; he was long in my presence also.

Qulī Muḥammad _Būghdā_[225] was another, a _qūchīn_; he must have been a brave man.

`Abdu'l-karīm _Ishrit_[226] was another; he was an Aūīghūr, Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā's Lord of the Gate, a brave and generous man.

(_u. Historical narrative resumed._)

After Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā's death, his begs in agreement, sent a courier by the mountain-road to invite Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā.[227]

Malik-i-Muḥammad Mīrzā, the son of Minūchihr Mīrzā, Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā's eldest brother, aspired for his own part to rule. Having drawn a few adventurers and desperadoes to himself, they dribbled away[228] from (Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā's) camp and went to Samarkand. He was not able to effect anything, but he brought about his own death and that of several innocent persons of the ruling House.

At once on hearing of his brother's death, Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā went off to Samarkand and there seated himself on the throne, without difficulty. Some of his doings soon disgusted and alienated high and low, soldier and peasant. The first of these was that he sent the above-named Malik-i-Muḥammad to the [Sidenote: Fol. 23b.] Kūk-sarāī,[229] although he was his father's brother's son and his own son-in-law.[230] With him he sent others, four Mīrzās in all. Two of these he set aside; Malik-i-Muḥammad and one other he martyred. Some of the four were not even of ruling rank and had not the smallest aspiration to rule; though Malik-i-Muḥammad Mīrzā was a little in fault, in the rest there was no blame whatever. A second thing was that though his methods and regulations were excellent, and though he was expert in revenue matters and in the art of administration, his nature inclined to tyranny and vice. Directly he reached Samarkand, he began to make new regulations and arrangements and to rate and tax on a new basis. Moreover the dependants of his (late) Highness Khwāja `Ubaid'l-lāh, under whose protection formerly many poor and destitute persons had lived free from the burden of dues and imposts, were now themselves treated with harshness and oppression. On what ground should hardship have touched them? Nevertheless oppressive exactions were made from them, indeed from the Khwāja's very children. Yet another thing was that just as he was vicious and tyrannical, so were his begs, small and great, and his retainers and followers. The Ḥiṣārīs and in particular the followers of Khusrau Shāh engaged themselves unceasingly with wine and fornication. Once one of them enticed and took away a certain man's wife. [Sidenote: Fol. 24.]When her husband went to Khusrau Shāh and asked for justice, he received for answer: "She has been with you for several years; let her be a few days with him." Another thing was that the young sons of the townsmen and shopkeepers, nay! even of Turks and soldiers could not go out from their houses from fear of being taken for catamites. The Samarakandīs, having passed 20 or 25 years under Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā in ease and tranquillity, most matters carried through lawfully and with justice by his Highness the Khwāja, were wounded and troubled in heart and soul, by this oppression and this vice. Low and high, the poor, the destitute, all opened the mouth to curse, all lifted the hand for redress.

"Beware the steaming up of inward wounds, For an inward wound at the last makes head; Avoid while thou canst, distress to one heart, For a single sigh will convulse a world."[231]

By reason of his infamous violence and vice Sl. Maḥmud Mīrzā did not rule in Samarkand more than five or six months.

900 AH.-OCT. 2ND. 1494 TO SEP. 21ST. 1495 AD.[232]

This year Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā sent an envoy, named `Abdu'l-qadūs Beg,[233] to bring me a gift from the wedding he had made with splendid festivity for his eldest son, Mas`ūd Mīrzā with (Ṣāliḥa-sulṯān), the Fair Begīm, the second daughter of his elder brother, Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā. They had sent gold and silver almonds and pistachios.

There must have been relationship between this envoy and Ḥasan-i-yaq`ūb, and on its account he will have been the man sent to make Ḥasan-i-yaq`ūb, by fair promises, look towards Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā. Ḥasan-i-yaq`ūb returned him a smooth answer, made indeed as though won over to his side, and gave him leave to go. Five or six months later, his manners changed entirely; he began to behave ill to those about me and to others, and he carried matters so far that he would have dismissed me in order to put Jahāngīr Mīrzā in my place. Moreover his conversation with the whole body of begs and soldiers was not what should be; every-one came to know what was in his mind. Khwāja-i-Qāzī and (Sayyid) Qāsim _Qūchīn_ and `Alī-dost T̤aghāī met other well-wishers of mine in the presence of my grandmother, Āīsān-daulat Begīm and decided to give quietus to Ḥasan-i-yaq`ūb's disloyalty by his deposition.

Few amongst women will have been my grandmother's equals for judgment and counsel; she was very wise and far-sighted and most affairs of mine were carried through under her advice. She and my mother were (living) in the Gate-house of the outer fort;[234] Ḥasan-i-yaq`ūb was in the citadel.

When I went to the citadel, in pursuance of our decision, he had ridden out, presumably for hawking, and as soon as he had [Sidenote: Fol. 25.] our news, went off from where he was towards Samarkand. The begs and others in sympathy with him,[235] were arrested; one was Muḥammad Bāqir Beg; Sl. Maḥmud _Dūldāī_, Sl. Muḥammad _Dūldāī's_ father, was another; there were several more; to some leave was given to go for Samarkand. The Andijān Government and control of my Gate were settled on (Sayyid) Qāsim _Qūchīn_.

A few days after Ḥasan-i-yaq`ūb reached Kand-i-badām on the Samarkand road, he went to near the Khūqān sub-division (_aūrchīn_) with ill-intent on Akhsī. Hearing of it, we sent several begs and braves to oppose him; they, as they went, detached a scouting party ahead; he, hearing this, moved against the detachment, surrounded it in its night-quarters[236] and poured flights of arrows (_shība_) in on it. In the darkness of the night an arrow (_aūq_), shot by one of his own men, hit him just (_aūq_) in the vent (_qāchār_) and before he could take vent (_qāchār_),[237] he became the captive of his own act.

"If you have done ill, keep not an easy mind, For retribution is Nature's law."[238]

This year I began to abstain from all doubtful food, my obedience extended even to the knife, the spoon and the table-cloth;[239] also the after-midnight Prayer (_taḥajjud_) was [Sidenote: Fol. 25b.] less neglected.

(_a. Death of Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā._)

In the month of the latter Rabī` (January 1495 AD.), Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā was confronted by violent illness and in six days, passed from the world. He was 43 (lunar) years old.

_b. His birth and lineage._

He was born in 857 AH. (1453 AD.), was Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā's third son and the full-brother of Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā.[240]

_c. His appearance and characteristics._

He was a short, stout, sparse-bearded and somewhat ill-shaped person. His manners and his qualities were good, his rules and methods of business excellent; he was well-versed in accounts, not a _dinār_ or a _dirhām_[241] of revenue was spent without his knowledge. The pay of his servants was never disallowed. His assemblies, his gifts, his open table, were all good. Everything of his was orderly and well-arranged;[242] no soldier or peasant could deviate in the slightest from any plan of his. Formerly he must have been hard set (_qātīrār_) on hawking but latterly he very frequently hunted driven game.[243] He carried violence and vice to frantic excess, was a constant wine-bibber and kept many catamites. If anywhere in his territory, there was a handsome boy, he used, by whatever means, to have him brought for a catamite; of his begs' sons and of his sons' begs' sons he made catamites; and laid command for this service on [Sidenote: Fol. 26.] his very foster brothers and on their own brothers. So common in his day was that vile practice, that no person was without his catamite; to keep one was thought a merit, not to keep one, a defect. Through his infamous violence and vice, his sons died in the day of their strength (_tamām juwān_).

He had a taste for poetry and put a _dīwān_[244] together but his verse is flat and insipid,—not to compose is better than to compose verse such as his. He was not firm in the Faith and held his Highness Khwāja `Ubaidu'l-lāh (_Aḥrārī_) in slight esteem. He had no heart (_yūruk_) and was somewhat scant in modesty,—several of his impudent buffoons used to do their filthy and abominable acts in his full Court, in all men's sight. He spoke badly, there was no understanding him at first.

_d. His battles._

He fought two battles, both with Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā (_Bāīqarā_). The first was in Astarābād; here he was defeated. The second was at Chīkman (Sarāī),[245] near Andikhūd; here also he was defeated. He went twice to Kāfiristān, on the [Sidenote: Fol. 26b.] south of Badakhshān, and made Holy War; for this reason they wrote him Sl. Maḥmūd _Ghāzī_ in the headings of his public papers.

_e. His countries._

Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā gave him Astarābād.[246] After the `Irāq disaster (_i.e._, his father's death,) he went into Khurāsān. At that time, Qaṃbar-`alī Beg, the governor of Ḥiṣār, by Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā's orders, had mobilized the Hindūstān[247] army and was following him into `Irāq; he joined Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā in Khurāsān but the Khurāsānīs, hearing of Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā's approach, rose suddenly and drove them out of the country. On this Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā went to his elder brother, Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā in Samarkand. A few months later Sayyid Badr and Khusrau Shāh and some braves under Aḥmad _Mushtāq_[248] took him and fled to Qaṃbar-`alī in Ḥiṣār. From that time forth, Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā possessed the countries lying south of Quhqa (Quhlugha) and the Kohtin Range as far as the Hindū-kush Mountains, such as Tīrmīẕ, Chaghānīān, Ḥiṣār, Khutlān, Qūndūz and Badakhshān. He also held Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā's lands, after his brother's death.

_f. His children._

He had five sons and eleven daughters.

Sl. Mas`ūd Mīrzā was his eldest son; his mother was Khān-zāda [Sidenote: Fol 27.] Begīm, a daughter of the Great Mīr of Tīrmīẕ. Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā was another; his mother was Pasha (or Pāshā) Begīm. Sl. `Alī Mīrzā was another; his mother was an Aūzbeg, a concubine called Zuhra Begī Āghā. Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā was another; his mother was Khān-zāda Begīm, a grand-daughter of the Great Mīr of Tīrmīẕ; he went to God's mercy in his father's life-time, at the age of 13. Sl. Wais Mīrzā (Mīrzā Khān) was another; his mother, Sulṯān-nigār Khānīm was a daughter of Yūnas Khān and was a younger (half-) sister of my mother. The affairs of these four Mīrzās will be written of in this history under the years of their occurrence.

Of Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā's daughters, three were by the same mother as Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā. One of these, Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā's senior, Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā made to go out to Malik-i-muḥammad Mīrzā, the son of his paternal uncle, Minūchihr Mīrzā.[249]

* * * * *

Five other daughters were by Khān-zāda Begīm, the grand-daughter of the Great Mīr of Tīrmīẕ. The oldest of these, (Khān-zāda Begīm)[250] was given, after her father's death, to Abā-bikr [Sidenote: Fol. 27b.] (_Dūghlāt_) _Kāshgharī_. The second was Bega Begīm. When Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā besieged Ḥiṣār (901 AH.), he took her for Ḥaidar Mīrzā, his son by Pāyanda Begīm, Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā's daughter, and having done so, rose from before the place.[251] The third daughter was Āq (Fair) Begīm; the fourth[252]—,was betrothed to Jahāngīr Mīrzā (_aet._ 5, _circa_ 895 AH.) at the time his father, `Umar Shaikh Mīrzā sent him to help Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā with the Andijān army, against Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā, then attacking Qūndūz.[253] In 910 AH. (1504 AD.) when Bāqī _Chaghānīānī_[254] waited on me on the bank of the Amū (Oxus), these (last-named two) Begīms were with their mothers in Tīrmīẕ and joined me then with Bāqī's family. When we reached Kahmard, Jahāngīr Mīrzā took —-- Begīm; one little daughter was born; she now[255] is in the Badakhshān country with her grandmother. The fifth daughter was Zainab-sulṯān Begīm; under my mother's insistence, I took her at the time of the capture of Kābul (910 AH.-Oct. 1504 AD.). She did not become very congenial; two or three years later, she left the world, through small-pox. Another daughter was Makhdūm-sulṯān Begīm, Sl. `Alī Mīrzā's full-sister; she is now in the Badakhshān country. Two others of his daughters, Rajab-sulṯān and Muḥibb-sulṯān, were by mistresses (_ghūnchachī_).

_g. His ladies_ (_khwātīnlār_) _and concubines_ (_sarārī_).

His chief wife, Khān-zāda Begīm, was a daughter of the [Sidenote: Fol. 28.] Great Mīr of Tirmīẕ; he had great affection for her and must have mourned her bitterly; she was the mother of Sl. Mas`ūd Mīrzā. Later on, he took her brother's daughter, also called Khān-zāda Begīm, a grand-daughter of the Great Mīr of Tīrmīẕ. She became the mother of five of his daughters and one of his sons. Pasha (or Pāshā) Begīm was another wife, a daughter of `Alī-shukr Beg, a Turkmān Beg of the Black Sheep Bahārlū Aīmāq.[256] She had been the wife of Jahān-shāh (_Barānī_) of the Black Sheep Turkmāns. After Aūzūn (Long) Ḥasan Beg of the White Sheep had taken Āẕar-bāījān and `Irāq from the sons of this Jahān-shāh Mīrzā (872 AH.-1467 AD.), `Alī-shukr Beg's sons went with four or five thousand heads-of-houses of the Black Sheep Turkmāns to serve Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā and after the Mīrzā's defeat (873 AH. by Aūzūn Ḥasan), came down to these countries and took service with Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā. This happened after Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā came to Ḥiṣār from Samarkand, and then it was he took Pasha Begīm. She became the mother of one of his sons and three of his daughters. Sulṯān-nigār Khānīm was another of his ladies; her descent has been mentioned already in the account of the (Chaghatāī) Khāns. [Sidenote: Fol. 28b.]

He had many concubines and mistresses. His most honoured concubine (_mu`atabar ghūma_) was Zuhra Begī Āghā; she was taken in his father's life-time and became the mother of one son and one daughter. He had many mistresses and, as has been said, two of his daughters were by two of them.

_h. His amirs._

Khusrau Shāh was of the Turkistānī Qīpchāqs. He had been in the intimate service of the Tarkhān begs, indeed had been a catamite. Later on he became a retainer of Mazīd Beg (Tarkhān) _Arghūn_ who favoured him in all things. He was favoured by Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā on account of services done by him when, after the `Irāq disaster, he joined the Mīrzā on his way to Khurāsān. He waxed very great in his latter days; his retainers, under Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā, were a clear five or six thousand. Not only Badakhshān but the whole country from the Amū to the Hindū-kush Mountains depended on him and he devoured its whole revenue (_darobast yīr īdī_). His open table was good, so too his open hand; though he was a rough getter,[257] what he got, he spent liberally. He waxed exceeding great after Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā's death, in whose sons' time his retainers approached 20,000. Although he prayed and abstained from forbidden aliments, yet was he black-souled and vicious, [Sidenote: Fol. 29.] dunder-headed and senseless, disloyal and a traitor to his salt. For the sake of this fleeting, five-days world,[258] he blinded one of his benefactor's sons and murdered another. A sinner before God, reprobate to His creatures, he has earned curse and execration till the very verge of Resurrection. For this world's sake he did his evil deeds and yet, with lands so broad and with such hosts of armed retainers, he had not pluck to stand up to a hen. An account of him will come into this history.

Pīr-i-muḥammad _Aīlchī-būghā[259] Qūchīn_ was another. In Hazārāspī's fight[260] he got in one challenge with his fists in Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā's presence at the Gate of Balkh. He was a brave man, continuously serving the Mīrzā (Maḥmūd) and guiding him by his counsel. Out of rivalry to Khusrau Shāh, he made a night-attack when the Mīrzā was besieging Qūndūz, on Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā, with few men, without arming[261] and without plan; he could do nothing; what was there he could do against such and so large a force? He was pursued, threw himself into the river and was drowned.

Ayūb (_Begchīk Mughūl_)[262] was another. He had served in Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā's Khurāsān Cadet Corps, a brave man, Bāīsunghar Mīrzā's guardian. He was choice in dress and food; a jester and talkative, nicknamed Impudence, perhaps because the Mīrzā called him so. [Sidenote: Fol. 29b.]

Walī was another, the younger, full-brother of Khusrau Shāh. He kept his retainers well. He it was brought about the blinding of Sl. Mas`ūd Mīrzā and the murder of Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā. He had an ill-word for every-one and was an evil-tongued, foul-mouthed, self-pleasing and dull-witted mannikin. He approved of no-one but himself. When I went from the Qūndūz country to near Dūshī (910 AH.-1503 AD.), separated Khusrau Shāh from his following and dismissed him, this person (_i.e._, Walī) had come to Andar-āb and Sīr-āb, also in fear of the Aūzbegs. The Aīmāqs of those parts beat and robbed him[263] then, having let me know, came on to Kābul. Walī went to Shaibānī Khān who had his head struck off in the town of Samarkand.

Shaikh `Abdu'l-lāh _Barlās_[264] was another; he had to wife one of the daughters of Shāh Sulṯān Muḥammad (_Badakhshī_) _i.e._, the maternal aunt of Abā-bikr Mīrzā (_Mīrān-shāhī_) and of Sl. Maḥmūd Khān. He wore his tunic narrow and _pur shaqq_[265]; he was a kindly well-bred man.

Maḥmūd _Barlās_ of the Barlāses of Nūndāk (Badakhshān) was another. He had been a beg also of Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā and had surrendered Karmān to him when the Mīrzā took the `Irāq countries. When Abā-bikr Mīrzā (_Mīrān-shāhī_) came [Sidenote: Fol. 30.] against Ḥiṣār with Mazīd Beg Tarkhān and the Black Sheep Turkmāns, and Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā went off to his elder brother, Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā in Samarkand, Maḥmūd _Barlās_ did not surrender Ḥiṣār but held out manfully.[266] He was a poet and put a _dīwān_ together.

(_i. Historical narrative resumed_).

When Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā died, Khusrau Shāh kept the event concealed and laid a long hand on the treasure. But how could such news be hidden? It spread through the town at once. That was a festive day for the Samarkand families; soldier and peasant, they uprose in tumult against Khusrau Shāh. Aḥmad Ḥājī Beg and the Tarkhānī begs put the rising down and turned Khusrau Shāh out of the town with an escort for Ḥiṣār.

As Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā himself after giving Ḥiṣār to Sl. Mas`ūd Mīrzā and Bukhārā to Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā, had dismissed both to their governments, neither was present when he died. The Ḥiṣār and Samarkand begs, after turning Khusrau Shāh out, agreed to send for Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā from Bukhārā, brought him to Samarkand and seated him on the throne. When he thus became supreme (_pādshāh_), he was 18 (lunar) years old.

At this crisis, Sl. Maḥmūd Khān (_Chaghatāī_), acting on the [Sidenote: Fol. 30b.] word of Junaid _Barlās_ and of some of the notables of Samarkand, led his army out to near Kān-bāī with desire to take that town. Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā, on his side, marched out in force. They fought near Kān-bāī. Ḥaidar _Kūkūldāsh_, the main pillar of the Mughūl army, led the Mughūl van. He and all his men dismounted and were pouring in flights of arrows (_shība_) when a large body of the mailed braves of Ḥiṣār and Samarkand made an impetuous charge and straightway laid them under their horses' feet. Their leader taken, the Mughūl army was put to rout without more fighting. Masses (_qālīn_) of Mughūls were wiped out; so many were beheaded in Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā's presence that his tent was three times shifted because of the number of the dead.

At this same crisis, Ibrāhīm _Sārū_ entered the fort of Asfara, there read Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā's name in the _Khuṯba_ and took up a position of hostility to me.

(_Author's note._) Ibrāhīm _Sārū_ is of the Mīnglīgh people;[267] he had served my father in various ways from his childhood but later on had been dismissed for some fault.

[Sidenote: Fol. 31.] The army rode out to crush this rebellion in the month of Sha'bān (May) and by the end of it, had dismounted round Asfara. Our braves in the wantonness of enterprise, on the very day of arrival, took the new wall[268] that was in building outside the fort. That day Sayyid Qāsim, Lord of my Gate, out-stripped the rest and got in with his sword; Sl. Aḥmad _Taṃbal_ and Muḥammad-dost T̤aghāī got theirs in also but Sayyid Qāsim won the Champion's Portion. He took it in Shāhrukhiya when I went to see my mother's brother, Sl. Maḥmūd Khān.

(_Author's note._) The Championship Portion[269] is an ancient usage of the Mughūl horde. Whoever outdistanced his tribe and got in with his own sword, took the portion at every feast and entertainment.

My guardian, Khudāī-bīrdī Beg died in that first day's fighting, struck by a cross-bow arrow. As the assault was made without armour, several bare braves (_yīkīt yīlāng_)[270] perished and many were wounded. One of Ibrāhīm _Sārū's_ cross-bowmen was an excellent shot; his equal had never been seen; he it was hit most of those wounded. When Asfara had been taken, he entered my service.

As the siege drew on, orders were given to construct head-strikes[271] in two or three places, to run mines and to make every [Sidenote: Fol. 31b.] effort to prepare appliances for taking the fort. The siege lasted 40 days; at last Ibrāhīm _Sārū_ had no resource but, through the mediation of Khwāja Moulānā-i-qāẓī, to elect to serve me. In the month of Shawwāl (June 1495 A.D.) he came out, with his sword and quiver hanging from his neck, waited on me and surrendered the fort.

Khujand for a considerable time had been dependent on `Umar Shaikh Mīrzā's Court (_dīwān_) but of late had looked towards Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā on account of the disturbance in the Farghāna government during the interregnum.[272] As the opportunity offered, a move against it also was now made. Mīr Mughūl's father, `Abdu'l-wahhāb _Shaghāwal_[273] was in it; he surrendered without making any difficulty at once on our arrival.

Just then Sl. Maḥmūd Khān was in Shāhrukhiya. It has been said already that when Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā came into Andijān (899 AH.), he also came and that he laid siege to Akhsī. It occurred to me that if since I was so close, I went and waited on him, he being, as it were, my father and my elder brother, and if bye-gone resentments were laid aside, it would be good hearing and seeing for far and near. So said, I went.

I waited on The Khān in the garden Ḥaidar _Kūkūldāsh_ had made outside Shāhrukhiya. He was seated in a large four-doored [Sidenote: Fol. 32.] tent set up in the middle of it. Having entered the tent, I knelt three times,[274] he for his part, rising to do me honour. We looked one another in the eyes;[275] and he returned to his seat. After I had kneeled, he called me to his side and shewed me much affection and friendliness. Two or three days later, I set off for Akhsī and Andijān by the Kīndīrlīk Pass.[276] At Akhsī I made the circuit of my Father's tomb. I left at the hour of the Friday Prayer (_i.e._, about midday) and reached Andijān, by the Band-i-sālār Road between the Evening and Bedtime Prayers. This road _i.e._ the Band-i-sālār, people call a nine _yīghāch_ road.[277]

One of the tribes of the wilds of Andijān is the Jīgrāk[278] a numerous people of five or six thousand households, dwelling in the mountains between Kāshghar and Farghāna. They have many horses and sheep and also numbers of yāks (_qūtās_), these hill-people keeping yāks instead of common cattle. As their mountains are border-fastnesses, they have a fashion of not paying tribute. An army was now sent against them under (Sayyid) Qāsim Beg in order that out of the tribute taken from them something might reach the soldiers. He took about 20,000 of their sheep and between 1000 and 1500 of their horses and shared all out to the men.

After its return from the Jīgrāk, the army set out for Aūrā-tīpā. [Sidenote: Fol. 34.] Formerly this was held by `Umar Shaikh Mīrzā but it had gone out of hand in the year of his death and Sl. `Alī Mīrzā was now in it on behalf of his elder brother, Bāīsunghar Mīrzā. When Sl. `Alī Mīrzā heard of our coming, he went off himself to the Macha hill-country, leaving his guardian, Shaikh Ẕū'n-nūn _Arghūn_ behind. From half-way between Khujand and Aūrā-tīpā, Khalīfa[279] was sent as envoy to Shaikh Ẕū'n-nūn but that senseless mannikin, instead of giving him a plain answer, laid hands on him and ordered him to death. For Khalīfa to die cannot have been the Divine will; he escaped and came to me two or three days later, stripped bare and having suffered a hundred _tūmāns_ (1,000,000) of hardships and fatigues. We went almost to Aūrā-tīpā but as, winter being near, people had carried away their corn and forage, after a few days we turned back for Andijān. After our retirement, The Khān's men moved on the place when the Aūrā-tīpā person[280] unable to make a stand, surrendered and came out. The Khān then gave it to Muḥammad Ḥusain _Kūrkān Dūghlāt_ and in his hands it remained till 908 AH. (1503).[281]

901 AH.—SEP. 21ST. 1495 TO SEP. 9TH. 1496 AD.[282]

(_a. Sulṯān Ḥusain Mīrzā's campaign against Khusrau Shāh_).

In the winter of this year, Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā led his army out of Khurāsān against Ḥiṣār and went to opposite Tīrmīẕ. Sl. Mas`ūd Mīrzā, for his part, brought an army (from Ḥiṣār) and sat down over against him in Tīrmīẕ. Khusrau Shāh strengthened himself in Qūndūz and to help Sl. Mas`ūd Mīrzā sent his younger brother, Walī. They (_i.e._, the opposed forces) spent most of that winter on the river's banks, no crossing being effected. Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā was a shrewd and experienced commander; he marched up the river,[283] his face set for Qūndūz and by this having put Sl. Mas`ūd Mīrzā off his guard, sent `Abdu'l-laṯīf _Bakhshī_ (pay-master) with 5 or 600 serviceable men, down the river to the Kilīf ferry. These crossed and had entrenched themselves on the other bank before Sl. Mas`ūd Mīrzā had heard of their movement. When he did hear of it, whether because of pressure put upon him by Bāqī _Chaghānīānī_ to spite (his half-brother) Walī, or whether from his own want of heart, he did not march against those who had crossed but disregarding Walī's urgency, at once broke up his camp and turned for Ḥiṣār.[284]

Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā crossed the river and then sent, (1) against Khusrau Shāh, Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā and Ibrāhīm Ḥusain Mīrzā with Muḥammad Walī Beg and Ẕū'n-nūn _Arghūn_, and [Sidenote: Fol. 33b.] (2) against Khutlān, Muz̤affar Ḥusain Mīrzā with Muḥammad _Barandūq Barlās_. He himself moved for Ḥiṣār.

When those in Ḥiṣār heard of his approach, they took their precautions; Sl. Mas`ūd Mīrzā did not judge it well to stay in the fort but went off up the Kām Rūd valley[285] and by way of Sara-tāq to his younger brother, Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā in Samarkand. Walī, for his part drew off to (his own district) Khutlān. Bāqī _Chaghānīānī_, Maḥmūd _Barlās_ and Qūch Beg's father, Sl. Aḥmad strengthened the fort of Ḥiṣār. Ḥamza Sl. and Mahdī Sl. (_Aūzbeg_) who some years earlier had left Shaibānī Khān for (the late) Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā's service, now, in this dispersion, drew off with all their Aūzbegs, for Qarā-tīgīn. With them went Muḥammad _Dūghlāt_[286] and Sl. Ḥusain _Dūghlāt_ and all the Mughūls located in the Ḥiṣār country.

Upon this Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā sent Abū'l-muḥsin Mīrzā after Sl. Mas`ūd Mīrzā up the Kām Rūd valley. They were not strong enough for such work when they reached the defile.[287] There Mīrzā Beg _Fīringī-bāz_[288] got in his sword. In pursuit of Ḥamza Sl. into Qarā-tīgīn, Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā sent Ibrāhīm Tarkhān and Yaq`ūb-i-ayūb. They overtook the sulṯāns and [Sidenote: Fol. 33.] fought. The Mīrzā's detachment was defeated; most of his begs were unhorsed but all were allowed to go free.

(_b. Bābur's reception of the Aūzbeg sulṯāns._)

As a result of this exodus, Ḥamza Sl. with his son, Mamāq Sl., and Mahdī Sl. and Muḥammad _Dūghlāt_, later known as _Ḥiṣārī_ and his brother, Sl. Ḥusain _Dūghlāt_ with the Aūzbegs dependent on the sulṯāns and the Mughūls who had been located in Ḥiṣār as (the late) Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā's retainers, came, after letting me know (their intention), and waited upon me in Ramẓān (May-June) at Andijān. According to the custom of Tīmūriya sulṯāns on such occasions, I had seated myself on a raised seat (_tūshāk_); when Ḥamza Sl. and Mamāq Sl. and Mahdī Sl. entered, I rose and went down to do them honour; we looked one another in the eyes and I placed them on my right, _bāghīsh dā_.[289] A number of Mughūls also came, under Muḥammad _Ḥiṣārī_; all elected for my service.

(_c. Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā's affairs resumed_).

Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā, on reaching Ḥiṣār, settled down at once to besiege it. There was no rest, day nor night, from the labours of mining and attack, of working catapults and mortars. Mines were run in four or five places. When one had gone well forward towards the Gate, the townsmen, countermining, struck it and forced smoke down on the Mīrzā's men; they, in turn, [Sidenote: Fol. 34b.] closed the hole, thus sent the smoke straight back and made the townsmen flee as from the very maw of death. In the end, the townsmen drove the besiegers out by pouring jar after jar of water in on them. Another day, a party dashed out from the town and drove off the Mīrzā's men from their own mine's mouth. Once the discharges from catapults and mortars in the Mīrzā's quarters on the north cracked a tower of the fort; it fell at the Bed-time Prayer; some of the Mīrzā's braves begged to assault at once but he refused, saying, "It is night." Before the shoot of the next day's dawn, the besieged had rebuilt the whole tower. That day too there was no assault; in fact, for the two to two and a half months of the siege, no attack was made except by keeping up the blockade,[290] by mining, rearing head-strikes,[291] and discharging stones.

When Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā and whatever (_nī kīm_) troops had been sent with him against Khusrau Shāh, dismounted some 16 m. (3 to 4 _yīghāch_) below Qūndūz,[292] Khusrau Shāh arrayed whatever men (_nī kīm_) he had, marched out, halted one night on the way, formed up to fight and came down upon the Mīrzā and his men. The Khurāsānīs may not have been twice as many as his men but what question is there they were half [Sidenote: Fol. 35.] as many more? None the less did such Mīrzās and such Commander-begs elect for prudence and remain in their entrenchments! Good and bad, small and great, Khusrau Shāh's force may have been of 4 or 5,000 men!

This was the one exploit of his life,—of this man who for the sake of this fleeting and unstable world and for the sake of shifting and faithless followers, chose such evil and such ill-repute, practised such tyranny and injustice, seized such wide lands, kept such hosts of retainers and followers,—latterly he led out between 20 and 30,000 and his countries and his districts (_parganāt_) exceeded those of his own ruler and that ruler's sons,[293]—for an exploit such as this his name and the names of his adherents were noised abroad for generalship and for this they were counted brave, while those timorous laggards, in the trenches, won the resounding fame of cowards.

Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā marched out from that camp and after a few stages reached the Alghū Mountain of Tāliqān[294] and there made halt. Khusrau Shāh, in Qūndūz, sent his brother, Walī, with serviceable men, to Ishkīmīsh, Fulūl and the hill-skirts thereabouts to annoy and harass the Mīrzā from outside also. Muḥibb-`alī, the armourer, (_qūrchī_) for his part, came down [Sidenote: Fol. 35b.] (from Walī's Khutlān) to the bank of the Khutlān Water, met in with some of the Mīrzā's men there, unhorsed some, cut off a few heads and got away. In emulation of this, Sayyidīm `Alī[295] the door-keeper, and his younger brother, Qulī Beg and Bihlūl-i-ayūb and a body of their men got to grips with the Khurāsānīs on the skirt of `Aṃbar Koh, near Khwāja Changāl but, many Khurāsānīs coming up, Sayyidīm `Alī and Bābā Beg's (son) Qulī Beg and others were unhorsed.

At the time these various news reached Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā, his army was not without distress through the spring rains of Ḥiṣār; he therefore brought about a peace; Maḥmūd _Barlās_ came out from those in the fort; Ḥājī Pīr the Taster went from those outside; the great commanders and what there was (_nī kīm_) of musicians and singers assembled and the Mīrzā took (Bega Begīm), the eldest[296] daughter of Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā by Khān-zāda Begīm, for Ḥaidar Mīrzā, his son by Pāyanda Begīm and through her the grandson of Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā. This done, he rose from before Ḥiṣār and set his face for Qūndūz.

At Qūndūz also Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā made a few trenches and took up the besieger's position but by Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā's intervention peace at length was made, prisoners were exchanged and the Khurāsānīs retired. The twice-repeated[297] attacks made by Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā on Khusrau Shāh and his unsuccessful retirements were the cause of Khusrau Shāh's [Sidenote: Fol. 36.] great rise and of action of his so much beyond his province.

When the Mīrzā reached Balkh, he, in the interests of [M.]ā warā'u'n-nahr gave it to Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā, gave Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā's district of Astarābād to (a younger son), Muz̤affar Ḥusain Mīrzā and made both kneel at the same assembly, one for Balkh, the other for Astarābād. This offended Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā and led to years of rebellion and disturbance.[298]

(_d. Revolt of the Tarkhānīs in Samarkand_).

In Ramẓān of this same year, the Tarkhānīs revolted in Samarkand. Here is the story:—Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā was not so friendly and familiar with the begs and soldiers of Samarkand as he was with those of Ḥiṣār.[299] His favourite beg was Shaikh `Abdu'l-lāh _Barlās_[300] whose sons were so intimate with the Mīrzā that it made a relation as of Lover and Beloved. These things displeased the Tarkhāns and the Samarkandī begs; Darwesh Muḥammad Tarkhān went from Bukhārā to Qarshī, brought Sl. `Alī Mīrzā to Samarkand and raised him to be supreme. People then went to the New Garden where Bāī-sunghar [Sidenote: Fol. 36b.] Mīrzā was, treated him like a prisoner, parted him from his following and took him to the citadel. There they seated both mīrzās in one place, thinking to send Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā to the Gūk Sarāī close to the Other Prayer. The Mīrzā, however, on plea of necessity, went into one of the palace-buildings on the east side of the Bū-stān Sarāī. Tarkhānīs stood outside the door and with him went in Muḥammad Qulī _Qūchīn_ and Ḥasan, the sherbet-server. To be brief:—A gateway, leading out to the back, must have been bricked up for they broke down the obstacle at once. The Mīrzā got out of the citadel on the Kafshīr side, through the water-conduit (_āb-mūrī_), dropped himself from the rampart of the water-way (_dū-tahī_), and went to Khwājakī Khwāja's[301] house in Khwāja Kafshīr. When the Tarkhānīs, in waiting at the door, took the precaution of looking in, they found him gone. Next day the Tarkhānīs went in a large body to Khwājakī Khwāja's gate but the Khwāja said, "No!"[302] and did not give him up. Even they could not take him by force, the Khwāja's dignity was too great for them to be able to use force. A few days later, Khwāja Abu'l-makāram[303] and Aḥmad Ḥājī Beg and other begs, great and [Sidenote: Fol. 37.] small, and soldiers and townsmen rose in a mass, fetched the Mīrzā away from the Khwāja's house and besieged Sl. `Ali Mīrzā and the Tarkhāns in the citadel. They could not hold out for even a day; Muḥ. Mazīd Tarkhān went off through the Gate of the Four Roads for Bukhārā; Sl. `Alī Mīrzā and Darwesh Muḥ. Tarkhān were made prisoner.

Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā was in Aḥmad Ḥājī Beg's house when people brought Darwesh Muḥammad Tarkhān in. He put him a few questions but got no good answer. In truth Darwesh Muḥammad's was a deed for which good answer could not be made. He was ordered to death. In his helplessness he clung to a pillar[304] of the house; would they let him go because he clung to a pillar? They made him reach his doom (_siyāsat_) and ordered Sl. `Alī Mīrzā to the Gūk Sarāī there to have the fire-pencil drawn across his eyes.

(_Author's note._) The Gūk Sarāī is one of Tīmūr Beg's great buildings in the citadel of Samarkand. It has this singular and special characteristic, if a Tīmūrid is to be seated on the throne, here he takes his seat; if one lose his head, coveting the throne, here he loses it; therefore the name Gūk Sarāī has a metaphorical sense (_kināyat_) and to say of any ruler's son, "They have taken him to the Gūk Sarāī," means, to death.[305]

To the Gūk Sarāī accordingly Sl. `Alī Mīrzā was taken but when the fire-pencil was drawn across his eyes, whether by the surgeon's choice or by his inadvertence, no harm was done. [Sidenote: Fol. 37b.] This the Mīrzā did not reveal at once but went to Khwāja Yahya's house and a few days later, to the Tarkhāns in Bukhārā.

Through these occurrences, the sons of his Highness Khwāja `Ubaidu'l-lāh became settled partisans, the elder (Muḥammad `Ubaidu'l-lāh, Khwājakī Khwāja) becoming the spiritual guide of the elder prince, the younger (Yahya) of the younger. In a few days, Khwāja Yahya followed Sl. `Alī Mīrzā to Bukhārā.

Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā led out his army against Bukhārā. On his approach, Sl. `Alī Mīrzā came out of the town, arrayed for battle. There was little fighting; Victory being on the side of Sl. `Alī Mīrzā, Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā sustained defeat. Aḥmad Ḥājī Beg and a number of good soldiers were taken; most of the men were put to death. Aḥmad Ḥājī Beg himself the slaves and slave-women of Darwesh Muḥammad Tarkhān, issuing out of Bukhārā, put to a dishonourable death on the charge of their master's blood.

(_e. Bābur moves against Samarkand._)

These news reached us in Andijān in the month of Shawwāl (mid-June to mid-July) and as we (_act._ 14) coveted Samarkand, we got our men to horse. Moved by a like desire, Sl. Mas'ūd Mīrzā, his mind and Khusrau Shāh's mind set at ease by Sl. [Sidenote: Fol. 38.] Ḥusain Mīrzā's retirement, came over by way of Shahr-i-sabz.[306] To reinforce him, Khusrau Shāh laid hands (_qāptī_) on his younger brother, Walī. We (three mīrzās) beleaguered the town from three sides during three or four months; then Khwāja Yahya came to me from Sl. `Alī Mīrzā to mediate an agreement with a common aim. The matter was left at an interview arranged (_kūrūshmak_); I moved my force from Soghd to some 8m. below the town; Sl. `Alī Mīrzā from his side, brought his own; from one bank, he, from the other, I crossed to the middle of[307] the Kohik water, each with four or five men; we just saw one another (_kūrūshūb_), asked each the other's welfare and went, he his way, I mine.

I there saw, in Khwāja Yahya's service, Mullā _Binā'ī_ and Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ;[308] the latter I saw this once, the former was long in my service later on. After the interview (_kūrūshkān_) with Sl. `Alī Mīrzā, as winter was near and as there was no great scarcity amongst the Samarkandīs, we retired, he to Bukhārā, I to Andijān.

Sl. Mas`ūd Mīrzā had a penchant for a daughter of Shaikh `Abdu'l-lāh _Barlās_, she indeed was his object in coming to Samarkand. He took her, laid world-gripping ambition aside [Sidenote: Fol. 38b.] and went back to Ḥiṣār.

When I was near Shīrāz and Kān-bāī, Mahdī Sl. deserted to Samarkand; Ḥamza Sl. went also from near Zamīn but with leave granted.

902 AH.—SEP. 9TH. 1496 TO AUG. 30TH. 1497 AD.[309]

(_a. Bābur's second attempt on Samarkand._)

This winter, Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā's affairs were altogether in a good way. When `Abdu'l-karīm _Ushrit_ came on Sl. `Alī Mīrzā's part to near Kūfīn, Mahdī Sl. led out a body of Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā's troops against him. The two commanders meeting exactly face to face, Mahdī Sl. pricked `Abdu'l-karīm's horse with his Chirkas[310] sword so that it fell, and as `Abdu'l-karīm was getting to his feet, struck off his hand at the wrist. Having taken him, they gave his men a good beating.

These (Aūzbeg) sulṯāns, seeing the affairs of Samarkand and the Gates of the (Tīmūrid) Mīrzās tottering to their fall, went off in good time (_āīrtā_) into the open country (?)[311] for Shaibānī.

Pleased[312] with their small success (over `Abdu'l-karīm), the Samarkandīs drew an army out against Sl. `Alī Mīrzā; Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā went to Sar-i-pul (Bridge-head), Sl. `Alī Mīrzā to Khwāja Kārzūn. Meantime, Khwāja Abū'l-makāram, at the instigation of Khwāja Munīr of Aūsh, rode light against [Sidenote: Fol. 39.] Bukhārā with Wais _Lāgharī_ and Muḥammad Bāqir of the Andijān begs, and Qāsim _Dūldāī_ and some of the Mīrzā's household. As the Bukhāriots took precautions when the invaders got near the town, they could make no progress. They therefore retired.

At the time when (last year) Sl. `Alī Mīrzā and I had our interview, it had been settled[313] that this summer he should come from Bukhārā and I from Andijān to beleaguer Samarkand. To keep this tryst, I rode out in Ramẓān (May) from Andijān. Hearing when close to Yār Yīlāq, that the (two) Mīrzās were lying front to front, we sent Tūlūn Khwāja _Mūghūl_[314] ahead, with 2 or 300 scouting braves (_qāzāq yīkītlār_). Their approach giving Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā news of our advance, he at once broke up and retired in confusion. That same night our detachment overtook his rear, shot a mass (_qālīn_) of his men and brought in masses of spoil.

Two days later we reached Shīrāz. It belonged to Qāsim Beg _Dūldāī_; his _dārogha_ (Sub-governor) could not hold it and surrendered.[315] It was given into Ibrāhīm _Sārū's_ charge. After making there, next day, the Prayer of the Breaking of the Fast (_`Īdu'l-fiṯr_), we moved for Samarkand and dismounted in the reserve (_qūrūgh_) of Āb-i-yār (Water of Might). That day waited on me with 3 or 400 men, Qāsim _Dūldāī_, [Sidenote: Fol. 39b.] Wais _Lāgharī_, Muḥammad Sīghal's grandson, Ḥasan,[316] and Sl. Muḥammad Wais. What they said was this: 'Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā came out and has gone back; we have left him therefore and are here for the _pādshāh's_ service,' but it was known later that they must have left the Mīrzā at his request to defend Shīrāz, and that the Shīrāz affair having become what it was, they had nothing for it but to come to us.

When we dismounted at Qarā-būlāq, they brought in several Mughūls arrested because of senseless conduct to humble village elders coming in to us.[317] Qāsim Beg _Qūchīn_ for discipline's sake (_siyāsat_) had two or three of them cut to pieces. It was on this account he left me and went to Ḥiṣār four or five years later, in the guerilla times, (907 AH.) when I was going from the Macha country to The Khān.[318]

Marching from Qarā-būlāq, we crossed the river (_i.e._ the Zar-afshān) and dismounted near Yām.[319] On that same day, our men got to grips with Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā's at the head of the Avenue. Sl. Aḥmad _Taṃbal_ was struck in the neck by a spear but not unhorsed. Khwājakī Mullā-i-ṣadr, Khwāja-i-kalān's eldest brother, was pierced in the nape of the neck[320] by an arrow and went straightway to God's mercy. An excellent soldier, my father before me had favoured him, making him Keeper of the Seal; he was a student of theology, had great [Sidenote: Fol. 40.] acquaintance with words and a good style; moreover he undertook hawking and rain-making with the jade-stone.

While we were at Yām, people, dealers and other, came out in crowds so that the camp became a bazar for buying and selling. One day, at the Other Prayer, suddenly, a general hubbub arose and all those Musalmān (traders) were plundered. Such however was the discipline of our army that an order to restore everything having been given, the first watch (_pahār_) of the next day had not passed before nothing, not a tag of cotton, not a broken needle's point, remained in the possession of any man of the force, all was back with its owners.

Marching from Yām, it was dismounted in Khān Yūrtī (The Khān's Camping Ground),[321] some 6 m. (3 _kuroh_) east of Samarkand. We lay there for 40 or 50 days. During the time, men from their side and from ours chopped at one another (_chāpqū-lāshtīlār_) several times in the Avenue. One day when Ibrāhīm _Begchīk_ was chopping away there, he was cut on the face; thereafter people called him _Chāpūk_ (_Balafré_). Another time, this also in the Avenue, at the Maghāk (Fosse) Bridge[322] Abū'l-qāsim (_Kohbur Chaghatāī_) got in with his mace. Once, again [Sidenote: Fol. 40b.] in the Avenue, near the Mill-sluice, when Mīr Shāh _Qūchīn_ also got in with his mace, they cut his neck almost half-through; most fortunately the great artery was not severed.

While we were in Khān Yūrtī, some in the fort sent the deceiving message,[323] 'Come you to-night to the Lovers' Cave side and we will give you the fort.' Under this idea, we went that night to the Maghāk Bridge and from there sent a party of good horse and foot to the rendezvous. Four or five of the household foot-soldiers had gone forward when the matter got wind. They were very active men; one, known as Ḥājī, had served me from my childhood; another people called Maḥmūd _Kūndūr-sangak_.[324] They were all killed.

While we lay in Khān Yūrtī, so many Samarkandīs came out that the camp became a town where everything looked for in a town was to be had. Meantime all the forts, Samarkand excepted, and the Highlands and the Lowlands were coming in to us. As in Aūrgūt, however, a fort on the skirt of the Shavdār (var. Shādwār) range, a party of men held fast[325], of necessity we moved out from Khān Yūrtī against them. They could not maintain themselves, and surrendered, making [Sidenote: Fol. 41.] Khwāja-i-qāẓī their mediator. Having pardoned their offences against ourselves, we went back to beleaguer Samarkand.

(_b. Affairs of Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā and his son, Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā._)[326]

This year the mutual recriminations of Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā and Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā led on to fighting; here are the particulars:—Last year, as has been mentioned, Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā and Muz̤affar Ḥusain Mīrzā had been made to kneel for Balkh and Astarābād. From that time till this, many envoys had come and gone, at last even `Alī-sher Beg had gone but urge it as all did, Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā would not consent to give up Astarābād. 'The Mīrzā,' he said, 'assigned[327] it to my son, Muḥammad Mū`min Mīrzā at the time of his circumcision.' A conversation had one day between him and `Alī-sher Beg testifies to his acuteness and to the sensibility of `Alī-sher Beg's feelings. After saying many things of a private nature in the Mīrzā's ear, `Alī-sher Beg added, 'Forget these matters.'[328] 'What matters?' rejoined the Mīrzā instantly. `Alī-sher Beg was much affected and cried a good deal.

At length the jarring words of this fatherly and filial discussion went so far that _his_ father against his father, and _his_ son against his son drew armies out for Balkh and Astarābād.[329]

Up (from Harāt) to the Pul-i-chirāgh meadow, below Garzawān,[330] went Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā; down (from Balkh) came [Sidenote: Fol. 41b.] Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā. On the first day of Ramẓān (May 2nd.) Abū'l-muḥsin Mīrzā advanced, leading some of his father's light troops. There was nothing to call a battle; Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā was routed and of his braves masses were made prisoner. Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā ordered that all prisoners should be beheaded; this not here only but wherever he defeated a rebel son, he ordered the heads of all prisoners to be struck off. And why not? Right was with him. The (rebel) Mīrzās were so given over to vice and social pleasure that even when a general so skilful and experienced as their father was within half-a-day's journey of them, and when before the blessed month of Ramẓān, one night only remained, they busied themselves with wine and pleasure, without fear of their father, without dread of God. Certain it is that those so lost (_yūtkān_) will perish and that any hand can deal a blow at those thus going to perdition (_aūtkān_). During the several years of Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā's rule in Astarābād, his coterie and his following, his bare (_yālāng_) braves even, were in full splendour[4] and adornment. He had many gold and silver drinking cups [Sidenote: Fol. 42.] and utensils, much silken plenishing and countless tīpūchāq horses. He now lost everything. He hurled himself in his flight down a mountain track, leading to a precipitous fall. He himself got down the fall, with great difficulty, but many of his men perished there.[331]

After defeating Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā, Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā moved on to Balkh. It was in charge of Shaikh `Alī T̤aghāī; he, not able to defend it, surrendered and made his submission. The Mīrzā gave Balkh to Ibrāhīm Ḥusain Mīrzā, left Muḥammad Walī Beg and Shāh Ḥusain, the page, with him and went back to Khurāsān.

Defeated and destitute, with his braves bare and his bare foot-soldiers[332], Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā drew off to Khusrau Shāh in Qūndūz. Khusrau Shāh, for his part, did him good service, such service indeed, such kindness with horses and camels, tents and pavilions and warlike equipment of all sorts, both for himself and those with him, that eye-witnesses said between this and his former equipment the only difference might be in the gold and silver vessels.

(_c. Dissension between Sl. Mas`ūd Mīrzā and Khusrau Shāh._)

Ill-feeling and squabbles had arisen between Sl. Mas`ūd Mīrzā and Khusrau Shāh because of the injustices of the one and the self-magnifyings of the other. Now therefore Khusrau Shāh joined his brothers, Walī and Bāqī to Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā and sent the three against Ḥiṣār. They could not even [Sidenote: Fol. 42b.] get near the fort, in the outskirts swords were crossed once or twice; one day at the Bird-house[333] on the north of Ḥiṣār, Muḥibb-`alī, the armourer (_qūrchī_), outstripped his people and struck in well; he fell from his horse but at the moment of his capture, his men attacked and freed him. A few days later a somewhat compulsory peace was made and Khusrau Shāh's army retired.

Shortly after this, Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā drew off by the mountain-road to Ẕū'n-nūn _Arghūn_ and his son, Shujā` _Arghūn_ in Qandahār and Zamīn-dāwar. Stingy and miserly as Ẕū'n-nūn was, he served the Mīrzā well, in one single present offering 40,000 sheep.

Amongst curious happenings of the time one was this: Wednesday was the day Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā beat Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā; Wednesday was the day Muz̤affar Ḥusain Mīrzā beat Muḥammad Mū`min Mīrzā; Wednesday, more curious still, was the name of the man who unhorsed and took prisoner, Muḥammad Mū`min Mīrzā.[334]

903 AH.—AUG. 30TH. 1497 TO AUG. 19TH. 1498 AD.[335]

(_a. Resumed account of Bābur's second attempt on Samarkand._)

When we had dismounted in the Qulba (Plough) meadow,[336] behind the Bāgh-i-maidān (Garden of the plain), the Samarkandīs came out in great numbers to near Muḥammad Chap's [Sidenote: Fol. 43.] Bridge. Our men were unprepared; and before they were ready, Bābā `Alī's (son) Bābā Qulī had been unhorsed and taken into the fort. A few days later we moved to the top of Qulba, at the back of Kohik.[337] That day Sayyid Yūsuf,[338] having been sent out of the town, came to our camp and did me obeisance.

The Samarkandīs, fancying that our move from the one ground to the other meant, 'He has given it up,' came out, soldiers and townsmen in alliance (through the Turquoise Gate), as far as the Mīrzā's Bridge and, through the Shaikh-zāda's Gate, as far as Muḥammad Chap's. We ordered our braves to arm and ride out; they were strongly attacked from both sides, from Muḥammad Chap's Bridge and from the Mīrzā's, but God brought it right! our foes were beaten. Begs of the best and the boldest of braves our men unhorsed and brought in. Amongst them Ḥāfiẓ _Dūldāī's_ (son) Muḥammad _Mīskin_[339] was taken, after his index-finger had been struck off; Muḥammad Qāsim _Nabīra_ also was unhorsed and brought in by his own younger brother, Ḥasan _Nabīra_.[340] There were many other such soldiers and known men. Of the town-rabble, were brought in Diwāna, the tunic-weaver and _Kālqāshūq_,[341] headlong leaders both, in brawl and tumult; they [Sidenote: Fol. 43b.] were ordered to death with torture in blood-retaliation for our foot-soldiers, killed at the Lovers' Cave.[342] This was a complete reverse for the Samarkandīs; they came out no more even when our men used to go to the very edge of the ditch and bring back their slaves and slave-women.

The Sun entered the Balance and cold descended on us.[343] I therefore summoned the begs admitted to counsel and it was decided, after discussion, that although the towns-people were so enfeebled that, by God's grace, we should take Samarkand, it might be to-day, it might be to-morrow, still, rather than suffer from cold in the open, we ought to rise from near it and go for winter-quarters into some fort, and that, even if we had to leave those quarters later on, this would be done without further trouble. As Khwāja Dīdār seemed a suitable fort, we marched there and having dismounted in the meadow lying before it, went in, fixed on sites for the winter-houses and covered shelters,[344] left overseers and inspectors of the work and returned to our camp in the meadow. There we lay during the few days before the winter-houses were finished.

Meantime Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā had sent again and again to ask help from Shaibānī Khān. On the morning of the very day on which, our quarters being ready, we had moved into Khwāja Dīdār, the Khān, having ridden light from Turkistān, [Sidenote: Fol. 44.] stood over against our camping-ground. Our men were not all at hand; some, for winter-quarters, had gone to Khwāja Rabāṯī, some to Kabud, some to Shīrāz. None-the-less, we formed up those there were and rode out. Shaibānī Khān made no stand but drew off towards Samarkand. He went right up to the fort but because the affair had not gone as Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā wished, did not get a good reception. He therefore turned back for Turkistān a few days later, in disappointment, with nothing done.

Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā had sustained a seven months' siege; his one hope had been in Shaibānī Khān; this he had lost and he now with 2 or 300 of his hungry suite, drew off from Samarkand, for Khusrau Shāh in Qūndūz.

When he was near Tīrmīẕ, at the Amū ferry, the Governor of Tīrmīẕ, Sayyid Ḥusain Akbar, kinsman and confidant both of Sl. Mas`ūd Mīrzā, heard of him and went out against him. The Mīrzā himself got across the river but Mīrīm Tarkhān was drowned and all the rest of his people were captured, together with his baggage and the camels loaded with his personal effects; even his page, Muḥammad T̤āhir, falling into Sayyid Ḥusain Akbar's hands. Khusrau Shāh, for his part, looked kindly on the Mīrzā.

[Sidenote: Fol. 44b.] When the news of his departure reached us, we got to horse and started from Khwāja Dīdār for Samarkand. To give us honourable meeting on the road, were nobles and braves, one after another. It was on one of the last ten days of the first Rabī` (end of November 1497 AD.), that we entered the citadel and dismounted at the Bū-stān Sarāī. Thus, by God's favour, were the town and the country of Samarkand taken and occupied.

(_b. Description of Samarkand._)[345]

Few towns in the whole habitable world are so pleasant as Samarkand. It is of the Fifth Climate and situated in lat. 40° 6' and long. 99°.[346] The name of the town is Samarkand; its country people used to call Mā warā'u'n-nahr (Transoxania).

They used to call it _Baldat-i-maḥfūẓa_ because no foe laid hands on it with storm and sack.[347] It must have become[348] Musalmān in the time of the Commander of the Faithful, his Highness `Usmān. Qus̤am ibn `Abbās, one of the Companions[349] must have gone there; his burial-place, known as the Tomb of Shāh-i-zinda (The Living Shāh, _i.e._, Fāqīr) is outside the Iron Gate. Iskandar must have founded Samarkand. The Turk and Mughūl hordes call it Sīmīz-kīnt.[350] Tīmūr Beg made it his capital; no ruler so great will ever have made it a capital before (_qīlghān aīmās dūr_). I ordered people to pace round the ramparts of the walled-town; it came out at 10,000 steps.[351] Samarkandīs are all orthodox (_sunnī_), pure-in-the Faith, law-abiding and religious. The number of Leaders [Sidenote: Fol. 45.] of Islām said to have arisen in Mā warā'u'n-nahr, since the days of his Highness the Prophet, are not known to have arisen in any other country.[352] From the Mātarīd suburb of Samarkand came Shaikh Abū'l-manṣūr, one of the Expositors of the Word.[353] Of the two sects of Expositors, the Mātarīdiyah and the Ash`ariyah,[354] the first is named from this Shaikh Abū'l-manṣūr. Of Mā warā'u'n-nahr also was Khwāja Ismā`īl _Khartank_, the author of the _Ṣāḥiḥ-i-bukhārī_.[355] From the Farghāna district, Marghīnān—Farghāna, though at the limit of settled habitation, is included in Mā warā'u'n-nahr,—came the author of the _Hidāyat_,[356] a book than which few on Jurisprudence are more honoured in the sect of Abū Ḥanīfa.

On the east of Samarkand are Farghāna and Kāshghar; on the west, Bukhārā and Khwārizm; on the north, Tāshkīnt and Shāhrukhiya,—in books written Shāsh and Banākat; and on the south, Balkh and Tīrmīẕ.

The Kohik Water flows along the north of Samarkand, at the distance of some 4 miles (2 _kuroh_); it is so-called because it comes out from under the upland of the Little Hill (_Kohik_)[357] lying between it and the town. The Dar-i-gham Water (canal) flows along the south, at the distance of some two miles (1 _sharī`_). This is a large and swift torrent,[358] indeed it is like a large river, cut off from the Kohik Water. All the gardens and suburbs and some of the _tūmāns_ of Samarkand are cultivated by it. By the Kohik Water a stretch of from 30 to 40 _yīghāch_,[359] by road, is made habitable and cultivated, as far as Bukhārā and Qarā-kūl. Large as the river is, it is not too large for its dwellings and its culture; during three or four months of the [Sidenote: Fol. 45b.] year, indeed, its waters do not reach Bukhārā.[360] Grapes, melons, apples and pomegranates, all fruits indeed, are good in Samarkand; two are famous, its apple and its _ṣāḥibī_ (grape).[361] Its winter is mightily cold; snow falls but not so much as in Kābul; in the heats its climate is good but not so good as Kābul's.

In the town and suburbs of Samarkand are many fine buildings and gardens of Tīmur Beg and Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā.[362]

In the citadel,[363] Tīmūr Beg erected a very fine building, the great four-storeyed kiosque, known as the Gūk Sarāī.[364] In the walled-town, again, near the Iron Gate, he built a Friday Mosque[365] of stone (_sangīn_); on this worked many stone-cutters, brought from Hindūstān. Round its frontal arch is inscribed in letters large enough to be read two miles away, the Qu'rān verse, _Wa az yerfa` Ibrāhīm al Qawā`id alī akhara_.[366] This also is a very fine building. Again, he laid out two gardens, on the east of the town, one, the more distant, the Bāgh-i-bulandī,[367] the other and nearer, the Bāgh-i-dilkushā.[368] From Dilkushā to the Turquoise Gate, he planted an Avenue of White Poplar,[369] and in the garden itself erected a great kiosque, painted inside [Sidenote: Fol. 46.] with pictures of his battles in Hindūstān. He made another garden, known as the Naqsh-i-jahān (World's Picture), on the skirt of Kohik, above the Qarā-sū or, as people also call it, the Āb-i-raḥmat (Water-of-mercy) of Kān-i-gil.[370] It had gone to ruin when I saw it, nothing remaining of it except its name. His also are the Bāgh-i-chanār,[371] near the walls and below the town on the south,[372] also the Bāgh-i-shamāl (North Garden) and the Bāgh-i-bihisht (Garden of Paradise). His own tomb and those of his descendants who have ruled in Samarkand, are in a College, built at the exit (_chāqār_) of the walled-town, by Muḥammad Sulṯān Mīrzā, the son of Tīmūr Beg's son, Jahāngīr Mīrzā.[373]

Amongst Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā's buildings inside the town are a College and a monastery (_Khānqāh_). The dome of the monastery is very large, few so large are shown in the world. Near these two buildings, he constructed an excellent Hot Bath (_ḥammām_) known as the Mīrzā's Bath; he had the pavements in this made of all sorts of stone (? mosaic); such another bath is not known in Khurāsān or in Samarkand.[374] [Sidenote: Fol. 46b.] Again;—to the south of the College is his mosque, known as the Masjid-i-maqaṯa` (Carved Mosque) because its ceiling and its walls are all covered with _islīmī_[375] and Chinese pictures formed of segments of wood.[376] There is great discrepancy between the _qibla_ of this mosque and that of the College; that of the mosque seems to have been fixed by astronomical observation.

Another of Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā's fine buildings is an observatory, that is, an instrument for writing Astronomical Tables.[377] This stands three storeys high, on the skirt of the Kohik upland. By its means the Mīrzā worked out the Kūrkānī Tables, now used all over the world. Less work is done with any others. Before these were made, people used the Aīl-khānī Tables, put together at Marāgha, by Khwāja Naṣīr _Tūsī_,[378] in the time of Hulākū Khān. Hulākū Khān it is, people call _Aīl-khānī_.[379]

(_Author's note._) Not more than seven or eight observatories seem to have been constructed in the world. Māmūm Khalīfa[380] (Caliph) made one with which the _Mamūmī_ Tables were written. Batalmūs (Ptolemy) constructed another. Another was made, in Hindūstān, in the time of Rājā Vikramāditya _Hīndū_, in Ujjain and Dhar, that is, the Mālwa country, now known as Māndū. The Hindūs of Hindūstān use the Tables of this Observatory. They were put together 1,584 years ago.[381] [Sidenote: Fol. 47.] Compared with others, they are somewhat defective.

Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā again, made the garden known as the Bāgh-i-maidān (Garden of the Plain), on the skirt of the Kohik upland. In the middle of it he erected a fine building they call Chihil Sitūn (Forty Pillars). On both storeys are pillars, all of stone (_tāshdīn_).[382] Four turrets, like minarets, stand on its four corner-towers, the way up into them being through the towers. Everywhere there are stone pillars, some fluted, some twisted, some many-sided. On the four sides of the upper storey are open galleries enclosing a four-doored hall (_chār-dara_); their pillars also are all of stone. The raised floor of the building is all paved with stone.

He made a smaller garden, out beyond Chihil Sitūn and towards Kohik, also having a building in it. In the open gallery of this building he placed a great stone throne, some 14 or 15 yards (_qārī_) long, some 8 yards wide and perhaps 1 yard high. They brought a stone so large by a very long road.[383] There is a crack in the middle of it which people say must have come after it was brought here. In the same [Sidenote: Fol. 47b.] garden he also built a four-doored hall, know as the Chīnī-khāna (Porcelain House) because its _īzāra_[384] are all of porcelain; he sent to China for the porcelain used in it. Inside the walls again, is an old building of his, known as the Masjid-i-laqlaqa (Mosque of the Echo). If anyone stamps on the ground under the middle of the dome of this mosque, the sound echoes back from the whole dome; it is a curious matter of which none know the secret.

In the time also of Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā the great and lesser begs laid out many gardens, large and small.[385] For beauty, and air, and view, few will have equalled Darwesh Muḥammad Tarkhān's Chār-bāgh (Four Gardens).[386] It lies overlooking the whole of Qulba Meadow, on the slope below the Bāgh-i-maidān. Moreover it is arranged symmetrically, terrace above terrace, and is planted with beautiful _nārwān_[387] and cypresses and white poplar. A most agreeable sojourning place, its one defect is the want of a large stream.

Samarkand is a wonderfully beautified town. One of its specialities, perhaps found in few other places,[388] is that the different trades are not mixed up together in it but each has its own _bāzār_, a good sort of plan. Its bakers and its cooks are good. The best paper in the world is made there; the water for the paper-mortars[389] all comes from Kān-i-gil,[390] a meadow on the banks of the Qarā-sū (Blackwater) or Āb-i-raḥmat (Water of Mercy). [Sidenote: Fol. 48.] Another article of Samarkand trade, carried to all sides and quarters, is cramoisy velvet.

Excellent meadows lie round Samarkand. One is the famous Kān-i-gil, some 2 miles east and a little north of the town. The Qarā-sū or Āb-i-raḥmat flows through it, a stream (with driving power) for perhaps seven or eight mills. Some say the original name of the meadow must have been Kān-i-ābgīr (Mine of Quagmire) because the river is bordered by quagmire, but the histories all write Kān-i-gil (Mine of clay). It is an excellent meadow. The Samarkand sulṯans always made it their reserve,[391] going out to camp in it each year for a month or two.

Higher up (on the river) than Kān-i-gil and to the s.e. of it is a meadow some 4 miles east of the town, known as Khān Yūrtī (Khān's Camping-ground). The Qarā-sū flows through this meadow before entering Kān-i-gil. When it comes to Khān Yūrtī it curves back so far that it encloses, with a very narrow outlet, enough ground for a camp. Having noticed these advantages, we camped there for a time during [Sidenote: Fol. 48b.] the siege of Samarkand.[392]

Another meadow is the Būdana Qūrūgh (Quail Reserve), lying between Dil-kushā and the town. Another is the Kūl-i-maghāk (Meadow of the deep pool) at some 4 miles from the town. This also is a round[393] meadow. People call it Kul-i-maghāk meadow because there is a large pool on one side of it. Sl. `Alī Mīrzā lay here during the siege, when I was in Khān Yūrtī. Another and smaller meadow is Qulba (Plough); it has Qulba Village and the Kohik Water on the north, the Bāgh-i-maidān and Darwesh Muḥammad Tarkhān's Chār-bāgh on the south, and the Kohik upland on the west.

Samarkand has good districts and _tūmāns_. Its largest district, and one that is its equal, is Bukhārā, 25 _yīghāch_[394] to the west. Bukhārā in its turn, has several _tūmāns_; it is a fine town; its fruits are many and good, its melons excellent; none in Mā warā'u'n-nahr matching them for quality and quantity. Although the Mīr Tīmūrī melon of Akhsī[395] is sweeter and more delicate than any Bukhārā melon, still in Bukhārā many kinds of melon are good and plentiful. The Bukhārā plum is famous; no other equals it. They skin it,[396] dry it and [Sidenote: Fol. 49.] carry it from land to land with rarities (_tabarrūklār bīla_); it is an excellent laxative medicine. Fowls and geese are much looked after (_parwārī_) in Bukhārā. Bukhārā wine is the strongest made in Mā warā'u'n-nahr; it was what I drank when drinking in those countries at Samarkand.[397]

Kesh is another district of Samarkand, 9 _yīghāch_[398] by road to the south of the town. A range called the Aītmāk Pass (_Dābān_)[399] lies between Samarkand and Kesh; from this are taken all the stones for building. Kesh is called also Shahr-i-sabz (Green-town) because its barren waste (_ṣahr_) and roofs and walls become beautifully green in spring. As it was Tīmūr Beg's birth-place, he tried hard to make it his capital. He erected noble buildings in it. To seat his own Court, he built a great arched hall and in this seated his Commander-begs and his Dīwān-begs, on his right and on his left. For those attending the Court, he built two smaller halls, and to seat petitioners to his Court, built quite small recesses on the four sides of the Court-house.[400] Few arches so fine can be shown in the world. It is said to be higher than the Kisrī Arch.[401] Tīmūr Beg also built in Kesh a college and a mausoleum, in which are the tombs of Jahāngīr Mīrzā and others of his descendants.[402] As Kesh did not offer the same facilities as [Sidenote: Fol. 49b.] Samarkand for becoming a town and a capital, he at last made clear choice of Samarkand.

Another district is Qarshī, known also as Nashaf and Nakhshab.[403] Qarshī is a Mughūl name. In the Mughūl tongue they call a _kūr-khāna_ Qarshī.[404] The name must have come in after the rule of Chīngīz Khān. Qarshī is somewhat scantily supplied with water; in spring it is very beautiful and its grain and melons are good. It lies 18 _yīghāch_[405] by road south and a little inclined to west of Samarkand. In the district a small bird, known as the _qīl-qūyīrūgh_ and resembling the _bāghrī qarā_, is found in such countless numbers that it goes by the name of the Qarshī birdie (_murghak_).[406]

Khozār is another district; Karmīna another, lying between Samarkand and Bukhārā; Qarā-kūl another, 7 _yīghāch_[407] n.w. of Bukhārā and at the furthest limit of the water.

Samarkand has good _tūmāns_. One is Soghd with its dependencies. Its head Yār-yīlāq, its foot Bukhārā, there may be not one single _yīghāch_ of earth without its village and its cultivated lands. So famous is it that the saying attributed to Tīmūr Beg, 'I have a garden 30 _yīghāch_ long,[408] must have been spoken of Soghd. Another _tūmān_ is Shāvdār (var. Shādwār), an excellent one adjoining the town-suburbs. On one side it has the range (Aītmāk Dābān), lying between Samarkand and [Sidenote: Fol. 50.] Shahr-i-sabz, on the skirts of which are many of its villages. On the other side is the Kohik Water (_i.e._ the Dar-i-gham canal). There it lies! an excellent _tūmān_, with fine air, full of beauty, abounding in waters, its good things cheap. Observers of Egypt and Syria have not pointed out its match.

Though Samarkand has other _tūmāns_, none rank with those enumerated; with so much, enough has been said.

Tīmūr Beg gave the government of Samarkand to his eldest son, Jahāngīr Mīrzā (in 776 AH.-1375 AD.); when Jahāngīr Mīrzā died (805 AH.-1403 AD.), he gave it to the Mīrzā's eldest son, Muḥammad Sulṯān-i-jahāngīr; when Muḥammad Sulṯān Mīrzā died, it went to Shāh-rukh Mīrzā, Tīmūr Beg's youngest son. Shāh-rukh Mīrzā gave the whole of Mā warā'u'n-nahr (in 872 AH.-1467 AD.) to his eldest son, Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā. From him his own son, `Abdu'l-laṯīf Mīrzā took it, (853 AH.-1449 AD.), for the sake of this five days' fleeting world martyring a father so full of years and knowledge.

The following chronogram gives the date of Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā's death:—

Aūlūgh Beg, an ocean of wisdom and science, The pillar of realm and religion, Sipped from the hand of `Abbās, the mead of martyrdom, And the date of the death is _`Abbās kasht_ (`Abbās slew).[409]

Though `Abdu'l-laṯīf Mīrzā did not rule more than five or six months, the following couplet was current about him:—

Ill does sovereignty befit the parricide; Should he rule, be it for no more than six months.[410]

This chronogram of the death of `Abdu'l-laṯīf Mīrzā is also well done:—

`Abdu'l-laṯīf, in glory a Khusrau and Jamshīd, [Sidenote: Fol. 50b.] In his train a Farīdūn and Zardusht, Bābā Ḥusain slew on the Friday Eve, With an arrow. Write as its date, _Bābā Ḥusain kasht_ (Bābā Ḥusain slew).[411]

After `Abdu'l-laṯīf Mīrzā's death, (Jumāda I, 22, 855 AH.-June 22nd. 1450 AD.), (his cousin) `Abdu'l-lāh Mīrzā, the grandson of Shāh-rukh Mīrzā through Ibrāhīm Mīrzā, seated himself on the throne and ruled for 18 months to two years.[412] From him Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā took it (855 AH.-1451 AD.). He in his life-time gave it to his eldest son, Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā; Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā continued to rule it after his father's death (873 AH.-1469 AD.). On his death (899 AH.-1494 AD.) Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā was seated on the throne and on his death (900 AH.-1495 AD.) Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā. Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā was made prisoner for a few days, during the Tarkhān rebellion (901 AH.-1496 AD.), and his younger brother, Sl. `Alī Mīrzā was seated on the throne, but Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā, as has been related in this history, took it again directly. From Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā I took it (903 AH.-1497 AD.). Further details will be learned from the ensuing history.

(_c. Bābur's rule in Samarkand._)

When I was seated on the throne, I shewed the Samarkand begs precisely the same favour and kindness they had had before. I bestowed rank and favour also on the begs with me, [Sidenote: Fol. 51.] to each according to his circumstances, the largest share falling to Sl. Aḥmad _Taṃbal_; he had been in the household begs' circle; I now raised him to that of the great begs.

We had taken the town after a seven months' hard siege. Things of one sort or other fell to our men when we got in. The whole country, with exception of Samarkand itself, had come in earlier either to me or to Sl. `Alī Mīrzā and consequently had not been over-run. In any case however, what could have been taken from districts so long subjected to raid and rapine? The booty our men had taken, such as it was, came to an end. When we entered the town, it was in such distress that it needed seed-corn and money-advances; what place was this to take anything from? On these accounts our men suffered great privation. We ourselves could give them nothing. Moreover they yearned for their homes and, by ones and twos, set their faces for flight. The first to go was Bayān Qulī's (son) Khān Qulī; Ibrāhīm _Begchīk_ was another; all the Mughūls went off and, a little later, Sl. Aḥmad _Taṃbal_.

Aūzūn Ḥasan counted himself a very sincere and faithful friend of Khwāja-i-qāẓī; we therefore, to put a stop to these desertions, sent the Khwāja to him (in Andijān) so that they, [Sidenote: Fol. 51b.] in agreement, might punish some of the deserters and send others back to us. But that very Aūzūn Ḥasan, that traitor to his salt, may have been the stirrer-up of the whole trouble and the spur-to-evil of the deserters from Samarkand. Directly Sl. Aḥmad _Taṃbal_ had gone, all the rest took up a wrong position.

(_d. Andijān demanded of Bābur by The Khān, and also for Jahāngīr Mīrzā._)

Although, during the years in which, coveting Samarkand, I had persistently led my army out, Sl. Maḥmūd Khān[413] had provided me with no help whatever, yet, now it had been taken, he wanted Andijān. Moreover, Aūzūn Ḥasan and Sl. Aḥmad _Taṃbal_, just when soldiers of ours and all the Mughūls had deserted to Andijān and Akhsī, wanted those two districts for Jahāngīr Mīrzā. For several reasons, those districts could not be given to them. One was, that though not promised to The Khān, yet he had asked for them and, as he persisted in asking, an agreement with him was necessary, if they were to be given to Jahāngīr Mīrzā. A further reason was that to ask for them just when deserters from us had fled to them, was very like a command. If the matter had been brought forward earlier, some way of tolerating a command might have been found. At [Sidenote: Fol. 52.] the moment, as the Mughūls and the Andijān army and several even of my household had gone to Andijān, I had with me in Samarkand, beg for beg, good and bad, somewhere about 1000 men.

When Aūzūn Ḥasan and Sl. Aḥmad _Taṃbal_ did not get what they wanted, they invited all those timid fugitives to join them. Just such a happening, those timid people, for their own sakes, had been asking of God in their terror. Hereupon, Aūzūn Ḥasan and Sl. Aḥmad _Taṃbal_, becoming openly hostile and rebellious, led their army from Akhsī against Andijān.

Tūlūn Khwāja was a bold, dashing, eager brave of the Bārīn (Mughūls). My father had favoured him and he was still in favour, I myself having raised him to the rank of beg. In truth he deserved favour, a wonderfully bold and dashing brave! He, as being the man I favoured amongst the Mughūls, was sent (after them) when they began to desert from Samarkand, to counsel the clans and to chase fear from their hearts so that [Sidenote: Fol. 52b.] they might not turn their heads to the wind.[414] Those two traitors however, those false guides, had so wrought on the clans that nothing availed, promise or entreaty, counsel or threat. Tūlūn Khwāja's march lay through Aīkī-sū-ārāsī,[415] known also as Rabāṯik-aūrchīnī. Aūzūn Ḥasan sent a skirmishing party against him; it found him off his guard, seized and killed him. This done, they took Jahāngīr Mīrzā and went to besiege Andijān.

(_e. Bābur loses Andijān._)

In Andijān when my army rode out for Samarkand, I had left Aūzūn Ḥasan and `Alī-dost T̤aghāī (Ramẓān 902 AH.-May 1497 AD.). Khwāja-i-qāẓī had gone there later on, and there too were many of my men from Samarkand. During the siege, the Khwāja, out of good-will to me, apportioned 18,000 of his own sheep to the garrison and to the families of the men still with me. While the siege was going on, letters kept coming to me from my mothers[416] and from the Khwāja, saying in effect, 'They are besieging us in this way; if at our cry of distress you do not come, things will go all to ruin. Samarkand was taken [Sidenote: Fol. 53.] by the strength of Andijān; if Andijān is in your hands, God willing, Samarkand can be had again.' One after another came letters to this purport. Just then I was recovering from illness but, not having been able to take due care in the days of convalescence, I went all to pieces again and this time, became so very ill that for four days my speech was impeded and they used to drop water into my mouth with cotton. Those with me, begs and bare braves alike, despairing of my life, began each to take thought for himself. While I was in this condition, the begs, by an error of judgment, shewed me to a servant of Aūzūn Ḥasan's, a messenger come with wild proposals, and then dismissed him. In four or five days, I became somewhat better but still could not speak, in another few days, was myself again.

Such letters! so anxious, so beseeching, coming from my mothers, that is from my own and hers, Aīsān-daulat Begīm, and from my teacher and spiritual guide, that is, Khwāja-i-maulānā-i-qāẓī, with what heart would a man not move? We left Samarkand for Andijān on a Saturday in Rajab (Feb.-March), when I had ruled 100 days in the town. It was [Sidenote: Fol. 53b.] Saturday again when we reached Khujand and on that day a person brought news from Andijān, that seven days before, that is on the very day we had left Samarkand, `Alī-dost T̤aghāī had surrendered Andijān.

These are the particulars;—The servant of Aūzūn Ḥasan who, after seeing me, was allowed to leave, had gone to Andijān and there said, 'The _pādshāh_ cannot speak and they are dropping water into his mouth with cotton.' Having gone and made these assertions in the ordinary way, he took oath in `Alī-dost T̤aghāī's presence. `Alī-dost T̤aghāī was in the Khākān Gate. Becoming without footing through this matter, he invited the opposite party into the fort, made covenant and treaty with them, and surrendered Andijān. Of provisions and of fighting men, there was no lack whatever; the starting point of the surrender was the cowardice of that false and faithless manikin; what was told him, he made a pretext to put himself in the right.

When the enemy, after taking possession of Andijān, heard of my arrival in Khujand, they martyred Khwāja-i-maulānā-i-qāẓī by hanging him, with dishonour, in the Gate of the citadel. [Sidenote: Fol. 54.] He had come to be known as Khwāja-maulānā-i-qāẓī but his own name was `Abdu'l-lāh. On his father's side, his line went back to Shaikh Burhānu'd-dīn `Alī _Qīlīch_, on his mother's to Sl. Aīlīk _Māẓī_. This family had come to be the Religious Guides (_muqtadā_) and pontiff (_Shaikhu'l-islām_) and Judge (_qāẓī_) in the Farghāna country.[417] He was a disciple of his Highness `Ubaidu'l-lāh (_Aḥrārī_) and from him had his upbringing. I have no doubt he was a saint (_walī_); what better witnesses to his sanctity than the fact that within a short time, no sign or trace remained of those active for his death? He was a wonderful man; it was not in him to be afraid; in no other man was seen such courage as his. This quality is a further witness to his sanctity. Other men, however bold, have anxieties and tremours; he had none. When they had killed him, they seized and plundered those connected with him, retainers and servants, tribesmen and followers.

In anxiety for Andijān, we had given Samarkand out of our hands; then heard we had lost Andijān. It was like the saying, 'In ignorance, made to leave this place, shut out from that' (_Ghafil az īn jā rānda, az ān jā mānda_). It was very hard and vexing to me; for why? never since I had ruled, had I been cut [Sidenote: Fol. 54b.] off like this from my retainers and my country; never since I had known myself, had I known such annoyance and such hardship.

(_f. Bābur's action from Khujand as his base._)

On our arrival in Khujand, certain hypocrites, not enduring to see Khalīfa in my Gate, had so wrought on Muḥammad Ḥusain Mīrzā _Dūghlāt_ and others that he was dismissed towards Tāshkīnt. To Tāshkīnt also Qāsim Beg _Qūchīn_ had been sent earlier, in order to ask The Khān's help for a move on Andijān. The Khān consented to give it and came himself by way of the Ahangarān Dale,[418] to the foot of the Kīndīrlīk Pass.[419] There I went also, from Khujand, and saw my Khān dādā.[420] We then crossed the pass and halted on the Akhsī side. The enemy for their part, gathered their men and went to Akhsī.

Just at that time, the people in Pāp[421] sent me word they had made fast the fort but, owing to something misleading in The Khān's advance, the enemy stormed and took it. Though The Khān had other good qualities and was in other ways businesslike, he was much without merit as a soldier and commander. Just when matters were at the point that if he made one more march, it was most probable the country would be had without fighting, at such a time! he gave ear to what the enemy said with alloy of deceit, spoke of peace and, as his messengers, sent them Khwāja Abū'l-makāram and his own [Sidenote: Fol. 55.] Lord of the Gate, Beg _Tilba_ (Fool), _Taṃbal's_ elder brother. To save themselves those others (_i.e._ Ḥasan and Taṃbal) mixed something true with what they fabled and agreed to give gifts and bribes either to The Khān or to his intermediaries. With this, The Khān retired.

As the families of most of my begs and household and braves were in Andijān, 7 or 800 of the great and lesser begs and bare braves, left us in despair of our taking the place. Of the begs were `Alī-darwesh Beg, `Alī-mazīd _Qūchīn_, Muḥammad Bāqir Beg, Shaikh `Abdu'l-lāh, Lord of the Gate and Mīrīm _Lāgharī_. Of men choosing exile and hardship with me, there may have been, of good and bad, between 200 and 300. Of begs there were Qāsim _Qūchīn_ Beg, Wais _Lāgharī_ Beg, Ibrāhīm _Sārū Mīnglīgh_ Beg, Shīrīm T̤aghāī, Sayyidī Qarā Beg; and of my household, Mīr Shāh _Qūchīn_, Sayyid Qāsim _Jalāīr_, Lord of the Gate, Qāsim-`ajab, `Alī-dost T̤aghāī's (son) Muḥammad-dost, Muḥammad-`alī _Mubashir_,[422] Khudāī-bīrdī _Tūghchī Mughūl_, Yārīk T̤aghāī, Bābā `Alī's (son) Bābā Qulī, Pīr Wais, Shaikh Wais, [Sidenote: Fol. 55b.] Yār-`alī _Balāl_,[423] Qāsim _Mīr Akhwūr_ (Chief Equerry) and Ḥaidar _Rikābdār_ (stirrup-holder).

It came very hard on me; I could not help crying a good deal. Back I went to Khujand and thither they sent me my mother and my grandmother and the families of some of the men with me.

That Ramẓān (April-May) we spent in Khujand, then mounted for Samarkand. We had already sent to ask The Khān's help; he assigned, to act with us against Samarkand, his son, Sl. Muḥammad (Sulṯānīm) Khānika and (his son's guardian) Aḥmad Beg with 4 or 5000 men and rode himself as far as Aūrā-tīpā. There I saw him and from there went on by way of Yār-yīlāq, past the Būrka-yīlāq Fort, the head-quarters of the sub-governor (_dārogha_) of the district. Sl. Muḥammad Sulṯān and Aḥmad Beg, riding light and by another road, got to Yār-yīlāq first but on their hearing that Shaibānī Khān was raiding Shīrāz and thereabouts, turned back. There was no help for it! Back I too had to go. Again I went to Khujand!

As there was in me ambition for rule and desire of conquest, I did not sit at gaze when once or twice an affair had made no progress. Now I myself, thinking to make another move for [Sidenote: Fol. 56.] Andijān, went to ask The Khān's help. Over and above this, it was seven or eight years since I had seen Shāh Begīm[424] and other relations; they also were seen under the same pretext. After a few days, The Khān appointed Sayyid Muḥammad Ḥusain (_Dūghlāt_) and Ayūb _Begchīk_ and Jān-ḥasan _Bārīn_ with 7 or 8000 men to help us. With this help we started, rode light, through Khujand without a halt, left Kand-i-badām on the left and so to Nasūkh, 9 or 10 _yīghāch_ of road beyond Khujand and 3 _yīghāch_ (12-18 m.) from Kand-i-badām, there set our ladders up and took the fort. It was the melon season; one kind grown here, known as Ismā`īl Shaikhī, has a yellow rind, feels like shagreen leather, has seeds like an apple's and flesh four fingers thick. It is a wonderfully delicate melon; no other such grows thereabout. Next day the Mughūl begs represented to me, 'Our fighting men are few; to what would holding this one fort lead on?' In truth they were right; of what use was it to make that fort fast and stay there? Back once more to Khujand!

(_f. Affairs of Khusrau Shāh and the Tīmūrid Mīrzās_.)[425]

This year Khusrau Shāh, taking Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā with him, led his army (from Qūndūz) to Chaghānīān and with false and treacherous intent, sent this message to Ḥiṣār for Sl. Mas`ūd Mīrzā, 'Come, betake yourself to Samarkand; if [Sidenote: Fol. 56b.] Samarkand is taken, one Mīrzā may seat himself there, the other in Ḥiṣār.' Just at the time, the Mīrzā's begs and household were displeased with him, because he had shewn excessive favour to his father-in-law, Shaikh `Abdu'l-lāh _Barlās_ who from Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā had gone to him. Small district though Ḥiṣār is, the Mīrzā had made the Shaikh's allowance 1,000 _tūmāns_ of _fulūs_[426] and had given him the whole of Khutlān in which were the holdings of many of the Mīrzā's begs and household. All this Shaikh `Abdu'l-lāh had; he and his sons took also in whole and in part, the control of the Mīrzā's gate. Those angered began, one after the other, to desert to Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā.

By those words of false alloy, having put Sl. Mas`ūd Mīrzā off his guard, Khusrau Shāh and Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā moved light out of Chaghānīān, surrounded Ḥiṣār and, at beat of morning-drum, took possession of it. Sl. Mas`ūd Mīrzā was in Daulat Sarāī, a house his father had built in the suburbs. Not being able to get into the fort, he drew off towards Khutlān with Shaikh `Abu'l-lāh _Barlās_, parted from him half-way, crossed the river at the Aūbāj ferry and betook himself to Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā. Khusrau Shāh, having taken Ḥiṣār, set Bāī-sunghar [Sidenote: Fol. 57.] Mīrzā on the throne, gave Khutlān to his own younger brother, Walī and rode a few days later, to lay siege to Balkh where, with many of his father's begs, was Ibrāhīm Ḥusain Mīrzā (_Bāī-qarā_). He sent Naẕar _Bahādur_, his chief retainer, on in advance with 3 or 400 men to near Balkh, and himself taking Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā with him, followed and laid the siege.

Walī he sent off with a large force to besiege Shabarghān and raid and ravage thereabouts. Walī, for his part, not being able to lay close siege, sent his men off to plunder the clans and hordes of the Zardak Chūl, and they took him back over 100,000 sheep and some 3000 camels. He then came, plundering the Sān-chīrīk country on his way, and raiding and making captive the clans fortified in the hills, to join Khusrau Shāh before Balkh.

One day during the siege, Khusrau Shāh sent the Naẕar _Bahādur_ already mentioned, to destroy the water-channels[427] of [Sidenote: Fol. 57b.] Balkh. Out on him sallied Tīngrī-bīrdī _Samānchī_,[428] Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā's favourite beg, with 70 or 80 men, struck him down, cut off his head, carried it off, and went back into the fort. A very bold sally, and he did a striking deed.

(_g. Affairs of Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā and Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā._)

This same year, Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā led his army out to Bast and there encamped,[429] for the purpose of putting down Ẕū'n-nūn _Arghūn_ and his son, Shāh Shujā`, because they had become Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā's retainers, had given him a daughter of Ẕū'n-nūn in marriage and taken up a position hostile to himself. No corn for his army coming in from any quarter, it had begun to be distressed with hunger when the sub-governor of Bast surrendered. By help of the stores of Bast, the Mīrzā got back to Khurāsān.

Since such a great ruler as Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā had twice led a splendid and well-appointed army out and twice retired, without taking Qūndūz, or Ḥiṣār or Qandahār, his sons and his begs waxed bold in revolt and rebellion. In the spring of this year, he sent a large army under Muḥammad Walī Beg to put down (his son) Muḥammad Ḥusain Mīrzā who, supreme in Astarābād, had taken up a position hostile to himself. While Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā was still lying in the Nīshīn meadow (near Harāt), he was surprised by Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā and Shāh Shujā` Beg (_Arghūn_). By unexpected good-fortune, he had been [Sidenote: Fol. 58.] joined that very day by Sl. Mas`ūd Mīrzā, a refugee after bringing about the loss of Ḥiṣār,[430] and also rejoined by a force of his own returning from Astarābād. There was no question of fighting. Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā and Shāh Beg, brought face to face with these armies, took to flight.

Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā looked kindly on Sl. Mas`ūd Mīrzā, made him kneel as a son-in-law and gave him a place in his favour and affection. None-the-less Sl. Mas`ūd Mīrzā, at the instigation of Bāqī _Chaghānīānī_, who had come earlier into Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā's service, started off on some pretext, without asking leave, and went from the presence of Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā to that of Khusrau Shāh!

Khusrau Shāh had already invited and brought from Ḥiṣār, Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā; to him had gone Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā's son,[431] Mīrān-shāh Mīrzā who, having gone amongst the Hazāra in rebellion against his father, had been unable to remain amongst them because of his own immoderate acts. Some short-sighted persons were themselves ready to kill these three (Tīmūrid) Mīrzās and to read Khusrau Shāh's name in the _khuṯba_ but he himself did not think this combination desirable. The ungrateful [Sidenote: Fol. 58b.] manikin however, for the sake of gain in this five days' fleeting world,—it was not true to him nor will it be true to any man soever,—seized that Sl. Mas`ūd Mīrzā whom he had seen grow up in his charge from childhood, whose guardian he had been, and blinded him with the lancet.

Some of the Mīrzā's foster-brethren and friends of affection and old servants took him to Kesh intending to convey him to his (half)-brother Sl. `Alī Mīrzā in Samarkand but as that party also (_i.e._ `Alī's) became threatening, they fled with him, crossed the river at the Aūbāj ferry and went to Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā.

A hundred thousand curses light on him who planned and did a deed so horrible! Up to the very verge of Resurrection, let him who hears of this act of Khusrau Shāh, curse him; and may he who hearing, curses not, know cursing equally deserved!

This horrid deed done, Khusrau Shāh made Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā ruler in Ḥiṣār and dismissed him; Mīrān-shāh Mīrzā he despatched for Bāmīān with Sayyid Qāsim to help him.

904 AH.—AUG. 19TH. 1498 TO AUG. 8TH. 1499 AD.[432]

(_a. Bābur borrows Pashāghar and leaves Khujand._)

Twice we had moved out of Khujand, once for Andijān, once for Samarkand, and twice we had gone back to it because our work was not opened out.[433] Khujand is a poor place; a man with 2 or 300 followers would have a hard time there; with [Sidenote: Fol. 59.] what outlook would an ambitious man set himself down in it?

As it was our wish to return to Samarkand, we sent people to confer with Muḥammad Ḥusain _Kūrkān Dūghlāt_ in Aūrā-tīpā and to ask of him the loan for the winter of Pashāghar where we might sit till it was practicable to make a move on Samarkand. He consenting, I rode out from Khujand for Pashāghar.

(_Author's note on Pashāghar._) Pashāghar is one of the villages of Yār-yīlāq; it had belonged to his Highness the Khwāja,[434] but during recent interregna,[435] it had become dependent on Muḥammad Ḥusain Mīrzā.

I had fever when we reached Zamīn, but spite of my fever we hurried off by the mountain road till we came over against Rabāṯ-i-khwāja, the head-quarters of the sub-governor of the Shavdār _tūmān_, where we hoped to take the garrison at unawares, set our ladders up and so get into the fort. We reached it at dawn, found its men on guard, turned back and rode without halt to Pashāghar. The pains and misery of fever notwithstanding, I had ridden 14 or 15 _yīghāch_ (70 to 80 miles).

After a few days in Pashāghar, we appointed Ibrāhīm _Sārū_, [Sidenote: Fol. 59b.] Wais _Lāgharī_, Sherīm T̤aghāī and some of the household and braves to make an expedition amongst the Yār-yīlāq forts and get them into our hands. Yār-yīlāq, at that time was Sayyid Yūsuf Beg's,[436] he having remained in Samarkand at the exodus and been much favoured by Sl. `Ali Mīrzā. To manage the forts, Sayyid Yūsuf had sent his younger brother's son, Aḥmad-i-yūsuf, now[437] Governor of Sialkot, and Aḥmad-i-yūsuf was then in occupation. In the course of that winter, our begs and braves made the round, got possession of some of the forts peacefully, fought and took others, gained some by ruse and craft. In the whole of that district there is perhaps not a single village without its defences because of the Mughūls and the Aūzbegs. Meantime Sl. `Alī Mīrzā became suspicious of Sayyid Yūsuf and his nephew on my account and dismissed both towards Khurāsān.

The winter passed in this sort of tug-of-war; with the oncoming heats,[438] they sent Khwāja Yaḥya to treat with me, while they, urged on by the (Samarkand) army, marched out to near Shīrāz and Kabud. I may have had 200 or 300 soldiers (_sipāhī_); powerful foes were on my every side; Fortune had [Sidenote: Fol. 60.] not favoured me when I turned to Andijān; when I put a hand out for Samarkand, no work was opened out. Of necessity, some sort of terms were made and I went back from Pashāghar.

Khujand is a poor place; one beg would have a hard time in it; there we and our families and following had been for half a year[439] and during the time the Musalmāns of the place had not been backward in bearing our charges and serving us to the best of their power. With what face could we go there again? and what, for his own part, could a man do there? 'To what home to go? For what gain to stay?'[440]

In the end and with the same anxieties and uncertainty, we went to the summer-pastures in the south of Aūrā-tīpā. There we spent some days in amazement at our position, not knowing where to go or where to stay, our heads in a whirl. On one of those days, Khwāja Abū'l-makāram came to see me, he like me, a wanderer, driven from his home.[441] He questioned us about our goings and stayings, about what had or had not been done and about our whole position. He was touched with compassion for our state and recited the _fātiḥa_ for me before he left. I also was much touched; I pitied him.

(_b. Bābur recovers Marghīnān._)

Near the Afternoon Prayer of that same day, a horseman appeared at the foot of the valley. He was a man named Yūl-chūq, presumably `Ali-dost T̤aghāī's own servant, and had been sent with this written message, 'Although many great misdeeds have had their rise in me, yet, if you will do me the [Sidenote: Fol. 60b.] favour and kindness of coming to me, I hope to purge my offences and remove my reproach, by giving you Marghīnān and by my future submission and single-minded service.'

Such news! coming on such despair and whirl-of-mind! Off we hurried, that very hour,—it was sun-set,—without reflecting, without a moment's delay, just as if for a sudden raid, straight for Marghīnān. From where we were to Marghīnān may have been 24 or 25 _yīghāch_ of road.[442] Through that night it was rushed without delaying anywhere, and on next day till at the Mid-day Prayer, halt was made at Tang-āb (Narrow-water), one of the villages of Khujand. There we cooled down our horses and gave them corn. We rode out again at beat of (twilight-) drum[443] and on through that night till shoot of dawn, and through the next day till sunset, and on through that night till, just before dawn, we were one _yīghāch_ from Marghīnān. Here Wais Beg and others represented to me with some anxiety what sort of an evil-doer `Ali-dost was. 'No-one,' they said, 'has come and gone, time and again, between him and us; no terms and compact have been made; trusting to what are we going?' In truth their fears were just! After waiting awhile to consult, we at last agreed that [Sidenote: Fol. 61.] reasonable as anxiety was, it ought to have been earlier; that there we were after coming three nights and two days without rest or halt; in what horse or in what man was any strength left?—from where we were, how could return be made? and, if made, where were we to go?—that, having come so far, on we must, and that nothing happens without God's will. At this we left the matter and moved on, our trust set on Him.

At the Sunnat Prayer[444] we reached Fort Marghīnān. `Alī-dost T̤aghāī kept himself behind (_arqa_) the closed gate and asked for terms; these granted, he opened it. He did me obeisance between the (two) gates.[445] After seeing him, we dismounted at a suitable house in the walled-town. With me, great and small, were 240 men.

As Aūzūn Ḥasan and Taṃbal had been tyrannical and oppressive, all the clans of the country were asking for me. We therefore, after two or three days spent in Marghīnān, joined to Qāsim Beg over a hundred men of the Pashāgharīs, the new retainers of Marghīnān and of `Alī-dost's following, and sent them to bring over to me, by force or fair words, such hill-people of the south of Andijān as the Ashpārī, Tūrūqshār, [Sidenote: Fol. 61b.] Chīkrāk and others roundabout. Ibrāhīm Sārū and Wais _Lāgharī_ and Sayyidī Qarā were also sent out, to cross the Khujand-water and, by whatever means, to induce the people on that side to turn their eyes to me.

Aūzūn Ḥasan and Taṃbal, for their parts, gathered together what soldiers and Mughūls they had and called up the men accustomed to serve in the Andijān and Akhsī armies. Then, bringing Jahāngīr Mīrzā with them, they came to Sapān, a village 2 m. east of Marghīnān, a few days after our arrival, and dismounted there with the intention of besieging Marghīnān. They advanced a day or two later, formed up to fight, as far as the suburbs. Though after the departure of the Commanders, Qāsim Beg, Ibrāhīm _Sārū_ and Wais _Lāgharī_, few men were left with me, those there were formed up, sallied out and prevented the enemy from advancing beyond the suburbs. On that day, Page Khalīl, the turban-twister, went well forward and got his hand into the work. They had come; they could do nothing; on two other days they failed to get near the fort. [Sidenote: Fol. 62.]

When Qāsim Beg went into the hills on the south of Andijān, all the Ashpārī, Tūrūqshār, Chīkrāk, and the peasants and highland and lowland clans came in for us. When the Commanders, Ibrāhīm _Sārū_ and Wais _Lāgharī_, crossed the river to the Akhsī side, Pāp and several other forts came in.

Aūzūn Ḥasan and Taṃbal being the heathenish and vicious tyrants they were, had inflicted great misery on the peasantry and clansmen. One of the chief men of Akhsī, Ḥasan-dīkcha by name,[446] gathered together his own following and a body of the Akhsī mob and rabble, black-bludgeoned[447] Aūzūn Ḥasan's and Taṃbal's men in the outer fort and drubbed them into the citadel. They then invited the Commanders, Ibrāhīm _Sārū_, Wais _Lāgharī_ and Sayyidī Qarā and admitted them into the fort.

Sl. Maḥmūd Khān had appointed to help us, Ḥaidar _Kūkūldāsh's_ (son) Banda-`alī and Ḥājī Ghāzī _Manghīt_,[448] the latter just then a fugitive from Shaibānī Khān, and also the Bārīn _tūmān_ with its begs. They arrived precisely at this time.

[Sidenote: Fol. 62b.] These news were altogether upsetting to Aūzūn Ḥasan; he at once started off his most favoured retainers and most serviceable braves to help his men in the citadel of Akhsī. His force reached the brow of the river at dawn. Our Commanders and the (Tāshkīnt) Mughūls had heard of its approach and had made some of their men strip their horses and cross the river (to the Andijān side). Aūzūn Ḥasan's men, in their haste, did not draw the ferry-boat up-stream;[449] they consequently went right away from the landing-place, could not cross for the fort and went down stream.[450] Here-upon, our men and the (Tāshkīnt) Mughūls began to ride bare-back into the water from both banks. Those in the boat could make no fight at all. Qārlūghāch (var. Qārbūghāch) _Bakhshī_ (Pay-master) called one of Mughūl Beg's sons to him, took him by the hand, chopped at him and killed him. Of what use was it? The affair was past that! His act was the cause why most of those in the boat went to their death. Instantly our men seized them all (_arīq_) and killed all (but a few).[451] Of Aūzūn Ḥasan's confidants escaped Qārlūghāch _Bakhshī_ and Khalīl _Dīwān_ and Qāẓī _Ghulām_, the last getting off by pretending to be a slave (_ghulām_); and of his trusted braves, Sayyid `Alī, now in trust in my own service,[452] and Ḥaidar-i-qulī and Qilka _Kāshgharī_ escaped. Of his 70 or 80 men, no more than this [Sidenote: Fol. 63.] same poor five or six got free.

On hearing of this affair, Aūzūn Ḥasan and Taṃbal, not being able to remain near Marghīnān, marched in haste and disorder for Andijān. There they had left Nāṣir Beg, the husband of Aūzūn Ḥasan's sister. He, if not Aūzūn Ḥasan's second, what question is there he was his third?[453] He was an experienced man, brave too; when he heard particulars, he knew their ground was lost, made Andijān fast and sent a man to me. They broke up in disaccord when they found the fort made fast against them; Aūzūn Ḥasan drew off to his wife in Akhsī, Taṃbal to his district of Aūsh. A few of Jahāngīr Mīrzā's household and braves fled with him from Aūzūn Ḥasan and joined Taṃbal before he had reached Aūsh.

(_c. Bābur recovers Andijān._)

Directly we heard that Andijān had been made fast against them, I rode out, at sun-rise, from Marghīnān and by mid-day was in Andijān.[454] There I saw Nāṣir Beg and his two sons, that is to say, Dost Beg and Mīrīm Beg, questioned them and uplifted their heads with hope of favour and kindness. In this way, by God's grace, my father's country, lost to me for two years, was regained and re-possessed, in the month Ẕū'l-qa`da of [Sidenote: Fol. 63b.] the date 904 (June 1498).[455]

Sl. Aḥmad Taṃbal, after being joined by Jahāngīr Mīrzā, drew away for Aūsh. On his entering the town, the red rabble (_qīzīl ayāq_) there, as in Akhsī, black-bludgeoned (_qarā tīyāq qīlīb_) and drubbed his men out, blow upon blow, then kept the fort for me and sent me a man. Jahāngīr and Taṃbal went off confounded, with a few followers only, and entered Aūzkīnt Fort.

Of Aūzūn Ḥasan news came that after failing to get into Andijān, he had gone to Akhsī and, it was understood, had entered the citadel. He had been head and chief in the rebellion; we therefore, on getting this news, without more than four or five days' delay in Andijān, set out for Akhsī. On our arrival, there was nothing for him to do but ask for peace and terms, and surrender the fort.

We stayed in Akhsī[456] a few days in order to settle its affairs and those of Kāsān and that country-side. We gave the Mughūls who had come in to help us, leave for return (to Tāshkīnt), then went back to Andijān, taking with us Aūzūn Ḥasan and his family and dependants. In Akhsī was left, for a time, Qāsim-i-`ajab (Wonderful Qāsim), formerly one of the household circle, now arrived at beg's rank.

(_d. Renewed rebellion of the Mughūls._)

As terms had been made, Aūzūn Ḥasan, without hurt to life [Sidenote: Fol. 64.] or goods, was allowed to go by the Qarā-tīgīn road for Ḥiṣār. A few of his retainers went with him, the rest parted from him and stayed behind. These were the men who in the throneless times had captured and plundered various Musalmān dependants of my own and of the Khwāja. In agreement with several begs, their affair was left at this;—'This very band have been the captors and plunderers of our faithful Musalmān dependants;[457] what loyalty have they shown to their own (Mughūl) begs that they should be loyal to us? If we had them seized and stripped bare, where would be the wrong? and this especially because they might be going about, before our very eyes, riding our horses, wearing our coats, eating our sheep. Who could put up with that? If, out of humanity, they are not imprisoned and not plundered, they certainly ought to take it as a favour if they get off with the order to give back to our companions of the hard guerilla times, whatever goods of theirs are known to be here.'

In truth this seemed reasonable; our men were ordered to take what they knew to be theirs. Reasonable and just though the order was, (I now) understand that it was a little hasty. [Sidenote: Fol. 64b.] With a worry like Jahāngīr seated at my side, there was no sense in frightening people in this way. In conquest and government, though many things may have an outside appearance of reason and justice, yet 100,000 reflections are right and necessary as to the bearings of each one of them. From this single incautious order of ours,[458] what troubles! what rebellions arose! In the end this same ill-considered order was the cause of our second exile from Andijān. Now, through it, the Mughūls gave way to anxiety and fear, marched through Rabāṯik-aūrchīnī, that is, Aīkī-sū-ārāsī, for Aūzkīnt and sent a man to Taṃbal.

In my mother's service were 1500 to 2000 Mughūls from the horde; as many more had come from Ḥiṣār with Ḥamza Sl. and Mahdī Sl. and Muḥammad _Dūghlāt Ḥiṣārī_.[459] Mischief and devastation must always be expected from the Mughūl horde. Up to now[460] they have rebelled five times against me. It must not be understood that they rebelled through not getting on with me; they have done the same thing with their own Khāns, again and again. Sl. Qulī _Chūnāq_[461] brought me the news. His late father, Khudāī-bīrdī _Būqāq_[462] I had favoured amongst the Mughūls; he was himself with the (rebel) Mughūls [Sidenote: Fol. 65.] and he did well in thus leaving the horde and his own family to bring me the news. Well as he did then however, he, as will be told,[463] did a thing so shameful later on that it would hide a hundred such good deeds as this, if he had done them. His later action was the clear product of his Mughūl nature. When this news came, the begs, gathered for counsel, represented to me, 'This is a trifling matter; what need for the pādshāh to ride out? Let Qāsim Beg go with the begs and men assembled here.' So it was settled; they took it lightly; to do so must have been an error of judgment. Qāsim Beg led his force out that same day; Taṃbal meantime must have joined the Mughūls. Our men crossed the Aīlāīsh river[464] early next morning by the Yāsī-kījīt (Broad-crossing) and at once came face to face with the rebels. Well did they chop at one another (_chāpqūlāshūrlār_)! Qāsim Beg himself came face to face with Muḥammad _Arghūn_ and did not desist from chopping at him in order to cut off his head.[465] Most of our braves exchanged [Sidenote: Fol. 65b.] good blows but in the end were beaten. Qāsim Beg, `Alī-dost T̤aghāī, Ibrāhīm _Sārū_, Wais _Lāgharī_, Sayyidī Qarā and three or four more of our begs and household got away but most of the rest fell into the hands of the rebels. Amongst them were `Alī-darwesh Beg and Mīrīm _Lāgharī_ and (Sherīm?) T̤aghāī Beg's (son) Tūqā[466] and `Alī-dost's son, Muḥammad-dost and Mīr Shāh _Qūchīn_ and Mīrīm Dīwān.

Two braves chopped very well at one another; on our side, Samad, Ibrāhīm _Sārū's_ younger brother, and on their side, Shāh-suwār, one of the Ḥiṣārī Mughūls. Shāh-suwār struck so that his sword drove through Samad's helm and seated itself well in his head; Samad, spite of his wound, struck so that his sword cut off Shāh-suwār's head a piece of bone as large as the palm of a hand. Shāh-suwār must have worn no helm; they trepanned his head and it healed; there was no one to trepan Samad's and in a few days, he departed simply through the wound.[467]

Amazingly unseasonable was this defeat, coming as it did just in the respite from guerilla fighting and just when we had regained the country. One of our great props, Qaṃbar-`alī _Mughūl_ (the Skinner) had gone to his district when Andijān [Sidenote: Fol. 66.] was occupied and therefore was not with us.

(_e. Taṃbal attempts to take Andijān._)

Having effected so much, Taṃbal, bringing Jahāngīr Mīrzā with him, came to the east of Andijān and dismounted 2 miles off, in the meadow lying in front of the Hill of Pleasure (`Aīsh).[468]

Once or twice he advanced in battle-array, past Chihil-dukhterān[469] to the town side of the hill but, as our braves went out arrayed to fight, beyond the gardens and suburbs, he could not advance further and returned to the other side of the hill. On his first coming to those parts, he killed two of the begs he had captured, Mīrīm _Lāgharī_ and Tūqā Beg. For nearly a month he lay round-about without effecting anything; after that he retired, his face set for Aūsh. Aūsh had been given to Ibrāhīm _Sārū_ and his man in it now made it fast.

905 AH. AUG. 8TH. 1499 TO JULY 28TH. 1500 AD.[470]

(_a. Bābur's campaign against Aḥmad Taṃbal Mughūl._)

Commissaries were sent gallopping off at once, some to call up the horse and foot of the district-armies, others to urge return on Qaṃbar-`alī and whoever else was away in his own district, while energetic people were told off to get together mantelets (_tūra_), shovels, axes and the what-not of war-material and stores for the men already with us.

As soon as the horse and foot, called up from the various districts to join the army, and the soldiers and retainers who had been scattered to this and that side on their own affairs, were gathered together, I went out, on Muḥarram 18th. (August 25th.), putting my trust in God, to Ḥāfiẓ Beg's Four-gardens [Sidenote: Fol. 66b.] and there stayed a few days in order to complete our equipment. This done, we formed up in array of right and left, centre and van, horse and foot, and started direct for Aūsh against our foe.

On approaching Aūsh, news was had that Taṃbal, unable to make stand in that neighbourhood, had drawn off to the north, to the Rabāṯ-i-sarhang sub-district, it was understood. That night we dismounted in Lāt-kīnt. Next day as we were passing through Aūsh, news came that Taṃbal was understood to have gone to Andijān. We, for our part, marched on as for Aūzkīnt, detaching raiders ahead to over-run those parts.[471] Our opponents went to Andijān and at night got into the ditch but being discovered by the garrison when they set their ladders up against the ramparts, could effect no more and retired. Our raiders retired also after over-running round about Aūzkīnt without getting into their hands anything worth their trouble.

Taṃbal had stationed his younger brother, Khalīl, with 200 or 300 men, in Māḏū,[472] one of the forts of Aūsh, renowned in that centre (_ārā_) for its strength. We turned back (on the [Sidenote: Fol. 67.] Aūzkīnt road) to assault it. It is exceedingly strong. Its northern face stands very high above the bed of a torrent; arrows shot from the bed might perhaps reach the ramparts. On this side is the water-thief,[473] made like a lane, with ramparts on both sides carried from the fort to the water. Towards the rising ground, on the other sides of the fort, there is a ditch. The torrent being so near, those occupying the fort had carried stones in from it as large as those for large mortars.[474] From no fort of its class we have ever attacked, have stones been thrown so large as those taken into Māḏū. They dropped such a large one on `Abdu'l-qāsim _Kohbur_, Kitta (Little) Beg's elder brother,[475] when he went up under the ramparts, that he spun head over heels and came rolling and rolling, without once getting to his feet, from that great height down to the foot of the glacis (_khāk-rez_). He did not trouble himself about it at all but just got on his horse and rode off. Again, a stone flung from the double water-way, hit Yār-`alī _Balāl_ so hard on the head that in the end it had to be trepanned.[476] Many of our men perished by their stones. The assault began at dawn; the water-thief [Sidenote: Fol. 67b.] had been taken before breakfast-time;[477] fighting went on till evening; next morning, as they could not hold out after losing the water-thief, they asked for terms and came out. We took 60 or 70 or 80 men of Khalīl's command and sent them to Andijān for safe-keeping; as some of our begs and household were prisoners in their hands, the Māḏū affair fell out very well.[478]

From there we went to Unjū-tūpa, one of the villages of Aūsh, and there dismounted. When Taṃbal retired from Andijān and went into the Rabāṯ-i-sarhang sub-district, he dismounted in a village called Āb-i-khān. Between him and me may have been one _yīghāch_ (5 m.?). At such a time as this, Qaṃbar-`alī (the Skinner) on account of some sickness, went into Aūsh.

It was lain in Unjū-tūpa a month or forty days without a battle, but day after day our foragers and theirs got to grips. All through the time our camp was mightily well watched at night; a ditch was dug; where no ditch was, branches were set close together;[479] we also made our soldiers go out in their mail [Sidenote: Fol. 68.] along the ditch. Spite of such watchfulness, a night-alarm was given every two or three days, and the cry to arms went up. One day when Sayyidī Beg T̤aghāī had gone out with the foragers, the enemy came up suddenly in greater strength and took him prisoner right out of the middle of the fight.

(_b. Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā murdered by Khusrau Shāh._)

Khusrau Shāh, having planned to lead an army against Balkh, in this same year invited Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā to go with him, brought him[480] to Qūndūz and rode out with him for Balkh. But when they reached the Aubāj ferry, that ungrateful infidel, Khusrau Shāh, in his aspiration to sovereignty,—and to what sort of sovereignty, pray, could such a no-body attain? a person of no merit, no birth, no lineage, no judgment, no magnanimity, no justice, no legal-mindedness,—laid hands on Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā with his begs, and bowstrung the Mīrzā. It was upon the 10th. of the month of Muḥarram (August 17th.) that he martyred that scion of sovereignty, so accomplished, so sweet-natured and so adorned by birth and lineage. He killed also a few of the Mīrzā's begs and household.

(_c. Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā's birth and descent._)

He was born in 882 (1477 AD.), in the Ḥiṣār district. He was Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā's second son, younger than Sl. Mas`ud M. and older than Sl. `Alī M. and Sl. Ḥusain M. and Sl. Wais M. known as Khān Mīrzā. His mother was Pasha Begīm. [Sidenote: Fol. 68b.]

(_d. His appearance and characteristics._)

He had large eyes, a fleshy face[481] and Turkmān features, was of middle height and altogether an elegant young man (_aet._ 22).

(_e. His qualities and manners._)

He was just, humane, pleasant-natured and a most accomplished scion of sovereignty. His tutor, Sayyid Maḥmūd,[482] presumably was a Shī`a; through this he himself became infected by that heresy. People said that latterly, in Samarkand, he reverted from that evil belief to the pure Faith. He was much addicted to wine but on his non-drinking days, used to go through the Prayers.[483] He was moderate in gifts and liberality. He wrote the _naskh-ta`līq_ character very well; in painting also his hand was not bad. He made `Ādilī his pen-name and composed good verses but not sufficient to form a _dīwān_. Here is the opening couplet (_maṯla`_) of one of them[484];—

Like a wavering shadow I fall here and there; If not propped by a wall, I drop flat on the ground.

In such repute are his odes held in Samarkand, that they are to be found in most houses.

(_f. His battles._)

He fought two ranged battles. One, fought when he was first seated on the throne (900 AH.-1495 AD.), was with Sl. Maḥmūd Khān[485] who, incited and stirred up by Sl. Junaid _Barlās_ and others to desire Samarkand, drew an army out, [Sidenote: Fol. 69.] crossed the Āq-kutal and went to Rabāṯ-i-soghd and Kān-bāī. Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā went out from Samarkand, fought him near Kān-bāī, beat him and beheaded 3 or 4000 Mughūls. In this fight died Ḥaidar _Kūkūldāsh_, the Khān's looser and binder (_ḥall u`aqdī_). His second battle was fought near Bukhārā with Sl. `Alī Mīrzā (901 AH.-1496 AD.); in this he was beaten.[486]

(_g. His countries._)

His father, Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā, gave him Bukhārā; when Sl. Maḥmūd M. died, his begs assembled and in agreement made Bāī-sunghar M. ruler in Samarkand. For a time, Bukhārā was included with Samarkand in his jurisdiction but it went out of his hands after the Tarkhān rebellion (901 AH.-1496 AD.). When he left Samarkand to go to Khusrau Shāh and I got possession of it (903 AH.-1497 AD.), Khusrau Shāh took Ḥiṣār and gave it to him.

(_h. Other details concerning him._)

He left no child. He took a daughter of his paternal uncle, Sl. Khalīl Mīrzā, when he went to Khusrau Shāh; he had no other wife or concubine.

He never ruled with authority so independent that any beg was heard of as promoted by him to be his confidant; his begs [Sidenote: Fol. 69b.] were just those of his father and his paternal uncle (Aḥmad).

(_i. Resumed account of Bābur's campaign against Taṃbal._)

After Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā's death, Sl. Aḥmad _Qarāwal_,[487] the father of Qūch (Qūj) Beg, sent us word (of his intention) and came to us from Ḥiṣār through the Qarā-tīgīn country, together with his brethren, elder and younger, and their families and dependants. From Aūsh too came Qaṃbar-`alī, risen from his sickness. Arriving, as it did, at such a moment, we took the providential help of Sl. Aḥmad and his party for a happy omen. Next day we formed up at dawn and moved direct upon our foe. He made no stand at Āb-i-khān but marched from his ground, leaving many tents and blankets and things of the baggage for our men. We dismounted in his camp.

That evening Taṃbal, having Jahāngīr with him, turned our left and went to a village called Khūbān (var. Khūnān), some 3 _yīghāch_ from us (15 m.?) and between us and Andijān. Next day we moved out against him, formed up with right and left, centre and van, our horses in their mail, our men in theirs, and with foot-soldiers, bearing mantelets, flung to the front. Our right was `Alī-dost and his dependants, our left Ibrāhīm _Sārū_, Wais _Lāgharī_, Sayyidī Qarā, Muḥammad-`alī _Mubashir_, and Khwāja-i-kalān's elder brother, Kīchīk Beg, with several of [Sidenote: Fol. 70.] the household. In the left were inscribed[488] also Sl. Aḥmad _Qarāwal_ and Qūch Beg with their brethren. With me in the centre was Qāsim Beg _Qūchīn_; in the van were Qaṃbar-`alī (the Skinner) and some of the household. When we reached Sāqā, a village two miles east of Khūbān, the enemy came out of Khūbān, arrayed to fight. We, for our part, moved on the faster. At the time of engaging, our foot-soldiers, provided how laboriously with the mantelets! were quite in the rear! By God's grace, there was no need of them; our left had got hands in with their right before they came up. Kīchīk Beg chopped away very well; next to him ranked Muḥammad `Alī _Mubashir_. Not being able to bring equal zeal to oppose us, the enemy took to flight. The fighting did not reach the front of our van or right. Our men brought in many of their braves; we ordered the heads of all to be struck off. Favouring caution and good generalship, our begs, Qāsim Beg and, especially, `Alī-dost did not think it advisable to send far in pursuit; for [Sidenote: Fol. 70b.] this reason, many of their men did not fall into our hands. We dismounted right in Khūbān village. This was my first ranged battle; the Most High God, of His own favour and mercy, made it a day of victory and triumph. We accepted the omen.

On the next following day, my father's mother, my grandmother, Shāh Sulṯān Begīm[489] arrived from Andijān, thinking to beg off Jahāngīr Mīrzā if he had been taken.

(_j. Bābur goes into winter-quarters in Between-the-two-rivers._)

As it was now almost winter and no grain or fruits[490] remained in the open country, it was not thought desirable to move against (Taṃbal in) Aūzkīnt but return was made to Andijān. A few days later, it was settled after consultation, that for us to winter in the town would in no way hurt or hamper the enemy, rather that he would wax the stronger by it through raids and guerilla fighting; moreover on our own account, it was necessary that we should winter where our men would not become enfeebled through want of grain and where we could straiten the enemy by some sort of blockade. For these desirable [Sidenote: Fol. 71.] ends we marched out of Andijān, meaning to winter near Armiyān and Nūsh-āb in the Rabāṯik-aūrchīnī, known also as Between-the-two-rivers. On arriving in the two villages above-mentioned, we prepared winter-quarters.

The hunting-grounds are good in that neighbourhood; in the jungle near the Aīlāīsh river is much _būghū-marāl_[491] and pig; the small scattered clumps of jungle are thick with hare and pheasant; and on the near rising-ground, are many foxes[492] of fine colour and swifter than those of any other place. While we were in those quarters, I used to ride hunting every two or three days; we would beat through the great jungle and hunt _būghū-marāl_, or we would wander about, making a circle round scattered clumps and flying our hawks at the pheasants. The pheasants are unlimited[493] there; pheasant-meat was abundant as long as we were in those quarters.

While we were there, Khudāī-bīrdī _Tūghchī_, then newly-favoured with beg's rank, fell on some of Taṃbal's raiders and brought in a few heads. Our braves went out also from Aūsh and Andijān and raided untiringly on the enemy, driving in his herds of horses and much enfeebling him. If the whole winter had been passed in those quarters, the more probable thing is [Sidenote: Fol. 71b.] that he would have broken up simply without a fight.

(_k. Qaṃbar-`alī again asks leave._)

It was at such a time, just when our foe was growing weak and helpless, that Qaṃbar-`alī asked leave to go to his district. The more he was dissuaded by reminder of the probabilities of the position, the more stupidity he shewed. An amazingly fickle and veering manikin he was! It had to be! Leave for his district was given him. That district had been Khujand formerly but when Andijān was taken this last time, Asfara and Kand-i-badām were given him in addition. Amongst our begs, he was the one with large districts and many followers; no-one's land or following equalled his. We had been 40 or 50 days in those winter-quarters. At his recommendation, leave was given also to some of the clans in the army. We, for our part, went into Andijān.

(_l. Sl. Maḥmūd Khān sends Mughūls to help Taṃbal._)

Both while we were in our winter-quarters and later on in Andijān, Taṃbal's people came and went unceasingly between him and The Khān in Tāshkīnt. His paternal uncle of the full-blood, Aḥmad Beg, was guardian of The Khān's son, Sl. Muḥammad Sl. and high in favour; his elder brother of the full-blood, Beg Tīlba (Fool), was The Khān's Lord of the Gate. After all the comings and goings, these two brought The Khān to the point of reinforcing Taṃbal. Beg Tīlba, leaving his wife and domestics and family in Tāshkīnt, came on ahead of the [Sidenote: Fol. 72.] reinforcement and joined his younger brother, Taṃbal,—Beg Tīlba! who from his birth up had been in Mughūlistān, had grown up amongst Mughūls, had never entered a cultivated country or served the rulers of one, but from first to last had served The Khāns!

Just then a wonderful (_`ajab_) thing happened;[494] Qāsim-i-`ajab (wonderful Qāsim) when he had been left for a time in Akhsī, went out one day after a few marauders, crossed the Khujand-water by Bachrātā, met in with a few of Taṃbal's men and was made prisoner.

When Taṃbal heard that our army was disbanded and was assured of The Khān's help by the arrival of his brother, Beg Tīlba, who had talked with The Khān, he rode from Aūzkīnt into Between-the-two-rivers. Meantime safe news had come to us from Kāsān that The Khān had appointed his son, Sl. Muḥ. Khānika, commonly known as Sulṯānīm,[495] and Aḥmad Beg, with 5 or 6000 men, to help Taṃbal, that they had crossed by the Archa-kīnt road[496] and were laying siege to Kāsān. Hereupon we, without delay, without a glance at our absent men, just with those there were, in the hard cold of winter, put our [Sidenote: Fol. 72b.] trust in God and rode off by the Band-i-sālār road to oppose them. That night we stopped no-where; on we went through the darkness till, at dawn, we dismounted in Akhsī.[497] So mightily bitter was the cold that night that it bit the hands and feet of several men and swelled up the ears of many, each ear like an apple. We made no stay in Akhsī but leaving there Yārak T̤aghāī, temporarily also, in Qāsim-i-`ajab's place, passed on for Kāsān. Two miles from Kāsān news came that on hearing of our approach, Aḥmad Beg and Sulṯānīm had hurried off in disorder.

(_m. Bābur and Taṃbal again opposed._)

Taṃbal must have had news of our getting to horse for he had hurried to help his elder brother.[498] Somewhere between the two Prayers of the day,[499] his blackness[500] became visible towards Nū-kīnt. Astonished and perplexed by his elder brother's light departure and by our quick arrival, he stopped short. Said we, 'It is God has brought them in this fashion! here they have come with their horses' necks at full stretch;[501] if we join hands[502] and go out, and if God bring it right, not a man of them will get off.' But Wais _Lāgharī_ and some others said, 'It is late in the day; even if we do not go out today, where can they go tomorrow? Wherever it is, we will meet [Sidenote: Fol. 73.] them at dawn.' So they said, not thinking it well to make the joint effort there and then; so too the enemy, come so opportunely, broke up and got away without any hurt whatever. The (Turkī) proverb is, 'Who does not snatch at a chance, will worry himself about it till old age.'

_(Persian) couplet._ Work must be snatched at betimes, Vain is the slacker's mistimed work.

Seizing the advantage of a respite till the morrow, the enemy slipped away in the night, and without dismounting on the road, went into Fort Archīān. When a morrow's move against a foe was made, we found no foe; after him we went and, not thinking it well to lay close siege to Archīān, dismounted two miles off (one _shar`ī_) in Ghazna-namangān.[503] We were in camp there for 30 or 40 days, Taṃbal being in Fort Archīān. Every now and then a very few would go from our side and come from theirs, fling themselves on one another midway and return. They made one night-attack, rained arrows in on us and retired. As the camp was encircled by a ditch or by branches close-set, and as watch was kept, they could effect no more.

(_n. Qaṃbar-`alī, the Skinner, again gives trouble._)

Two or three times while we lay in that camp, Qaṃbar-`alī, [Sidenote: Fol. 73b.] in ill-temper, was for going to his district; once he even had got to horse and started in a fume, but we sent several begs after him who, with much trouble, got him to turn back.

(_o. Further action against Taṃbal and an accommodation made._)

Meantime Sayyid Yūsuf of Macham had sent a man to Taṃbal and was looking towards him. He was the head-man of one of the two foot-hills of Andijān, Macham and Awīghūr. Latterly he had become known in my Gate, having outgrown the head-man and put on the beg, though no-one ever had made him a beg. He was a singularly hypocritical manikin, of no standing whatever. From our last taking of Andijān (June 1499) till then (Feb. 1500), he had revolted two or three times from Taṃbal and come to me, and two or three times had revolted from me and gone to Taṃbal. This was his last change of side. With him were many from the (Mughūl) horde and tribesmen and clansmen. 'Don't let him join Taṃbal,' we said and rode in between them. We got to Bīshkhārān with one night's halt. Taṃbal's men must have come earlier and entered the fort. A party of our begs, `Alī-darwesh Beg and Qūch Beg, with his brothers, went close up to the Gate of [Sidenote: Fol. 74.] Bīshkhārān and exchanged good blows with the enemy. Qūch Beg and his brothers did very well there, their hands getting in for most of the work. We dismounted on a height some two miles from Bīshkhārān; Taṃbal, having Jahāngīr with him, dismounted with the fort behind him.

Three or four days later, begs unfriendly to us, that is to say, `Alī-dost and Qaṃbar-`alī, the Skinner, with their followers and dependants, began to interpose with talk of peace. I and my well-wishers had no knowledge of a peace and we all[504] were utterly averse from the project. Those two manikins however were our two great begs; if we gave no ear to their words and if we did not make peace, other things from them were probable! It had to be! Peace was made in this fashion;—the districts on the Akhsī side of the Khujand-water were to depend on Jahāngīr, those on the Andijān side, on me; Aūzkīnt was to be left in my jurisdiction after they had removed their families from it; when the districts were settled and I and Jahāngīr had made our agreement, we (_bīz_) should march together against Samarkand; and when I was in possession of Samarkand, Andijān was to be given to Jahāngīr. So the affair was settled. [Sidenote: Fol. 74b.] Next day,—it was one of the last of Rajab, (end of Feb. 1500) Jahāngīr Mīrzā and Taṃbal came and did me obeisance; the terms and conditions were ratified as stated above; leave for Akhsī was given to Jahāngīr and I betook myself to Andijān.

On our arrival, Khalīl-of-Taṃbal and our whole band of prisoners were released; robes of honour were put on them and leave to go was given. They, in their turn, set free our begs and household, _viz._ the commanders[505] (Sherīm?) T̤aghāī Beg, Muḥammad-dost, Mīr Shāh _Qūchīn_, Sayyidī Qarā Beg, Qāsim-i-`ajab, Mīr Wais, Mīrīm _Dīwān_, and those under them.

(_p. The self-aggrandizement of `Alī-dost T̤aghāī._)

After our return to Andijān, `Alī-dost's manners and behaviour changed entirely. He began to live ill with my companions of the guerilla days and times of hardship. First, he dismissed Khalīfa; next seized and plundered Ibrāhīm _Sārū_ and Wais _Lāgharī_, and for no fault or cause deprived them of their districts and dismissed them. He entangled himself with Qāsim Beg and _he_ was made to go; he openly declared, 'Khalīfa and Ibrāhīm are in sympathy about Khwāja-i-qāẓī; they will avenge him on me.'[506] His son, Muḥammad-dost set himself up on a regal footing, starting receptions and a public table and a [Sidenote: Fol. 75.] Court and workshops, after the fashion of sulṯāns. Like father, like son, they set themselves up in this improper way because they had Taṃbal at their backs. No authority to restrain their unreasonable misdeeds was left to me; for why? Whatever their hearts desired, that they did because such a foe of mine as Taṃbal was their backer. The position was singularly delicate; not a word was said but many humiliations were endured from that father and that son alike.

(_q. Bābur's first marriage._)

`Āyisha-sulṯān Begīm whom my father and hers, _i.e._ my uncle, Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā had betrothed to me, came (this year) to Khujand[507] and I took her in the month of Sha`bān. Though I was not ill-disposed towards her, yet, this being my first marriage, out of modesty and bashfulness, I used to see her once in 10, 15 or 20 days. Later on when even my first inclination did not last, my bashfulness increased. Then my mother Khānīm used to send me, once a month or every 40 [Sidenote: Fol. 75b.] days, with driving and driving, dunnings and worryings.

(_r. A personal episode and some verses by Bābur._)

In those leisurely days I discovered in myself a strange inclination, nay! as the verse says, 'I maddened and afflicted myself' for a boy in the camp-bazar, his very name, Bāburī, fitting in. Up till then I had had no inclination for any-one, indeed of love and desire, either by hear-say or experience, I had not heard, I had not talked. At that time I composed Persian couplets, one or two at a time; this is one of the them:—

May none be as I, humbled and wretched and love-sick; No beloved as thou art to me, cruel and careless.

From time to time Bāburī used to come to my presence but out of modesty and bashfulness, I could never look straight at him; how then could I make conversation (_ikhtilāṯ_) and recital (_hikāyat_)? In my joy and agitation I could not thank him (for coming); how was it possible for me to reproach him with going away? What power had I to command the duty of service to myself?[508] One day, during that time of desire and passion when I was going with companions along a lane and suddenly met him face to face, I got into such a state of confusion that I almost went right off. To look straight at him [Sidenote: Fol. 76.] or to put words together was impossible. With a hundred torments and shames, I went on. A (Persian) couplet of Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ's[509] came into my mind:—

I am abashed with shame when I see my friend; My companions look at me, I look the other way.

That couplet suited the case wonderfully well. In that frothing-up of desire and passion, and under that stress of youthful folly, I used to wander, bare-head, bare-foot, through street and lane, orchard and vineyard. I shewed civility neither to friend nor stranger, took no care for myself or others.

(_Turkī_) Out of myself desire rushed me, unknowing That this is so with the lover of a fairy-face.

Sometimes like the madmen, I used to wander alone over hill and plain; sometimes I betook myself to gardens and the suburbs, lane by lane. My wandering was not of my choice, not I decided whether to go or stay.

(_Turkī_) Nor power to go was mine, nor power to stay; I was just what you made me, o thief of my heart.

(_s. Sl. `Alī Mīrzā's quarrels with the Tarkhāns._)

In this same year, Sl. `Alī Mīrzā fell out with Muḥammad Mazīd Tarkhān for the following reasons;—The Tarkhāns had risen to over-much predominance and honour; Bāqī had taken the whole revenue of the Bukhārā Government and gave not a [Sidenote: Fol. 76b.] half-penny (_dāng_)[510] to any-one else; Muḥammad Mazīd, for his part, had control in Samarkand and took all its districts for his sons and dependants; a small sum only excepted, fixed by them, not a farthing (_fils_) from the town reached the Mīrzā by any channel. Sl. `Alī Mīrzā was a grown man; how was he to tolerate such conduct as theirs? He and some of his household formed a design against Muḥ. Mazīd Tarkhān; the latter came to know of it and left the town with all his following and with whatever begs and other persons were in sympathy with him,[511] such as Sl. Ḥusain _Arghūn_, Pīr Aḥmad, Aūzūn Ḥasan's younger brother, Khwāja Ḥusain, Qarā _Barlās_, Ṣāliḥ Muḥammad[512] and some other begs and braves.

At the time The Khān had joined to Khān Mīrzā a number of Mughūl begs with Muḥ. Ḥusain _Dūghlāt_ and Aḥmad Beg, and had appointed them to act against Samarkand.[513] Khān Mīrzā's guardians were Ḥāfiẓ Beg _Dūldāī_ and his son, T̤āhir Beg; because of relationship to them, (Muḥ. Sīghal's) grandson, Ḥasan and Hindū Beg fled with several braves from Sl. `Alī [Sidenote: Fol. 77.] Mīrzā's presence to Khān Mīrzā's.

Muḥammad Mazīd Tarkhān invited Khān Mīrzā and the Mughūl army, moved to near Shavdār, there saw the Mīrzā and met the begs of the Mughūls. No small useful friendlinesses however, came out of the meeting between his begs and the Mughūls; the latter indeed seem to have thought of making him a prisoner. Of this he and his begs coming to know, separated themselves from the Mughūl army. As without him the Mughūls could make no stand, they retired. Here-upon, Sl. `Alī Mīrzā hurried light out of Samarkand with a few men and caught them up where they had dismounted in Yār-yīlāq. They could not even fight but were routed and put to flight. This deed, done in his last days, was Sl. `Alī Mīrzā's one good little affair.

Muḥ. Mazīd Tarkhān and his people, despairing both of the Mughūls and of these Mīrzās, sent Mīr Mughūl, son of `Abdu'l-wahhāb _Shaghāwal_[514] to invite me (to Samarkand). Mīr Mughūl had already been in my service; he had risked his life in good accord with Khwāja-i-qāẓī during the siege of Andijān (903 AH.-1498 AD.).

This business hurt us also[515] and, as it was for that purpose we had made peace (with Jahāngīr), we resolved to move on Samarkand. We sent Mīr Mughūl off at once to give rendezvous[516] [Sidenote: Fol. 77b.] to Jahāngīr Mīrzā and prepared to get to horse. We rode out in the month of Ẕū'l-qa`da (June) and with two halts on the way, came to Qabā and there dismounted.[517] At the mid-afternoon Prayer of that day, news came that Taṃbal's brother, Khalīl had taken Aūsh by surprise.

The particulars are as follows;—As has been mentioned, Khalīl and those under him were set free when peace was made. Taṃbal then sent Khalīl to fetch away their wives and families from Aūzkīnt. He had gone and he went into the fort on this pretext. He kept saying untruthfully, 'We will go out today,' or 'We will go out tomorrow,' but he did not go. When we got to horse, he seized the chance of the emptiness of Aūsh to go by night and surprise it. For several reasons it was of no advantage for us to stay and entangle ourselves with him; we went straight on therefore. One reason was that as, for the purpose of making ready military equipment, all my men of name had scattered, heads of houses to their homes, we had no news of them because we had relied on the peace and were by this off our guard against the treachery and falsity of the other party. Another reason was that for some time, as has been [Sidenote: Fol. 78.] said, the misconduct of our great begs, `Alī-dost and Qaṃbar-`alī had been such that no confidence in them was left. A further reason was that the Samarkand begs, under Muḥ. Mazīd Tarkhān had sent Mīr Mughūl to invite us and, so long as a capital such as Samarkand stood there, what would incline a man to waste his days for a place like Andijān?

From Qabā we moved on to Marghīnān (20 m.). Marghīnān had been given to Qūch Beg's father, Sl. Aḥmad _Qarāwal_, and he was then in it. As he, owing to various ties and attachments, could not attach himself to me,[518] he stayed behind while his son, Qūch Beg and one or two of his brethren, older and younger, went with me.

Taking the road for Asfara, we dismounted in one of its villages, called Mahan. That night there came and joined us in Mahan, by splendid chance, just as if to a rendezvous, Qāsim Beg _Qūchīn_ with his company, `Alī-dost with his, and Sayyid Qāsim with a large body of braves. We rode from Mahan by the Khasbān (var. Yasān) plain, crossed the Chūpān (Shepherd)-bridge and so to Aūrā-tīpā.[519]

(_t. Qaṃbar-`alī punishes himself._)

Trusting to Taṃbal, Qaṃbar-`alī went from his own district (Khujand) to Akhsī in order to discuss army-matters with him. [Sidenote: Fol. 78b.] Such an event happening,[520] Taṃbal laid hands on Qaṃbar-`alī, marched against his district and carried him along. Here the (Turkī) proverb fits, 'Distrust your friend! he'll stuff your hide with straw.' While Qaṃbar-`alī was being made to go to Khujand, he escaped on foot and after a hundred difficulties reached Aūrā-tīpā.

News came to us there that Shaibānī Khān had beaten Bāqī Tarkhān in Dabūsī and was moving on Bukhārā. We went on from Aūrā-tīpā, by way of Burka-yīlāq, to Sangzār[521] which the sub-governor surrendered. There we placed Qaṃbar-`alī, as, after effecting his own capture and betrayal, he had come to us. We then passed on.

(_u. Affairs of Samarkand and the end of `Alī-dost._)

On our arrival in Khān-yūrtī, the Samarkand begs under Muḥ. Mazīd Tarkhān came and did me obeisance. Conference was held with them as to details for taking the town; they said, 'Khwāja Yaḥya also is wishing for the _pādshāh_;[522] with his consent the town may be had easily without fighting or disturbance.' The Khwāja did not say decidedly to our messengers that he had resolved to admit us to the town but at the same time, he said nothing likely to lead us to despair.

Leaving Khān-yūrtī, we moved to the bank of the Dar-i-gham (canal) and from there sent our librarian, Khwāja Muḥammad [Sidenote: Fol. 79.] `Alī to Khwāja Yaḥya. He brought word back, 'Let them come; we will give them the town.' Accordingly we rode from the Dar-i-gham straight for the town, at night-fall, but our plan came to nothing because Sl. Muḥammad _Dūldāī's_ father, Sl. Maḥmūd had fled from our camp and given such information to (Sl. `Alī's party) as put them on their guard. Back we went to the Dar-i-gham bank.

While I had been in Yār-yīlāq, one of my favoured begs, Ibrāhīm _Sārū_ who had been plundered and driven off by `Alī-dost,[523] came and did me obeisance, together with Muḥ. Yūsuf, the elder son of Sayyid Yūsuf (_Aūghlāqchī_). Coming in by ones and twos, old family servants and begs and some of the household gathered back to me there. All were enemies of `Alī-dost; some he had driven away; others he had plundered; others again he had imprisoned. He became afraid. For why? Because with Taṃbal's backing, he had harassed and persecuted me and my well-wishers. As for me, my very nature sorted ill with the manikin's! From shame and fear, he could stay no longer with us; he asked leave; I took it as a personal favour; I gave it. On this leave, he and his son, Muḥammad-dost went to Taṃbal's presence. They became his intimates, [Sidenote: Fol. 79b.] and from father and son alike, much evil and sedition issued. `Alī-dost died a few years later from ulceration of the hand. Muḥammad-dost went amongst the Aūzbegs; that was not altogether bad but, after some treachery to his salt, he fled from them and went into the Andijān foot-hills.[524] There he stirred up much revolt and trouble. In the end he fell into the hands of Aūzbeg people and they blinded him. The meaning of 'The salt took his eyes,' is clear in his case.[525]

After giving this pair their leave, we sent Ghūrī _Barlās_ toward Bukhārā for news. He brought word that Shaibānī Khān had taken Bukhārā and was on his way to Samarkand. Here-upon, seeing no advantage in staying in that neighbourhood, we set out for Kesh where, moreover, were the families of most of the Samarkand begs.

When we had been a few weeks there, news came that Sl. `Alī Mīrzā had given Samarkand to Shaibānī Khān. The particulars are these;—The Mīrzā's mother, Zuhra Begī Āghā (_Aūzbeg_), in her ignorance and folly, had secretly written to [Sidenote: Fol. 80.] Shaibānī Khān that if he would take her (to wife) her son should give him Samarkand and that when Shaibānī had taken (her son's) father's country, he should give her son a country.[526] Sayyid Yūsuf _Arghūn_ must have known of this plan, indeed will have been the traitor inventing it.

906 AH.—JULY 28TH. 1500 TO JULY 17TH. 1501 AD.[527]

(_a. Samarkand in the hands of the Aūzbegs._)

When, acting on that woman's promise, Shaibānī Khān went to Samarkand, he dismounted in the Garden of the Plain. About mid-day Sl. `Alī Mīrzā went out to him through the Four-roads Gate, without a word to any of his begs or unmailed braves, without taking counsel with any-one soever and accompanied only by a few men of little consideration from his own close circle. The Khān, for his part, did not receive him very favourably; when they had seen one another, he seated him on his less honourable hand.[528] Khwāja Yaḥya, on hearing of the Mīrzā's departure, became very anxious but as he could find no remedy,[529] went out also. The Khān looked at him without rising and said a few words in which blame had part, but when the Khwāja rose to leave, showed him the respect of rising.

As soon as Khwāja `Alī[530] Bāy's[531] son, Jān-`alī heard in Rabāṯ-i-khwāja of the Mīrzā's going to Shaibānī Khān, he also went. As for that calamitous woman who, in her folly, gave her son's [Sidenote: Fol. 80b.] house and possessions to the winds in order to get herself a husband, Shaibānī Khān cared not one atom for her, indeed did not regard her as the equal of a mistress or a concubine.[532]

Confounded by his own act, Sl. `Alī Mīrzā's repentance was extreme. Some of his close circle, after hearing particulars, planned for him to escape with them but to this he would not agree; his hour had come; he was not to be freed. He had dismounted in Tīmūr Sulṯān's quarters; three or four days later they killed him in Plough-meadow.[533] For a matter of this five-days' mortal life, he died with a bad name; having entered into a woman's affairs, he withdrew himself from the circle of men of good repute. Of such people's doings no more should be written; of acts so shameful, no more should be heard.

The Mīrzā having been killed, Shaibānī Khān sent Jān-`alī after his Mīrzā. He had apprehensions also about Khwāja Yaḥya and therefore dismissed him, with his two sons, Khwāja Muḥ. Zakarīya and Khwāja Bāqī, towards Khurāsān.[534] A few Aūzbegs followed them and near Khwāja Kārdzan martyred both the Khwāja and his two young sons. Though Shaibānī's [Sidenote: Fol. 81.] words were, 'Not through me the Khwāja's affair! Qaṃbar Bī and Kūpuk Bī did it,' this is worse than that! There is a proverb,[535] 'His excuse is worse than his fault,' for if begs, out of their own heads, start such deeds, unknown to their Khāns or Pādshāhs, what becomes of the authority of khānship and sovereignty?

(_b. Bābur leaves Kesh and crosses the Mūra pass._)

Since the Aūzbegs were in possession of Samarkand, we left Kesh and went in the direction of Ḥiṣār. With us started off Muḥ. Mazīd Tārkhān and the Samarkand begs under his command, together with their wives and families and people, but when we dismounted in the Chultū meadow of Chaghānīān, they parted from us, went to Khusrau Shāh and became his retainers.

Cut off from our own abiding-town and country,[536] not knowing where (else) to go or where to stay, we were obliged to traverse the very heart of Khusrau Shāh's districts, spite of what measure of misery he had inflicted on the men of our dynasty!

One of our plans had been to go to my younger Khān dādā, _i.e._ Alacha Khān, by way of Qarā-tīgīn and the Alāī,[537] but this was not managed. Next we were for going up the valley of the Kām torrent and over the Sara-tāq pass (_dābān_). When we were near Nūnḍāk, a servant of Khusrau Shāh brought me one set of nine horses[538] and one of nine pieces of cloth. When we dismounted at the mouth of the Kām valley, Sher-`alī. [Sidenote: Fol. 81b.] the page, deserted to Khusrau Shāh's brother, Walī and, next day, Qūch Beg parted from us and went to Ḥiṣār.[539]

We entered the valley and made our way up it. On its steep and narrow roads and at its sharp and precipitous saddles[540] many horses and camels were left. Before we reached the Sara-tāq pass we had (in 25 m.) to make three or four night-halts. A pass! and what a pass! Never was such a steep and narrow pass seen; never were traversed such ravines and precipices. Those dangerous narrows and sudden falls, those perilous heights and knife-edge saddles, we got through with much difficulty and suffering, with countless hardships and miseries. Amongst the Fān mountains is a large lake (Iskandar); it is 2 miles in circumference, a beautiful lake and not devoid of marvels.[541]

News came that Ibrāhīm Tarkhān had strengthened Fort Shīrāz and was seated in it; also that Qaṃbar-`alī (the Skinner) and Abū'l-qāsim _Kohbur_, the latter not being able to stay in Khwāja Dīdār with the Aūzbegs in Samarkand,—had both come into Yār-yīlāq, strengthened its lower forts and occupied them.

Leaving Fān on our right, we moved on for Keshtūd. The head-man of Fān had a reputation for hospitality, generosity, [Sidenote: Fol. 82.] serviceableness and kindness. He had given tribute of 70 or 80 horses to Sl. Mas`ūd Mīrzā at the time the Mīrzā, when Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā made attack on Ḥiṣār, went through Fān on his way to his younger brother, Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā in Samarkand. He did like service to others. To me he sent one second-rate horse; moreover he did not wait on me himself. So it was! Those renowned for liberality became misers when they had to do with me, and the politeness of the polite was forgotten. Khusrau Shāh was celebrated for liberality and kindness; what service he did Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā has been mentioned; to Bāqī Tarkhān and other begs he shewed great generosity also. Twice I happened to pass through his country;[542] not to speak of courtesy shewn to my peers, what he shewed to my lowest servants he did not shew to me, indeed he shewed less regard for us than for them.

(_Turkī_) Who, o my heart! has seen goodness from worldlings? Look not for goodness from him who has none.

Under the impression that the Aūzbegs were in Keshtūd, we made an excursion to it, after passing Fān. Of itself it seemed [Sidenote: Fol. 82b.] to have gone to ruin; no-one seemed to be occupying it. We went on to the bank of the Kohik-water (Zar-afshān) and there dismounted. From that place we sent a few begs under Qāsim _Qūchīn_ to surprise Rabāṯ-i-khwāja; that done, we crossed the river by a bridge from opposite Yārī, went through Yārī and over the Shunqār-khāna (Falcons'-home) range into Yār-yīlāq. Our begs went to Rabāṯ-i-khwāja and had set up ladders when the men within came to know about them and forced them to retire. As they could not take the fort, they rejoined us.

(_c. Bābur renews attack on Samarkand._)

Qaṃbar-`alī (the Skinner) was (still) holding Sangzār; he came and saw us; Abū'l-qāsim _Kohbur_ and Ibrāhīm Tarkhān showed loyalty and attachment by sending efficient men for our service. We went into Asfīdik (var. Asfīndik), one of the Yār-yīlāq villages. At that time Shaibāq Khān lay near Khwāja Dīdār with 3 or 4000 Aūzbegs and as many more soldiers gathered in locally. He had given the Government of Samarkand to Jān-wafā, and Jān-wafā was then in the fort with 500 or 600 men. Ḥamza Sl. and Mahdī Sl. were lying near the fort, in the Quail-reserve. Our men, good and bad were 240. [Sidenote: Fol. 83.]

Having discussed the position with all my begs and unmailed braves, we left it at this;—that as Shaibānī Khān had taken possession of Samarkand so recently, the Samarkandīs would not be attached to him nor he to them; that if we made an effort at once, we might do the thing; that if we set ladders up and took the fort by surprise, the Samarkandīs would be for us; how should they not be? even if they gave us no help, they would not fight us for the Aūzbegs; and that Samarkand once in our hands, whatever was God's will, would happen.

Acting on this decision, we rode out of Yār-yīlāq after the Mid-day Prayer, and on through the dark till mid-night when we reached Khān-yūrtī. Here we had word that the Samarkandīs knew of our coming; for this reason we went no nearer to the town but made straight back from Khān-yūrtī. It was dawn when, after crossing the Kohik-water below Rabāṯ-i-khwāja, we were once more in Yār-yīlāq.

One day in Fort Asfīdik a household party was sitting in my presence; Dost-i-nāṣir and Nuyān[543] _Kūkūldāsh_ and Khān-qulī-i-Karīm-dād and Shaikh Darwesh and Mīrīm-i-nāṣir were all there. Words were crossing from all sides when (I said), 'Come now! say when, if God bring it right, we shall take [Sidenote: Fol. 83b.] Samarkand.' Some said, 'We shall take it in the heats.' It was then late in autumn. Others said, 'In a month,' 'Forty days,' 'Twenty days.' Nuyān _Kūkūldāsh_ said, 'We shall take it in 14.' God shewed him right! we did take it in exactly 14 days.

Just at that time I had a wonderful dream;—His Highness Khwāja `Ubaid'l-lāh (_Aḥrārī_) seemed to come; I seemed to go out to give him honourable meeting; he came in and seated himself; people seemed to lay a table-cloth before him, apparently without sufficient care and, on account of this, something seemed to come into his Highness Khwāja's mind. Mullā Bābā (? _Pashāgharī_) made me a sign; I signed back, 'Not through me! the table-layer is in fault!' The Khwāja understood and accepted the excuse.[544] When he rose, I escorted him out. In the hall of that house he took hold of either my right or left arm and lifted me up till one of my feet was off the ground, saying, in Turkī, 'Shaikh Maṣlaḥat has given (Samarkand).'[545] I really took Samarkand a few days later.

(_d. Bābur takes Samarkand by surprise._)

In two or three days move was made from Fort Asfīdik to Fort Wasmand. Although by our first approach, we had let [Sidenote: Fol. 84.] our plan be known, we put our trust in God and made another expedition to Samarkand. It was after the Mid-day Prayer that we rode out of Fort Wasmand, Khwāja Abū'l-makāram accompanying us. By mid-night we reached the Deep-fosse-bridge in the Avenue. From there we sent forward a detachment of 70 or 80 good men who were to set up ladders opposite the Lovers'-cave, mount them and get inside, stand up to those in the Turquoise Gate, get possession of it and send a man to me. Those braves went, set their ladders up opposite the Lovers'-cave, got in without making anyone aware, went to the Gate, attacked Fāẓil Tarkhān, chopped at him and his few retainers, killed them, broke the lock with an axe and opened the Gate. At that moment I came up and went in.

(_Author's note on Fāẓil Tarkhān._) He was not one of those (Samarkand) Tarkhāns; he was a merchant-tarkhān of Turkistān. He had served Shaibānī Khān in Turkistān and had found favour with him.[546]

Abū'l-qāsim _Kohbur_ himself had not come with us but had sent 30 or 40 of his retainers under his younger brother, Aḥmad-i-qāsim. No man of Ibrāhīm Tarkhān's was with us; his younger brother, Aḥmad Tarkhān came with a few retainers after I had entered the town and taken post in the Monastery. [Sidenote: Fol. 84b.]

The towns-people were still slumbering; a few traders peeped out of their shops, recognized me and put up prayers. When, a little later, the news spread through the town, there was rare delight and satisfaction for our men and the towns-folk. They killed the Aūzbegs in the lanes and gullies with clubs and stones like mad dogs; four or five hundred were killed in this fashion. Jān-wafā, the then governor, was living in Khwāja Yaḥya's house; he fled and got away to Shaibāq Khān.[547]

On entering the Turquoise Gate I went straight to the College and took post over the arch of the Monastery. There was a hubbub and shouting of 'Down! down!' till day-break. Some of the notables and traders, hearing what was happening, came joyfully to see me, bringing what food was ready and putting up prayers for me. At day-light we had news that the Aūzbegs were fighting in the Iron Gate where they had made themselves fast between the (outer and inner) doors. With 10, 15 or 20 men, I at once set off for the Gate but before I came up, the town-rabble, busy ransacking every corner of the newly-taken town for loot, had driven the Aūzbegs out through [Sidenote: Fol. 85.] it. Shaibāq Khān, on hearing what was happening, hurried at sun-rise to the Iron Gate with 100 or 140 men. His coming was a wonderful chance but, as has been said, my men were very few. Seeing that he could do nothing, he rode off at once. From the Iron Gate I went to the citadel and there dismounted, at the Bū-stān palace. Men of rank and consequence and various head-men came to me there, saw me and invoked blessings on me.

Samarkand for nearly 140 years had been the capital of our dynasty. An alien, and of what stamp! an Aūzbeg foe, had taken possession of it! It had slipped from our hands; God gave it again! plundered and ravaged, our own returned to us.

Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā took Harāt[548] as we took Samarkand, by surprise, but to the experienced, and discerning, and just, it will be clear that between his affair and mine there are distinctions and differences, and that his capture and mine are things apart.

Firstly there is this;—He had ruled many years, passed through much experience and seen many affairs.

Secondly;—He had for opponent, Yādgār Muḥ. Nāṣir Mīrzā, [Sidenote: Fol. 85b.] an inexperienced boy of 17 or 18.

Thirdly;—(Yādgār Mīrzā's) Head-equerry, Mīr `Alī, a person well-acquainted with the particulars of the whole position, sent a man out from amongst Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā's opponents to bring him to surprise them.

Fourthly;—His opponent was not in the fort but was in the Ravens'-garden. Moreover Yādgār Muḥ. Nāṣir Mīrzā and his followers are said to have been so prostrate with drink that three men only were in the Gate, they also drunk.

Fifthly;—he surprised and captured Harāt the first time he approached it.

On the other hand: firstly;—I was 19 when I took Samarkand.

Secondly;—I had as my opponent, such a man as Shaibāq Khān, of mature age and an eye-witness of many affairs.

Thirdly;—No-one came out of Samarkand to me; though the heart of its people was towards me, no-one could dream of coming, from dread of Shaibāq Khān.

Fourthly;—My foe was in the fort; not only was the fort taken but he was driven off.

Fifthly;—I had come once already; my opponent was on his guard about me. The second time we came, God brought it right! Samarkand was won.

In saying these things there is no desire to be-little the reputation of any man; the facts were as here stated. In [Sidenote: Fol. 86.] writing these things, there is no desire to magnify myself; the truth is set down.

The poets composed chronograms on the victory; this one remains in my memory;—Wisdom answered, 'Know that its date is the _Victory_ (_Fatḥ_) _of Bābur Bahādur_.'

Samarkand being taken, Shavdār and Soghd and the _tūmāns_ and nearer forts began, one after another, to return to us. From some their Aūzbeg commandants fled in fear and escaped; from others the inhabitants drove them and came in to us; in some they made them prisoner, and held the forts for us.

Just then the wives and families of Shaibāq Khān and his Aūzbegs arrived from Turkistān;[549] he was lying near Khwāja Dīdār and `Alī-ābād but when he saw the forts and people returning to me, marched off towards Bukhārā. By God's grace, all the forts of Soghd and Miyān-kāl returned to me within three or four months. Over and above this, Bāqī Tarkhān seized this opportunity to occupy Qarshī; Khuzār and Qarshī (? Kesh) both went out of Aūzbeg hands; Qarā-kūl [Sidenote: Fol. 86b.] also was taken from them by people of Abū'l-muḥsin Mīrzā (_Bāī-qarā_), coming up from Merv. My affairs were in a very good way.

(_e. Birth of Bābur's first child._)

After our departure (last year) from Andijān, my mothers and my wife and relations came, with a hundred difficulties and hardships, to Aūrātīpā. We now sent for them to Samarkand. Within a few days after their arrival, a daughter was born to me by `Āyisha-sulṯān Begīm, my first wife, the daughter of Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā. They named the child Fakhru'n-nisā' (Ornament of women); she was my first-born, I was 19. In a month or 40 days, she went to God's mercy.

(_f. Bābur in Samarkand._)

On taking Samarkand, envoys and summoners were sent off at once, and sent again and again, with reiterated request for aid and reinforcement, to the khāns and sulṯāns and begs and marchers on every side. Some, though experienced men, made foolish refusal; others whose relations towards our family had been discourteous and unpleasant, were afraid for themselves and took no notice; others again, though they sent help, sent it insufficient. Each such case will be duly mentioned.

When Samarkand was taken the second time, `Alī-sher Beg [Sidenote: Fol. 87.] was alive. We exchanged letters once; on the back of mine to him I wrote one of my Turkī couplets. Before his reply reached me, separations (_tafarqa_) and disturbances (_ghūghā_) had happened.[550] Mullā Binā'ī had been taken into Shaibāq Khān's service when the latter took possession of Samarkand; he stayed with him until a few days after I took the place, when he came into the town to me. Qāsim Beg had his suspicions about him and consequently dismissed him towards Shahr-i-sabz but, as he was a man of parts, and as no fault of his came to light, I had him fetched back. He constantly presented me with odes (_qaṣīda u ghazal_). He brought me a song in the Nawā mode composed to my name and at the same time the following quatrain;—[551]

No grain (_ghala_) have I by which I can be fed (_noshīd_); No rhyme of grain (_mallah_, nankeen) wherewith I can be clad (_poshīd_); The man who lacks both food and clothes, In art or science where can he compete (_koshīd_)?

In those days of respite, I had written one or two couplets but had not completed an ode. As an answer to Mullā Binā'ī I made up and set this poor little Turkī quatrain;—[552]

As is the wish of your heart, so shall it be (_būlghūsīdūr_); For gift and stipend both an order shall be made (_buyurūlghūsīdūr_); I know the grain and its rhyme you write of; The garments, you, your house, the corn shall fill (_tūlghūsīdūr_).

The Mullā in return wrote and presented a quatrain to me in [Sidenote: Fol. 87b.] which for his refrain, he took a rhyme to (the _tūlghūsīdūr_ of) my last line and chose another rhyme;—

Mīrzā-of-mine, the Lord of sea and land shall be (_yīr būlghūsīdūr_); His art and skill, world o'er, the evening tale shall be (_samar būlghūsīdūr_); If gifts like these reward one rhyming (_or_ pointless) word; For words of sense, what guerdon will there be (_nilār būlghūsīdūr_)?

Abū'l-barka, known as _Farāqi_ (Parted), who just then had come to Samarkand from Shahr-i-sabz, said Binā'ī ought to have rhymed. He made this verse;—

Into Time's wrong to you quest shall be made (_sūrūlghūsīdūr_); Your wish the Sulṯān's grace from Time shall ask (_qūlghūsīdūr_); O Ganymede! our cups, ne'er filled as yet, In this new Age, brimmed-up, filled full shall be (_tūlghūsīdūr_).

Though this winter our affairs were in a very good way and Shaibāq Khān's were on the wane, one or two occurrences were somewhat of a disservice; (1) the Merv men who had taken Qarā-kūl, could not be persuaded to stay there and it went back into the hands of the Aūzbegs; (2) Shaibāq Khān besieged Ibrāhīm Tarkhān's younger brother, Aḥmad in Dabūsī, stormed the place and made a general massacre of its inhabitants before the army we were collecting was ready to march.

With 240 proved men I had taken Samarkand; in the next [Sidenote: Fol. 88.] five or six months, things so fell out by the favour of the Most High God, that, as will be told, we fought the arrayed battle of Sar-i-pul with a man like Shaibāq Khān. The help those round-about gave us was as follows;—From The Khān had come, with 4 or 5000 Bārīns, Ayūb _Begchīk_ and Qashka Maḥmūd; from Jahāngīr Mīrzā had come Khalīl, Taṃbal's younger brother, with 100 or 200 men; not a man had come from Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā, that experienced ruler, than whom none knew better the deeds and dealings of Shaibāq Khān; none came from Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā; none from Khusrau Shāh because he, the author of what evil done,—as has been told,—to our dynasty! feared us more than he feared Shaibāq Khān.

(_g. Bābur defeated at Sar-i-pul._)

I marched out of Samarkand, with the wish of fighting Shaibāq Khān, in the month of Shawwāl[553] and went to the New-garden where we lay four or five days for the convenience of gathering our men and completing our equipment. We took the precaution of fortifying our camp with ditch and branch. From the New-garden we advanced, march by march, to beyond Sar-i-pul (Bridge-head) and there dismounted. [Sidenote: Fol. 88b.] Shaibāq Khān came from the opposite direction and dismounted at Khwāja Kārdzan, perhaps one _yīghāch_ away (? 5 m.). We lay there for four or five days. Every day our people went from our side and his came from theirs and fell on one another. One day when they were in unusual force, there was much fighting but neither side had the advantage. Out of that engagement one of our men went rather hastily back into the entrenchments; he was using a standard; some said it was Sayyidī Qarā Beg's standard who really was a man of strong words but weak sword. Shaibāq Khān made one night-attack on us but could do nothing because the camp was protected by ditch and close-set branches. His men raised their war-cry, rained in arrows from outside the ditch and then retired.

In the work for the coming battle I exerted myself greatly and took all precautions; Qaṃbar-`alī also did much. In Kesh lay Bāqī Tarkhān with 1000 to 2000 men, in a position to join us after a couple of days. In Diyūl, 4 _yīghāch_ off (? 20 m.), lay Sayyid Muḥ. Mīrzā _Dūghlāt_, bringing me 1000 to 2000 men from my Khān dādā; he would have joined me at [Sidenote: Fol. 89.] dawn. With matters in this position, we hurried on the fight!

Who lays with haste his hand on the sword, Shall lift to his teeth the back-hand of regret.[554]

The reason I was so eager to engage was that on the day of battle, the Eight stars[555] were between the two armies; they would have been in the enemy's rear for 13 or 14 days if the fight had been deferred. I now understand that these considerations are worth nothing and that our haste was without reason.

As we wished to fight, we marched from our camp at dawn, we in our mail, our horses in theirs, formed up in array of right and left, centre and van. Our right was Ibrāhīm _Sārū_, Ibrāhīm Jānī, Abū'l-qāsim _Kohbur_ and other begs. Our left was Muḥ. Mazīd Tarkhān, Ibrāhīm Tarkhān and other Samarkandī begs, also Sl. Ḥusain _Arghūn_, Qarā (Black) _Barlās_, Pīr Aḥmad and Khwāja Ḥusain. Qāsim Beg was (with me) in the centre and also several of my close circle and household. In the van were inscribed Qaṃbar-`alī the Skinner, Banda-`alī, Khwāja `Alī, Mīr Shāh _Qūchīn_, Sayyid Qāsim, Lord of the Gate,—Banda-`alī's younger brother Khaldar (mole-marked) and Ḥaidar-i-qāsim's son Qūch, together with all the good braves there were, and the rest of the household.

Thus arrayed, we marched from our camp; the enemy, also in array, marched out from his. His right was Maḥmūd and Jānī and Tīmūr Sulṯāns; his left, Ḥamza and Mahdī and some [Sidenote: Fol. 89b.] other sulṯāns. When our two armies approached one another, he wheeled his right towards our rear. To meet this, I turned; this left our van,—in which had been inscribed what not of our best braves and tried swordsmen!—to our right and bared our front (_i.e._ the front of the centre). None-the-less we fought those who made the front-attack on us, turned them and forced them back on their own centre. So far did we carry it that some of Shaibāq Khān's old chiefs said to him, 'We must move off! It is past a stand.' He however held fast. His right beat our left, then wheeled (again) to our rear.

(As has been said), the front of our centre was bare through our van's being left to the right. The enemy attacked us front and rear, raining in arrows on us. (Ayūb _Begchīk's_) Mughūl army, come for our help! was of no use in fighting; it set to work forthwith to unhorse and plunder our men. Not this [Sidenote: Fol. 90.] once only! This is always the way with those ill-omened Mughūls! If they win, they grab at booty; if they lose, they unhorse and pilfer their own side! We drove back the Aūzbegs who attacked our front by several vigorous assaults, but those who had wheeled to our rear came up and rained arrows on our standard. Falling on us in this way, from the front and from the rear, they made our men hurry off.

This same turning-movement is one of the great merits of Aūzbeg fighting; no battle of theirs is ever without it. Another merit of theirs is that they all, begs and retainers, from their front to their rear, ride, loose-rein at the gallop, shouting as they come and, in retiring, do not scatter but ride off, at the gallop, in a body.

Ten or fifteen men were left with me. The Kohik-water was close by,—the point of our right had rested on it. We made straight for it. It was the season when it comes down in flood. We rode right into it, man and horse in mail. It was just fordable for half-way over; after that it had to be swum. For more than an arrow's flight[556] we, man and mount in mail! made our horses swim and so got across. Once out of the water, we cut off the horse-armour and let it lie. By thus [Sidenote: Fol. 90b.] passing to the north bank of the river, we were free of our foes, but at once Mughūl wretches were the captors and pillagers of one after another of my friends. Ibrāhīm Tarkhān and some others, excellent braves all, were unhorsed and killed by Mughūls.[557] We moved along the north bank of the Kohik-river, recrossed it near Qulba, entered the town by the Shaikh-zāda's Gate and reached the citadel in the middle of the afternoon.

Begs of our greatest, braves of our best and many men perished in that fight. There died Ibrāhīm Tarkhān, Ibrāhīm _Sārū_ and Ibrāhīm Jānī; oddly enough three great begs named Ibrāhīm perished. There died also Ḥaidar-i-qāsim's eldest son, Abū'l-qāsim _Kohbur_, and Khudāī-bīrdī _Tūghchī_ and Khalīl, Taṃbal's younger brother, spoken of already several times. Many of our men fled in different directions; Muḥ. Mazīd Tarkhān went towards Qūndūz and Ḥiṣār for Khusrau Shāh. [Sidenote: Fol. 91.] Some of the household and of the braves, such as Karīm-dad-i-Khudāī-bīrdī _Turkmān_ and Jānaka _Kūkūldāsh_ and Mullā Bābā of Pashāghar got away to Aūrā-tīpā. Mullā Bābā at that time was not in my service but had gone out with me in a guest's fashion. Others again, did what Sherīm T̤aghāī and his band did;—though he had come back with me into the town and though when consultation was had, he had agreed with the rest to make the fort fast, looking for life or death within it, yet spite of this, and although my mothers and sisters, elder and younger, stayed on in Samarkand, he sent off their wives and families to Aūrā-tīpā and remained himself with just a few men, all unencumbered. Not this once only! Whenever hard work had to be done, low and double-minded action was the thing to expect from him!

(_h. Bābur besieged in Samarkand._)

Next day, I summoned Khwāja Abū'l-makāram, Qāsim and the other begs, the household and such of the braves as were admitted to our counsels, when after consultation, we resolved to make the fort fast and to look for life or death within it. I and Qāsim Beg with my close circle and household were the reserve. For convenience in this I took up quarters in the middle of the town, in tents pitched on the roof of Aūlūgh Beg [Sidenote: Fol. 91b.] Mīrzā's College. To other begs and braves posts were assigned in the Gates or on the ramparts of the walled-town.

Two or three days later, Shaibāq Khān dismounted at some distance from the fort. On this, the town-rabble came out of lanes and wards, in crowds, to the College gate, shouted good wishes for me and went out to fight in mob-fashion. Shaibāq Khān had got to horse but could not so much as approach the town. Several days went by in this fashion. The mob and rabble, knowing nothing of sword and arrow-wounds, never witnesses of the press and carnage of a stricken field, through these incidents, became bold and began to sally further and further out. If warned by the braves against going out so incautiously, they broke into reproach.

One day when Shaibāq Khān had directed his attack towards the Iron Gate, the mob, grown bold, went out, as usual, daringly and far. To cover their retreat, we sent several braves towards the Camel's-neck,[558] foster-brethren and some of the close household-circle, such as Nuyān _Kūkūldāsh_, Qul-naẕar (son of Sherīm?) T̤aghāī Beg, and Mazīd. An Aūzbeg or two [Sidenote: Fol. 92.] put their horses at them and with Qul-naẕar swords were crossed. The rest of the Aūzbegs dismounted and brought their strength to bear on the rabble, hustled them off and rammed them in through the Iron Gate. Qūch Beg and Mīr Shāh _Qūchīn_ had dismounted at the side of Khwāja Khiẓr's Mosque and were making a stand there. While the townsmen were being moved off by those on foot, a party of mounted Aūzbegs rode towards the Mosque. Qūch Beg came out when they drew near and exchanged good blows with them. He did distinguished work; all stood to watch. Our fugitives below were occupied only with their own escape; for them the time to shoot arrows and make a stand had gone by. I was shooting with a slur-bow[559] from above the Gate and some of my circle were shooting arrows (_aūq_). Our attack from above kept the enemy from advancing beyond the Mosque; from there he retired.

During the siege, the round of the ramparts was made each night; sometimes I went, sometimes Qāsim Beg, sometimes one of the household Begs. Though from the Turquoise to the Shaikh-zāda's Gate may be ridden, the rest of the way must be [Sidenote: Fol. 92b.] walked. When some men went the whole round on foot, it was dawn before they had finished.[560]

One day Shaibāq Khān attacked between the Iron Gate and the Shaikh-zāda's. I, as the reserve, went to the spot, without anxiety about the Bleaching-ground and Needle-makers' Gates. That day, (?) in a shooting wager (_aūq aūchīdā_), I made a good shot with a slur-bow, at a Centurion's horse.[561] It died at once (_aūq bārdī_) with the arrow (_aūq bīla_). They made such a vigorous attack this time that they got close under the ramparts. Busy with the fighting and the stress near the Iron Gate, we were entirely off our guard about the other side of the town. There, opposite the space between the Needle-makers' and Bleaching-ground Gates, the enemy had posted 7 or 800 good men in ambush, having with them 24 or 25 ladders so wide that two or three could mount abreast. These men came from their ambush when the attack near the Iron Gate, by occupying all our men, had left those other posts empty, and quickly set up their ladders between the two Gates, [Sidenote: Fol. 93.] just where a road leads from the ramparts to Muḥ. Mazīd Tarkhān's houses. That post was Qūch Beg's and Muḥammad-qulī _Qūchīn's_, with their detachment of braves, and they had their quarters in Muḥ. Mazīd's houses. In the Needle-makers' Gate was posted Qarā (Black) _Barlās_, in the Bleaching-ground Gate, Qūtlūq Khwāja _Kūkūldāsh_ with Sherīm T̤aghāī and his brethren, older and younger. As attack was being made on the other side of the town, the men attached to these posts were not on guard but had scattered to their quarters or to the bazar for necessary matters of service and servants' work. Only the begs were at their posts, with one or two of the populace. Qūch Beg and Mūhammad-qulī and Shāh Ṣufī and one other brave did very well and boldly. Some Aūzbegs were on the ramparts, some were coming up, when these four men arrived at a run, dealt them blow upon blow, and, by energetic drubbing, forced them all down and put them to flight. Qūch Beg did best; this was his out-standing and approved good deed; twice during this siege he got his hand into the work. Qarā _Barlās_ had been left alone in the Needle-makers' Gate; he also held out well to the end. Qūtlūq Khwāja and Qul-naẕar Mīrzā were also at their posts in the Bleaching-ground Gate; they held out well too, and charged the foe in his rear.

Another time Qāsim Beg led his braves out through the [Sidenote: Fol. 93b.] Needle-makers' Gate, pursued the Aūzbegs as far as Khwāja Kafsher, unhorsed some and returned with a few heads.

It was now the time of ripening rain but no-one brought new corn into the town. The long siege caused great privation to the towns-people;[562] it went so far that the poor and destitute began to eat the flesh of dogs and asses and, as there was little grain for the horses, people fed them on leaves. Experience shewed that the leaves best suiting were those of the mulberry and elm (_qarā-yīghāch_). Some people scraped dry wood and gave the shavings, damped, to their horses.

For three or four months Shaibāq Khān did not come near the fort but had it invested at some distance and himself moved round it from post to post. Once when our men were off their guard, at mid-night, the enemy came near to the Turquoise [Sidenote: Fol. 94.] Gate, beat his drums and flung his war-cry out. I was in the College, undressed. There was great trepidation and anxiety. After that they came night after night, disturbing us by drumming and shouting their war-cry.

Although envoys and messengers had been sent repeatedly to all sides and quarters, no help and reinforcement arrived from any-one. No-one had helped or reinforced me when I was in strength and power and had suffered no sort of defeat or loss; on what score would any-one help me now? No hope in any-one whatever recommended us to prolong the siege. The old saying was that to hold a fort there must be a head, two hands and two legs, that is to say, the Commandant is the head; help and reinforcement coming from two quarters are the two arms and the food and water in the fort are the two legs. While we looked for help from those round about, their thoughts were elsewhere. That brave and experienced ruler, Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā, gave us not even the help of an encouraging message, but none-the-less he sent Kamālu'd-dīn Ḥusain _Gāzur-gāhī_[563] as an envoy to Shaibāq Khān.

(_i. Taṃbal's proceedings in Farghāna._)[564]

(This year) Taṃbal marched from Andijān to near Bīsh-kīnt.[565] Aḥmad Beg and his party, thereupon, made The Khān move out against him. The two armies came face to face near [Sidenote: Fol. 94b.] Lak-lakān and the Tūrāk Four-gardens but separated without engaging. Sl. Maḥmūd was not a fighting man; now when opposed to Taṃbal, he shewed want of courage in word and deed. Aḥmad Beg was unpolished[566] but brave and well-meaning. In his very rough way, he said, 'What's the measure of this person, Taṃbal? that you are so tormented with fear and fright about him. If you are afraid to look at him, bandage your eyes before you go out to face him.'

907 AH.—JULY 17TH. 1501 TO JULY 7TH. 1502 AD.[567]

(_a. Surrender of Samarkand to Shaibānī._)

The siege drew on to great length; no provisions and supplies came in from any quarter, no succour and reinforcement from any side. The soldiers and peasantry became hopeless and, by ones and twos, began to let themselves down outside[568] the walls and flee. On Shaibāq Khān's hearing of the distress in the town, he came and dismounted near the Lovers'-cave. I, in turn, went to Malik-muḥammad Mīrzā's dwellings in Low-lane, over against him. On one of those days, Khwāja Ḥusain's brother, Aūzūn Ḥasan[569] came into the town with 10 or 15 of his men,—he who, as has been told, had been the cause of Jahāngīr Mīrzā's rebellion, of my exodus from Samarkand (903 AH.—March 1498 AD.) and, again! of what an amount of sedition and [Sidenote: Fol. 95.] disloyalty! That entry of his was a very bold act.[570]

The soldiery and townspeople became more and more distressed. Trusted men of my close circle began to let themselves down from the ramparts and get away; begs of known name and old family servants were amongst them, such as Pīr Wais, Shaikh Wais and Wais _Lāgharī_.[571] Of help from any side we utterly despaired; no hope was left in any quarter; our supplies and provisions were wretched, what there was was coming to an end; no more came in. Meantime Shaibāq Khān interjected talk of peace.[572] Little ear would have been given to his talk of peace, if there had been hope or food from any side. It had to be! a sort of peace was made and we took our departure from the town, by the Shaikh-zāda's Gate, somewhere about midnight.

(_b. Bābur leaves Samarkand._)

I took my mother Khānīm out with me; two other women-folk went too, one was Bīshka (var. Peshka)-i-Khalīfa, the other, Mīnglīk _Kūkūldāsh_.[573] At this exodus, my elder sister, Khān-zāda Begīm fell into Shaibāq Khān's hands.[574] In the darkness of that night we lost our way[575] and wandered about amongst the main irrigation channels of Soghd. At shoot of dawn, after a hundred difficulties, we got past Khwāja Dīdār. At the Sunnat Prayer we scrambled up the rising-ground of Qarā-būgh. [Sidenote: Fol. 95b.] From the north slope of Qarā-būgh we hurried on past the foot of Judūk village and dropped down into Yīlān-aūtī. On the road I raced with Qāsim Beg and Qaṃbar-`alī (the Skinner); my horse was leading when I, thinking to look at theirs behind, twisted myself round; the girth may have slackened, for my saddle turned and I was thrown on my head to the ground. Although I at once got up and remounted, my brain did not steady till the evening; till then this world and what went on appeared to me like things felt and seen in a dream or fancy. Towards afternoon we dismounted in Yīlān-aūtī, there killed a horse, spitted and roasted its flesh, rested our horses awhile and rode on. Very weary, we reached Khalīla-village before the dawn and dismounted. From there it was gone on to Dīzak.

In Dīzak just then was Ḥāfiẓ Muḥ. _Dūldāī's_ son, T̤āhir. There, in Dīzak, were fat meats, loaves of fine flour, plenty of sweet melons and abundance of excellent grapes. From what privation we came to such plenty! From what stress to what repose!

From fear and hunger rest we won (_amānī tāptūq_); A fresh world's new-born life we won (_jahānī tāptūq_). From out our minds, death's dread was chased [Sidenote: Fol. 96.] (_rafa` būldī_); From our men the hunger-pang kept back (_dafa` būldī_).[576]

Never in all our lives had we felt such relief! never in the whole course of them have we appreciated security and plenty so highly. Joy is best and more delightful when it follows sorrow, ease after toil. I have been transported four or five times from toil to rest and from hardship to ease.[577] This was the first. We were set free from the affliction of such a foe and from the pangs of hunger and had reached the repose of security and the relief of abundance.

(_c. Bābur in Dikh-kat._)

After three or four days of rest in Dīzak, we set out for Aūrā-tīpā. Pashāghar is a little[578] off the road but, as we had occupied it for some time (904 AH.), we made an excursion to it in passing by. In Pashāghar we chanced on one of Khānīm's old servants, a teacher[579] who had been left behind in Samarkand from want of a mount. We saw one another and on questioning her, I found she had come there on foot.

Khūb-nigār Khānīm, my mother Khānīm's younger sister[580] already must have bidden this transitory world farewell; for they let Khānīm and me know of it in Aūrā-tīpā. My father's mother also must have died in Andijān; this too they let us [Sidenote: Fol. 96b.] know in Aūrā-tīpā.[581] Since the death of my grandfather, Yūnas Khān (892 AH.), Khānīm had not seen her (step-)mother or her younger brother and sisters, that is to say, Shāh Begīm, Sl. Maḥmūd Khān, Sulṯān-nīgār Khānīm and Daulat-sulṯān Khānīm. The separation had lasted 13 or 14 years. To see these relations she now started for Tāshkīnt.

After consulting with Muḥ. Ḥusain Mīrzā, it was settled for us to winter in a place called Dikh-kat[582] one of the Aūrā-tīpā villages. There I deposited my impedimenta (_aūrūq_); then set out myself in order to visit Shāh Begīm and my Khān dādā and various relatives. I spent a few days in Tāshkīnt and waited on Shāh Begīm and my Khān dādā. My mother's elder full-sister, Mihr-nigār Khānīm[583] had come from Samarkand and was in Tāshkīnt. There my mother Khānīm fell very ill; it was a very bad illness; she passed through mighty risks.

His Highness Khwājaka Khwāja, having managed to get out of Samarkand, had settled down in Far-kat; there I visited him. I had hoped my Khān dādā would shew me affection and kindness and would give me a country or a district (_pargana_). He did promise me Aūrā-tīpā but Muḥ. Ḥusain Mīrzā. did not make it over, whether acting on his own account [Sidenote: Fol. 97.] or whether upon a hint from above, is not known. After spending a few days with him (in Aūrā-tīpā), I went on to Dikh-kat.

Dikh-kat is in the Aūrā-tīpā hill-tracts, below the range on the other side of which is the Macha[584] country. Its people, though Sārt, settled in a village, are, like Turks, herdsmen and shepherds. Their sheep are reckoned at 40,000. We dismounted at the houses of the peasants in the village; I stayed in a head-man's house. He was old, 70 or 80, but his mother was still alive. She was a woman on whom much life had been bestowed for she was 111 years old. Some relation of hers may have gone, (as was said), with Tīmūr Beg's army to Hindūstān;[585] she had this in her mind and used to tell the tale. In Dikh-kat alone were 96 of her descendants, hers and her grandchildren, great-grandchildren and grandchildren's grandchildren. Counting in the dead, 200 of her descendants were reckoned up. Her grandchild's grandson was a strong young man of 25 or 26, with full black beard. While in Dikh-kat, I constantly made excursions amongst the mountains round [Sidenote: Fol. 97b.] about. Generally I went bare-foot and, from doing this so much, my feet became so that rock and stone made no difference to them.[586] Once in one of these wanderings, a cow was seen, between the Afternoon and Evening prayers, going down by a narrow, ill-defined road. Said I, 'I wonder which way that road will be going; keep your eye on that cow; don't lose the cow till you know where the road comes out.' Khwāja Asadu'l-lāh made his joke, 'If the cow loses her way,' he said, 'what becomes of us?'

In the winter several of our soldiers asked for leave to Andijān because they could make no raids with us.[587] Qāsim Beg said, with much insistance, 'As these men are going, send something special of your own wear by them to Jahāngīr Mīrzā.' I sent my ermine cap. Again he urged, 'What harm would there be if you sent something for Taṃbal also?' Though I was very unwilling, yet as he urged it, I sent Taṃbal a large broad-sword which Nuyān _Kūkūldāsh_ had had made for himself in Samarkand. This very sword it was which, as will be told with the events of next year, came down on my own head![588]

A few days later, my grandmother, Aīsān-daulat Begīm, who, when I left Samarkand, had stayed behind, arrived in Dikh-kat [Sidenote: Fol. 98.] with our families and baggage (_aūrūq_) and a few lean and hungry followers.

(_d. Shaibāq Khān raids in The Khān's country._)

That winter Shaibāq Khān crossed the Khujand river on the ice and plundered near Shāhrukhiya and Bīsh-kīnt. On hearing news of this, we gallopped off, not regarding the smallness of our numbers, and made for the villages below Khujand, opposite Hasht-yak (One-eighth). The cold was mightily bitter,[589] a wind not less than the Hā-darwesh[590] raging violently the whole time. So cold it was that during the two or three days we were in those parts, several men died of it. When, needing to make ablution, I went into an irrigation-channel, frozen along both banks but because of its swift current, not ice-bound in the middle, and bathed, dipping under 16 times, the cold of the water went quite through me. Next day we crossed the river on the ice from opposite Khaṣlār and went on through the dark to Bīsh-kīnt.[591] Shaibāq Khān, however, must have gone straight back after plundering the neighbourhood of Shāhrukhiya.

(_e. Death of Nuyān Kūkūldāsh._)

Bīsh-kīnt, at that time, was held by Mullā Ḥaidar's son, `Abdu'l-minān. A younger son, named Mūmin, a worthless and dissipated person, had come to my presence in Samarkand and had received all kindness from me. This sodomite, Mūmin, for what sort of quarrel between them is not known, cherished [Sidenote: Fol. 98b.] rancour against Nuyān _Kūkūldāsh_. At the time when we, having heard of the retirement of the Aūzbegs, sent a man to The Khān and marched from Bīsh-kīnt to spend two or three days amongst the villages in the Blacksmith's-dale,[592] Mullā Ḥaidar's son, Mūmin invited Nuyān _Kūkūldāsh_ and Aḥmad-i-qāsim and some others in order to return them hospitality received in Samarkand. When I left Bīsh-kīnt, therefore they stayed behind. Mūmin's entertainment to this party was given on the edge of a ravine (_jar_). Next day news was brought to us in Sām-sīrak, a village in the Blacksmith's-dale, that Nuyān was dead through falling when drunk into the ravine. We sent his own mother's brother, Ḥaq-naẕar and others, who searched out where he had fallen. They committed Nuyān to the earth in Bīsh-kīnt, and came back to me. They had found the body at the bottom of the ravine an arrow's flight from the place of the entertainment. Some suspected that Mūmin, nursing his trumpery rancour, had taken Nuyān's life. None knew the truth. His death made me strangely sad; for few men have I felt such grief; I wept unceasingly for a week or [Sidenote: Fol. 99.] ten days. The chronogram of his death was found in _Nuyān is dead_.[593]

With the heats came the news that Shaibāq Khān was coming up into Aūrā-tīpā. Hereupon, as the land is level about Dikh-kat, we crossed the Āb-burdan pass into the Macha hill-country.[594] Āb-burdan is the last village of Macha; just below it a spring sends its water down (to the Zar-afshān); above the stream is included in Macha, below it depends on Palghar. There is a tomb at the spring-head. I had a rock at the side of the spring-head shaped (_qātīrīb_) and these three couplets inscribed on it;—

I have heard that Jamshīd, the magnificent, Inscribed on a rock at a fountain-head[595] 'Many men like us have taken breath at this fountain, And have passed away in the twinkling of an eye; We took the world by courage and might, But we took it not with us to the tomb.'

There is a custom in that hill-country of cutting verses and things[596] on the rocks.

While we were in Macha, Mullā Hijrī,[597] the poet, came from Ḥiṣār and waited on me. At that time I composed the following opening lines;—

Let your portrait flatter you never so much, than it you are more (_āndīn artūqsīn_); Men call you their Life (_Jān_), than Life, without doubt, you are more (_jāndīn artūqsīn_).[598]

After plundering round about in Aūrā-tīpā, Shaibāq Khān retired.[599] While he was up there, we, disregarding the fewness [Sidenote: Fol. 99b.] of our men and their lack of arms, left our impedimenta (_aūrūq_) in Macha, crossed the Āb-burdan pass and went to Dikh-kat so that, gathered together close at hand, we might miss no chance on one of the next nights. He, however, retired straightway; we went back to Macha.

It passed through my mind that to wander from mountain to mountain, homeless and houseless, without country or abiding-place, had nothing to recommend it. 'Go you right off to The Khān,' I said to myself. Qāsim Beg was not willing for this move, apparently being uneasy because, as has been told, he had put Mughūls to death at Qarā-būlāq, by way of example. However much we urged it, it was not to be! He drew off for Ḥiṣār with all his brothers and his whole following. We for our part, crossed the Āb-burdan pass and set forward for The Khān's presence in Tāshkīnt.

(_f. Bābur with The Khān._)

In the days when Taṃbal had drawn his army out and gone into the Blacksmith's-dale,[600] men at the top of his army, such as Muḥ. _Dūghlāt_, known as _Ḥiṣārī_, and his younger brother Ḥusain, and also Qaṃbar-`alī, the Skinner, conspired to attempt his life. When he discovered this weighty matter, they, unable to remain with him, had gone to The Khān.

The Feast of Sacrifices (`Īd-i-qurbān) fell for us in Shāh-rukhiya (Ẕū'l-ḥijja 10th.-June 16th. 1502).

I had written a quatrain in an ordinary measure but was in some doubt about it, because at that time I had not studied [Sidenote: Fol. 100.] poetic idiom so much as I have now done. The Khān was good-natured and also he wrote verses, though ones somewhat deficient in the requisites for odes. I presented my quatrain and I laid my doubts before him but got no reply so clear as to remove them. His study of poetic idiom appeared to have been somewhat scant. Here is the verse;—

One hears no man recall another in trouble (_miḥnat-ta kīshī_); None speak of a man as glad in his exile (_ghurbat-ta kīshī_); My own heart has no joy in this exile; Called glad is no exile, man though he be (_albatta kīshī_).

Later on I came to know that in Turkī verse, for the purpose of rhyme, _ta_ and _da_ are interchangeable and also _ghain_, _qāf_ and _kāf_.[601]

(_g. The acclaiming of the standards._)

When, a few days later, The Khān heard that Taṃbal had gone up into Aūrā-tīpā, he got his army to horse and rode out from Tāshkīnt. Between Bīsh-kīnt and Sām-sīrak he formed up into array of right and left and saw the count[602] of his men. This done, the standards were acclaimed in Mughūl fashion.[603] The Khān dismounted and nine standards were set up in front of him. A Mughūl tied a long strip of white cloth to the thigh-bone (_aūrta aīlīk_) of a cow and took the other end in his hand. Three other long strips of white cloth were tied to the staves of three of the (nine) standards, just below the yak-tails, and their other ends were brought for The Khān to stand on one and for me and Sl. Muḥ. Khānika to stand each on one of the two others. The Mughūl who had hold of the strip of cloth [Sidenote: Fol. 100b.] fastened to the cow's leg, then said something in Mughūl while he looked at the standards and made signs towards them. The Khān and those present sprinkled _qumīz_[604] in the direction of the standards; hautbois and drums were sounded towards them;[605] the army flung the war-cry out three times towards them, mounted, cried it again and rode at the gallop round them.

Precisely as Chīngīz Khān laid down his rules, so the Mughūls still observe them. Each man has his place, just where his ancestors had it; right, right,—left, left,—centre, centre. The most reliable men go to the extreme points of the right and left. The Chīrās and Begchīk clans always demand to go to the point in the right.[606] At that time the Beg of the Chīrās tūmān was a very bold brave, Qāshka (Mole-marked) Maḥmud and the beg of the renowned Begchīk tūmān was Ayūb _Begchīk_. These two, disputing which should go out to the point, drew swords on one another. At last it seems to have been settled that one should take the highest place in the hunting-circle, the other, in the battle-array.

Next day after making the circle, it was hunted near Sāmsīrak; [Sidenote: Fol. 101.] thence move was made to the Tūrāk Four-gardens. On that day and in that camp, I finished the first ode I ever finished. Its opening couplet is as follows;—

Except my soul, no friend worth trust found I (_wafādār tāpmādīm_); Except my heart, no confidant found I (_asrār tāpmādīm_).

There were six couplets; every ode I finished later was written just on this plan.

The Khān moved, march by march, from Sām-sīrak to the bank of the Khujand-river. One day we crossed the water by way of an excursion, cooked food and made merry with the braves and pages. That day some-one stole the gold clasp of my girdle. Next day Bayān-qulī's Khān-qulī and Sl. Muḥ. Wais fled to Taṃbal. Every-one suspected them of that bad deed. Though this was not ascertained, Aḥmad-i-qāsim _Kohbur_ asked leave and went away to Aūrā-tīpā. From that leave he did not return; he too went to Taṃbal.

908 AH.—JULY 7TH. 1502 TO JUNE 26TH. 1503 AD.[607]

(_a. Bābur's poverty in Tāshkīnt._)

This move of The Khān's was rather unprofitable; to take no fort, to beat no foe, he went out and went back.

During my stay in Tāshkīnt, I endured much poverty and humiliation. No country or hope of one! Most of my retainers dispersed, those left, unable to move about with me because of their destitution! If I went to my Khān dādā's Gate,[608] I went sometimes with one man, sometimes with two. It was well he was no stranger but one of my own blood. [Sidenote: Fol. 101b.] After showing myself[609] in his presence, I used to go to Shāh Begīm's, entering her house, bareheaded and barefoot, just as if it were my own.

This uncertainty and want of house and home drove me at last to despair. Said I, 'It would be better to take my head[610] and go off than live in such misery; better to go as far as my feet can carry me than be seen of men in such poverty and humiliation.' Having settled on China to go to, I resolved to take my head and get away. From my childhood up I had wished to visit China but had not been able to manage it because of ruling and attachments. Now sovereignty itself was gone! and my mother, for her part, was re-united to her (step)-mother and her younger brother. The hindrances to my journey had been removed; my anxiety for my mother was dispelled. I represented (to Shāh Begīm and The Khān) through Khwāja Abū'l-makāram that now such a foe as Shaibāq Khān had made his appearance, Mughūl and Turk[611] alike must guard against him; that thought about him must be taken while he had not well-mastered the (Aūzbeg) horde or grown very strong, for as they have said;—[612]

To-day, while thou canst, quench the fire, Once ablaze it will burn up the world; Let thy foe not fix string to his bow, While an arrow of thine can pierce him;

that it was 20 or 25 years[613] since they had seen the Younger Khān (Aḥmad _Alacha_) and that I had never seen him; should I be able, if I went to him, not only to see him myself, but to bring about the meeting between him and them?

[Sidenote: Fol. 102.] Under this pretext I proposed to get out of those surroundings;[614] once in Mughūlistān and Turfān, my reins would be in my own hands, without check or anxiety. I put no-one in possession of my scheme. Why not? Because it was impossible for me to mention such a scheme to my mother, and also because it was with other expectations that the few of all ranks who had been my companions in exile and privation, had cut themselves off with me and with me suffered change of fortune. To speak to them also of such a scheme would be no pleasure.

The Khwāja, having laid my plan before Shāh Begīm and The Khān, understood them to consent to it but, later, it occurred to them that I might be asking leave a second time,[615] because of not receiving kindness. That touching their reputation, they delayed a little to give the leave.

(_b. The Younger Khān comes to Tāshkīnt._)

At this crisis a man came from the Younger Khān to say that he was actually on his way. This brought my scheme to naught. When a second man announced his near approach, we all went out to give him honourable meeting, Shāh Begīm and his younger sisters, Sulṯān-nigār Khānīm and Daulat-sulṯān Khānīm, and I and Sl. Muḥ. Khānika and Khān Mīrzā (Wais).

Between Tāshkīnt and Sairām is a village called Yagha (var. Yaghma), with some smaller ones, where are the tombs of Father Abraham and Father Isaac. So far we went out. Knowing nothing exact about his coming,[616] I rode out for an [Sidenote: Fol. 102b.] excursion, with an easy mind. All at once, he descended on me, face to face. I went forward; when I stopped, he stopped. He was a good deal perturbed; perhaps he was thinking of dismounting in some fixed spot and there seated, of receiving me ceremoniously. There was no time for this; when we were near each other, I dismounted. He had not time even to dismount;[617] I bent the knee, went forward and saw him. Hurriedly and with agitation, he told Sl. Sa`īd Khān and Bābā Khān Sl. to dismount, bend the knee with (_bīla_) me and make my acquaintance.[618] Just these two of his sons had come with him; they may have been 13 or 14 years old. When I had seen them, we all mounted and went to Shāh Begīm's presence. After he had seen her and his sisters, and had renewed acquaintance, they all sat down and for half the night told one another particulars of their past and gone affairs.

Next day, my Younger Khān dādā bestowed on me arms of his own and one of his own special horses saddled, and a Mughūl head-to-foot dress,—a Mughūl cap,[619] a long coat of Chinese satin, with broidering of stitchery,[620] and Chinese armour; in the old fashion, they had hung, on the left side, a haversack (_chantāī_) and an outer bag,[621] and three or four things such as women usually hang on their collars, perfume-holders and various receptacles;[622] in the same way, three or four things hung on the right side also.

[Sidenote: Fol. 103.] From there we went to Tāshkīnt. My Elder Khān dādā also had come out for the meeting, some 3 or 4 _yīghāch_ (12 to 15 m.) along the road. He had had an awning set up in a chosen spot and was seated there. The Younger Khān went up directly in front of him; on getting near, fetched a circle, from right to left, round him; then dismounted before him. After advancing to the place of interview (_kūrūshūr yīr_), he nine times bent the knee; that done, went close and saw (his brother). The Elder Khān, in his turn, had risen when the Younger Khān drew near. They looked long at one another (_kūrūshtīlār_) and long stood in close embrace (_qūchūshūb_). The Younger Khān again bent the knee nine times when retiring, many times also on offering his gift; after that, he went and sat down.

All his men had adorned themselves in Mughūl fashion. There they were in Mughūl caps (_būrk_); long coats of Chinese satin, broidered with stitchery, Mughūl quivers and saddles of green shagreen-leather, and Mughūl horses adorned in a unique fashion. He had brought rather few men, over 1000 and under 2000 may-be. He was a man of singular manners, a mighty master of the sword, and brave. Amongst arms he preferred to trust to the sword. He used to say that of arms there are, the _shash-par_[623] (six-flanged mace), the _piyāzī_ (rugged mace), the _kīstin_,[624] the _tabar-zīn_ (saddle-hatchet) and the _bāltū_ (battle-axe), all, if they strike, work only with what of them first touches, but the sword, if it touch, works from point to hilt. He never parted with his keen-edged sword; it was either at his waist or to his hand. He was a little rustic and rough-of-speech, [Sidenote: Fol. 103b.] through having grown up in an out-of-the-way place.

When, adorned in the way described, I went with him to The Khān, Khwāja Abū'l-makāram asked, 'Who is this honoured sulṯān?' and till I spoke, did not recognize me.

(_c. The Khāns march into Farghāna against Taṃbal._)

Soon after returning to Tāshkīnt, The Khān led out an army for Andikān (Andijān) direct against Sl. Aḥmad _Taṃbal_.[625] He took the road over the Kīndīrlīk-pass and from Blacksmiths'-dale (Āhangarān-julgasī) sent the Younger Khān and me on in advance. After the pass had been crossed, we all met again near Zarqān (var. Zabarqān) of Karnān.

One day, near Karnān, they numbered their men[626] and reckoned them up to be 30,000. From ahead news began to come that Taṃbal also was collecting a force and going to Akhsī. After having consulted together, The Khāns decided to join some of their men to me, in order that I might cross the Khujand-water, and, marching by way of Aūsh and Aūzkīnt, turn Taṃbal's rear. Having so settled, they joined to me Ayūb _Begchīk_ with his _tūmān_, Jān-ḥasan Bārīn (var. Nārīn) with his Bārīns, Muḥ. _Ḥiṣārī Dūghlāt_, Sl. Ḥusain _Dūghlāt_ and Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā _Dūghlāt_, not in command of the Dūghlāt _tūmān_,—and Qaṃbar-`alī Beg (the Skinner). The commandant (_darogha_) of their force was Sārīgh-bāsh (Yellow-head) Mīrza _Itārchī_.[627]

Leaving The Khāns in Karnān, we crossed the river on rafts near Sakan, traversed the Khūqān sub-district (_aūrchīn_), crushed [Sidenote: Fol. 104.] Qabā and by way of the Alāī sub-districts[628] descended suddenly on Aūsh. We reached it at dawn, unexpected; those in it could but surrender. Naturally the country-folk were wishing much for us, but they had not been able to find their means, both through dread of Taṃbal and through our remoteness. After we entered Aūsh, the hordes and the highland and lowland tribes of southern and eastern Andijān came in to us. The Aūzkīnt people also, willing to serve us, sent me a man and came in.

(_Author's note on Aūzkīnt._) Aūzkīnt formerly must have been a capital of Farghāna;[629] it has an excellent fort and is situated on the boundary (of Farghāna).

The Marghīnānīs also came in after two or three days, having beaten and chased their commandant (_darogha_). Except Andijān, every fort south of the Khujand-water had now come in to us. Spite of the return in those days of so many forts, and spite of risings and revolt against him, Taṃbal did not yet come to his senses but sat down with an army of horse and foot, fortified with ditch and branch, to face The Khāns, between Karnān and Akhsī. Several times over there was a little fighting and pell-mell but without decided success to either side.

In the Andijān country (_wilāyat_), most of the tribes and [Sidenote: Fol. 104b.] hordes and the forts and all the districts had come in to me; naturally the Andijānīs also were wishing for me. They however could not find their means.

(_d. Bābur's attempt to enter Andijān frustrated by a mistake._)

It occurred to me that if we went one night close to the town and sent a man in to discuss with the Khwāja[630] and notables, they might perhaps let us in somewhere. With this idea we rode out from Aūsh. By midnight we were opposite Forty-daughters (Chihil-dukhterān) 2 miles (one _kuroh_) from Andijān. From that place we sent Qaṃbar-`alī Beg forward, with some other begs, who were to discuss matters with the Khwāja after by some means or other getting a man into the fort. While waiting for their return, we sat on our horses, some of us patiently humped up, some wrapt away in dream, when suddenly, at about the third watch, there rose a war-cry[631] and a sound of drums. Sleepy and startled, ignorant whether the foe was many or few, my men, without looking to one another, took each his own road and turned for flight. There was no time for me to get at them; I went straight for the enemy. Only Mīr Shāh _Qūchīn_ and Bābā Sher-zād (Tiger-whelp) and Nāṣir's Dost sprang forward; we four excepted, every man set his face for flight. I had gone a little way forward, when the enemy rode rapidly up, flung out his war-cry and poured arrows on us. One man, on a horse with a starred forehead,[632] came close to me; I shot at it; it rolled over and died. They made a little as if to retire. The three [Sidenote: Fol. 105.] with me said, 'In this darkness it is not certain whether they are many or few; all our men have gone off; what harm could we four do them? Fighting must be when we have overtaken our run-aways and rallied them.' Off we hurried, got up with our men and beat and horse-whipped some of them, but, do what we would, they would not make a stand. Back the four of us went to shoot arrows at the foe. They drew a little back but when, after a discharge or two, they saw we were not more than three or four, they busied themselves in chasing and unhorsing my men. I went three or four times to try to rally my men but all in vain! They were not to be brought to order. Back I went with my three and kept the foe in check with our arrows. They pursued us two or three _kuroh_ (4-6 m.), as far as the rising ground opposite Kharābūk and Pashāmūn. There we met Muḥ. `Alī _Mubashir_. Said I, 'They are only few; let us stop and put our horses at them.' So we did. When we got up to them, they stood still.[633]

Our scattered braves gathered in from this side and that, but several very serviceable men, scattering in this attack, went right away to Aūsh.

The explanation of the affair seemed to be that some of Ayūb _Begchīk's_ Mughūls had slipped away from Aūsh to raid near Andijān and, hearing the noise of our troop, came somewhat stealthily towards us; then there seems to have been confusion about the pass-word. The pass-words settled on for use during this movement of ours were Tāshkīnt and Sairām. If Tāshkīnt were said, Sairām would be answered; if Sairām, Tāshkīnt. In this muddled affair, Khwāja Muḥ. `Ali seems to have been somewhat in advance of our party and to have got bewildered,—he was a Sārt person,[635]—when the Mughūls came up saying, 'Tāshkīnt, Tāshkīnt,' for he gave them 'Tāshkīnt, Tāshkīnt,' as the counter-sign. Through this they took him for an enemy, raised their war-cry, beat their saddle-drums and poured arrows on us. It was through this we gave way, and through this false alarm were scattered! We went back to Aūsh.

[Sidenote: Fol. 105b.] (_Author's note on pass-words._) Pass-words are of two kinds;—in each tribe there is one for use in the tribe, such as _Darwāna_ or _Tūqqāī_ or _Lūlū_;[634] and there is one for the use of the whole army. For a battle, two words are settled on as pass-words so that of two men meeting in the fight, one may give the one, the other give back the second, in order to distinguish friends from foes, own men from strangers.

(_e. Bābur again attempts Andijān._)

Through the return to me of the forts and the highland and lowland clans, Taṃbal and his adherents lost heart and footing. His army and people in the next five or six days began to desert him and to flee to retired places and the open country.[636] Of his household some came and said, 'His affairs are nearly ruined; he will break up in three or four days, utterly ruined.' On hearing this, we rode for Andijān.

Sl. Muḥ. _Galpuk_[637] was in Andijān,—the younger of Taṃbal's cadet brothers. We took the Mulberry-road and at the Mid-day Prayer came to the Khākān (canal), south of the town. A [Sidenote: Fol. 106.] foraging-party was arranged; I followed it along Khākān to the skirt of `Aīsh-hill. When our scouts brought word that Sl. Muḥ. _Galpuk_ had come out, with what men he had, beyond the suburbs and gardens to the skirt of `Aīsh, I hurried to meet him, although our foragers were still scattered. He may have had over 500 men; we had more but many had scattered to forage. When we were face to face, his men and ours may have been in equal number. Without caring about order or array, down we rode on them, loose rein, at the gallop. When we got near, they could not stand; there was not so much fighting as the crossing of a few swords. My men followed them almost to the Khākān Gate, unhorsing one after another.

It was at the Evening Prayer that, our foe outmastered, we reached Khwāja Kitta, on the outskirts of the suburbs. My idea was to go quickly right up to the Gate but Dost Beg's father, Nāṣir Beg and Qaṃbar-`alī Beg, old and experienced begs both, represented to me, 'It is almost night; it would be ill-judged to go in a body into the fort in the dark; let us withdraw a little and dismount. What can they do to-morrow but surrender the place?' Yielding at once to the opinion of these experienced persons, we forthwith retired to the outskirts of the suburbs. If we had gone to the Gate, undoubtedly, Andijān [Sidenote: Fol. 106b.] would have come into our hands.

(_f. Bābur surprised by Taṃbal._)

After crossing the Khākān-canal, we dismounted, near the Bed-time prayer, at the side of the village of Rabāṯ-i-zauraq (var. rūzaq). Although we knew that Taṃbal had broken camp and was on his way to Andijān, yet, with the negligence of inexperience, we dismounted on level ground close to the village, instead of where the defensive canal would have protected us.[638] There we lay down carelessly, without scouts or rear-ward.

At the top (_bāsh_) of the morning, just when men are in sweet sleep, Qaṃbar-`alī Beg hurried past, shouting, 'Up with you! the enemy is here!' So much he said and went off without a moment's stay. It was my habit to lie down, even in times of peace, in my tunic; up I got instanter, put on sword and quiver and mounted. My standard-bearer had no time to adjust my standard,[639] he just mounted with it in his hand. There were ten or fifteen men with me when we started toward the enemy; after riding an arrow's flight, when we came up with his scouts, there may have been ten. Going rapidly forward, we overtook him, poured in arrows on him, over-mastered his foremost men and hurried them off. We followed them for another arrow's flight and came up with his centre where Sl. Aḥmad _Taṃbal_ himself was, with as many as [Sidenote: Fol. 107.] 100 men. He and another were standing in front of his array, as if keeping a Gate,[640] and were shouting, 'Strike, strike!' but his men, mostly, were sidling, as if asking themselves, 'Shall we run away? Shall we not?' By this time three were left with me; one was Nāṣir's Dost, another, Mīrzā Qulī _Kūkūldāsh_, the third, Khudāī-bīrdī _Turkmān's_ Karīm-dād.[641] I shot off the arrow on my thumb,[642] aiming at Taṃbal's helm. When I put my hand into my quiver, there came out a quite new _gosha-gīr_[643] given me by my Younger Khān dādā. It would have been vexing to throw it away but before I got it back into the quiver, there had been time to shoot, maybe, two or three arrows. When once more I had an arrow on the string, I went forward, my three men even holding back. One of those two in advance, Taṃbal seemingly,[644] moved forward also. The high-road was between us; I from my side, he, from his, got upon it and came face to face, in such a way that his right hand was towards me, mine towards him. His horse's mail excepted, he was fully accoutred; but for sword and quiver, I was unprotected. I shot off the arrow in my hand, adjusting for the attachment of his shield. With matters in this position, they shot my right leg through. I had on the cap of my helm;[645] Taṃbal chopped [Sidenote: Fol. 107b.] so violently at my head that it lost all feeling under the blow. A large wound was made on my head, though not a thread of the cap was cut.[646] I had not bared[647] my sword; it was in the scabbard and I had no chance to draw it. Single-handed, I was alone amongst many foes. It was not a time to stand still; I turned rein. Down came a sword again; this time on my arrows. When I had gone 7 or 8 paces, those same three men rejoined me.[648] After using his sword on me, Taṃbal seems to have used it on Nāṣir's Dost. As far as an arrrow flies to the butt, the enemy followed us.

The Khākān-canal is a great main-channel, flowing in a deep cutting, not everywhere to be crossed. God brought it right! we came exactly opposite a low place where there was a passage over. Directly we had crossed, the horse Nāṣir's Dost was on, being somewhat weakly, fell down. We stopped and remounted him, then drew off for Aūsh, over the rising-ground between Farāghīna and Khirābūk. Out on the rise, Mazīd T̤aghāī came up and joined us. An arrow had pierced his right leg also and though it had not gone through and come out again, he got to Aūsh with difficulty. The enemy unhorsed (_tūshūrdīlār_) good men of mine; Nāṣir Beg, Muḥ. `Alī _Mubashir_, Khwāja Muḥ. `Alī, Khusrau _Kūkūldāsh_, Na`man the page, all fell (to them, _tūshtīlār_), and also many unmailed braves.[649]

(_g. The Khāns move from Kāsān to Andijān._)

The Khāns, closely following on Taṃbal, dismounted near Andijān,—the Elder at the side of the Reserve (_qūrūq_) in the [Sidenote: Fol. 108.] garden, known as Birds'-mill (_Qūsh-tīgīrmān_), belonging to my grandmother, Aīsān-daulat Begīm,—the Younger, near Bābā Tawakkul's Alms-house. Two days later I went from Aūsh and saw the Elder Khān in Birds'-mill. At that interview, he simply gave over to the Younger Khān the places which had come in to me. He made some such excuse as that for our advantage, he had brought the Younger Khān, how far! because such a foe as Shaibāq Khān had taken Samarkand and was waxing greater; that the Younger Khān had there no lands whatever, his own being far away; and that the country under Andijān, on the south of the Khujand-water, must be given him to encamp in. He promised me the country under Akhsī, on the north of the Khujand-water. He said that after taking a firm grip of that country (Farghāna), they would move, take Samarkand, give it to me and then the whole of the Farghāna country was to be the Younger Khan's. These words seem to have been meant to deceive me, since there is no knowing what they would have done when they had attained their object. It had to be however! willy-nilly, I agreed.

When, leaving him, I was on my way to the Younger Khān's presence, Qaṃbar-`alī, known as the Skinner, joined me in a friendly way and said, 'Do you see? They have taken the whole of the country just become yours. There is no opening for you through them. You have in your hands Aūsh, Marghīnān, [Sidenote: Fol. 108b.] Aūzkīnt and the cultivated land and the tribes and the hordes; go you to Aūsh; make that fort fast; send a man to Taṃbal, make peace with him, then strike at the Mughūl and drive him out. After that, divide the districts into an elder and a younger brother's shares.' 'Would that be right?' said I. 'The Khāns are my blood relations; better serve them than rule for Taṃbal.' He saw that his words had made no impression, so turned back, sorry he had spoken. I went on to see my Younger Khān Dādā. At our first interview, I had come upon him without announcement and he had no time to dismount, so it was all rather unceremonious. This time I got even nearer perhaps, and he ran out as far as the end of the tent-ropes. I was walking with some difficulty because of the wound in my leg. We met and renewed acquaintance; then he said, 'You are talked about as a hero, my young brother!' took my arm and led me into his tent. The tents pitched were rather small and through his having grown up in an out-of-the-way place, he let the one he sat in be neglected; it was like a raider's, melons, grapes, saddlery, every sort of thing, in his sitting-tent. I went from his presence straight back to my own camp and there he sent his Mughūl surgeon to examine my wound. Mughūls call a surgeon also a _bakhshī_; this one was called Ātākā Bakhshī.[650]

He was a very skilful surgeon; if a man's brains had come [Sidenote: Fol. 109.] out, he would cure it, and any sort of wound in an artery he easily healed. For some wounds his remedy was in form of a plaister, for some medicines had to be taken. He ordered a bandage tied on[651] the wound in my leg and put no seton in; once he made me eat something like a fibrous root (_yīldīz_). He told me himself, 'A certain man had his leg broken in the slender part and the bone was shattered for the breadth of the hand. I cut the flesh open and took the bits of bone out. Where they had been, I put a remedy in powder-form. That remedy simply became bone where there had been bone before.' He told many strange and marvellous things such as surgeons in cultivated lands cannot match.

Three or four days later, Qaṃbar-`alī, afraid on account of what he had said to me, fled (to Taṃbal) in Andijān. A few days later, The Khāns joined to me Ayūb _Begchīk_ with his _tūmān_, and Jān-ḥasan _Bārīn_ with the Bārīn _tūmān_ and, as their army-beg, Sārīgh-bāsh Mīrzā,—1000 to 2000 men in all, and sent us towards Akhsī.

(_h. Bābur's expedition to Akhsī._)

Shaikh Bāyazīd, a younger brother of Taṃbal, was in Akhsī; Shahbāz _Qārlūq_ was in Kāsān. At the time, Shahbāz was lying before Nū-kīnt fort; crossing the Khujand-water opposite Bīkhrātā, we hurried to fall upon him there. When, a little [Sidenote: Fol. 109b.] before dawn, we were nearing the place, the begs represented to me that as the man would have had news of us, it was advisable not to go on in broken array. We moved on therefore with less speed. Shahbāz may have been really unaware of us until we were quite close; then getting to know of it, he fled into the fort. It often happens so! Once having said, 'The enemy is on guard!' it is easily fancied true and the chance of action is lost. In short, the experience of such things is that no effort or exertion must be omitted, once the chance for action comes. After-repentance is useless. There was a little fighting round the fort at dawn but we delivered no serious attack.

For the convenience of foraging, we moved from Nū-kīnt towards the hills in the direction of Bīshkhārān. Seizing his opportunity, Shahbāz _Qārlūq_ abandoned Nū-kīnt and returned to Kāsān. We went back and occupied Nū-kīnt. During those days, the army several times went out and over-ran all sides and quarters. Once they over-ran the villages of Akhsī, once those of Kāsān. Shahbāz and Long Ḥasan's adopted son, Mīrīm came out of Kāsān to fight; they fought, were beaten, and there Mīrīm died.

(_i. The affairs of Pāp._)

Pāp is a strong fort belonging to Akhsī. The Pāpīs made it fast and sent a man to me. We accordingly sent Sayyid Qāsim with a few braves to occupy it. They crossed the river [Sidenote: Fol. 110.] (_daryā_) opposite the upper villages of Akhsī and went into Pāp.[652] A few days later, Sayyid Qāsim did an astonishing thing. There were at the time with Shaikh Bāyazīd in Akhsī, Ibrāhīm _Chāpūk_ (Slash-face) T̤aghāī,[653] Aḥmad-of-qāsim _Kohbur_, and Qāsim Khitika (?) _Arghūn_. To these Shaikh Bāyazīd joins 200 serviceable braves and one night sends them to surprise Pāp. Sayyid Qāsim must have lain down carelessly to sleep, without setting a watch. They reach the fort, set ladders up, get up on the Gate, let the drawbridge down and, when 70 or 80 good men in mail are inside, goes the news to Sayyid Qāsim! Drowsy with sleep, he gets into his vest (_kūnglāk_), goes out, with five or six of his men, charges the enemy and drives them out with blow upon blow. He cut off a few heads and sent to me. Though such a careless lying down was bad leadership, yet, with so few, just by force of drubbing, to chase off such a mass of men in mail was very brave indeed.

Meantime The Khāns were busy with the siege of Andijān but the garrison would not let them get near it. The Andijān braves used to make sallies and blows would be exchanged.

(_j. Bābur invited into Akhsī._)

Shaikh Bāyazīd now began to send persons to us from Akhsī to testify to well-wishing and pressingly invite us to Akhsī. His object was to separate me from The Khāns, by any artifice, because without me, they had no standing-ground. [Sidenote: Fol. 110b] His invitation may have been given after agreeing with his elder brother, Taṃbal that if I were separated from The Khāns, it might be possible, in my presence, to come to some arrangement with them. We gave The Khāns a hint of the invitation. They said, 'Go! and by whatever means, lay hands on Shaikh Bāyazīd.' It was not my habit to cheat and play false; here above all places, when promises would have been made, how was I to break them? It occurred to me however, that if we could get into Akhsī, we might be able, by using all available means, to detach Shaikh Bāyazīd from Taṃbal, when he might take my side or something might turn up to favour my fortunes. We, in our turn, sent a man to him; compact was made, he invited us into Akhsī and when we went, came out to meet us, bringing my younger brother, Nāṣir Mīrzā with him. Then he took us into the town, gave us ground to camp in (_yūrt_) and to me one of my father's houses in the outer fort[654] where I dismounted.

(_k. Taṃbal asks help of Shaibāq Khān._)

Taṃbal had sent his elder brother, Beg Tīlba, to Shaibāq Khān with proffer of service and invitation to enter Farghāna. At this very time Shaibāq Khān's answer arrived; 'I will come,' he wrote. On hearing this, The Khāns were all upset; they could sit no longer before Andijān and rose from before it.

The Younger Khān himself had a reputation for justice and orthodoxy, but his Mughūls, stationed, contrary to the expectations of the towns-people, in Aūsh, Marghīnān and other places,—places that had come in to me,—began to behave ill [Sidenote: Fol. 111.] and oppressively. When The Khāns had broken up from before Andijān, the Aūshīs and Marghīnānīs, rising in tumult, seized the Mughūls in their forts, plundered and beat them, drove them out and pursued them.

The Khāns did not cross the Khujand-water (for the Kīndīrlīk-pass) but left the country by way of Marghīnān and Kand-i-badām and crossed it at Khujand, Taṃbal pursuing them as far as Marghīnān. We had had much uncertainty; we had not had much confidence in their making any stand, yet for us to go away, without clear reason, and leave them, would not have looked well.

(_l. Bābur attempts to defend Akhsī._)

Early one morning, when I was in the Hot-bath, Jahāngīr Mīrzā came into Akhsī, from Marghīnān, a fugitive from Taṃbal. We saw one another, Shaikh Bāyazīd also being present, agitated and afraid. The Mīrzā and Ibrāhīm Beg said, 'Shaikh Bāyazīd must be made prisoner and we must get the citadel into our hands.' In good sooth, the proposal was wise. Said I, 'Promise has been made; how can we break it?' Shaikh Bāyazīd went into the citadel. Men ought to have been posted on the bridge; not even there did we post any-one! These blunders were the fruit of inexperience. At the top of the morning came Taṃbal himself with 2 or 3000 men in mail, crossed the bridge and went into the citadel. To begin with I had had rather few men; when I first went into Akhsī some had been sent to other forts and some had been made commandants and summoners all round. Left with me in Akhsī may have been something over 100 men. We [Sidenote: Fol. 111b.] had got to horse with these and were posting braves at the top of one lane after another and making ready for the fight, when Shaikh Bāyazīd and Qaṃbar-`alī (the Skinner), and Muḥammad-dost[655] came gallopping from Taṃbal with talk of peace.

After posting those told off for the fight, each in his appointed place, I dismounted at my father's tomb for a conference, in which I invited Jahāngīr Mīrzā to join. Muḥammad-dost went back to Taṃbal but Qaṃbar-`alī and Shaikh Bāyazīd were present. We sat in the south porch of the tomb and were in consultation when the Mīrzā, who must have settled beforehand with Ibrāhīm _Chāpūk_ to lay hands on those other two, said in my ear, 'They must be made prisoner.' Said I, 'Don't hurry! matters are past making prisoners. See here! with terms made, the affair might be coaxed into something. For why? Not only are they many and we few, but they with their strength are in the citadel, we with our weakness, in the outer fort.' Shaikh Bāyazīd and Qaṃbar-`alī both being present, Jahāngīr Mīrzā looked at Ibrāhīm Beg and made him a sign to refrain. Whether he misunderstood to the contrary or whether he pretended to misunderstand, is not known; suddenly he did the ill-deed of seizing Shaikh Bāyazīd. Braves [Sidenote: Fol. 112.] closing in from all sides, flung those two to the ground. Through this the affair was taken past adjustment; we gave them into charge and got to horse for the coming fight.

One side of the town was put into Jahāngīr Mīrzā's charge; as his men were few, I told off some of mine to reinforce him. I went first to his side and posted men for the fight, then to other parts of the town. There is a somewhat level, open space in the middle of Akhsī; I had posted a party of braves there and gone on when a large body of the enemy, mounted and on foot, bore down upon them, drove them from their post and forced them into a narrow lane. Just then I came up (the lane), gallopped my horse at them, and scattered them in flight. While I was thus driving them out from the lane into the flat, and had got my sword to work, they shot my horse in the leg; it stumbled and threw me there amongst them. I got up quickly and shot one arrow off. My squire, Kahil (lazy) had a weakly pony; he got off and led it to me. Mounting this, I started for another lane-head. Sl. Muḥ. Wais noticed the weakness of my mount, dismounted and led me his own. I mounted that horse. Just then, Qāsim Beg's son, Qaṃbar-`alī came, wounded, from Jahāngīr Mīrzā and said the Mīrzā had [Sidenote: Fol. 112b.] been attacked some time before, driven off in panic, and had gone right away. We were thunderstruck! At the same moment arrived Sayyid Qāsim, the commandant of Pāp! His was a most unseasonable visit, since at such a crisis it was well to have such a strong fort in our hands. Said I to Ibrāhīm Beg, 'What's to be done now?' He was slightly wounded; whether because of this or because of stupefaction, he could give no useful answer. My idea was to get across the bridge, destroy it and make for Andijān. Bābā Sher-zād did very well here. 'We will storm out at the gate and get away at once,' he said. At his word, we set off for the Gate. Khwāja Mīr Mīrān also spoke boldly at that crisis. In one of the lanes, Sayyid Qāsim and Nāṣir's Dost chopped away at Bāqī Khīz,[656] I being in front with Ibrāhīm Beg and Mīrzā Qulī _Kūkūldāsh_.

As we came opposite the Gate, we saw Shaikh Bāyazīd, wearing his pull-over shirt[657] above his vest, coming in with three or four horsemen. He must have been put into the charge of Jahāngīr's men in the morning when, against my will, he was made prisoner, and they must have carried him off when they got away. They had thought it would be well to kill him; they set him free alive. He had been released just when I chanced upon him in the Gate. I drew and shot off the arrow on my thumb; it grazed his neck, a good shot! He came confusedly in at the Gate, turned to the right and fled down a lane. We followed him instantly. Mīrzā Qulī _Kūkūldāsh_ got at one man with his rugged-mace and went on. Another man took [Sidenote: Fol. 113.] aim at Ibrāhīm Beg, but when the Beg shouted 'Hāī! Hāī!' let him pass and shot me in the arm-pit, from as near as a man on guard at a Gate. Two plates of my Qālmāq mail were cut; he took to flight and I shot after him. Next I shot at a man running away along the ramparts, adjusting for his cap against the battlements; he left his cap nailed on the wall and went off, gathering his turban-sash together in his hand. Then again,—a man was in flight alongside me in the lane down which Shaikh Bāyazīd had gone. I pricked the back of his head with my sword; he bent over from his horse till he leaned against the wall of the lane, but he kept his seat and with some trouble, made good his flight. When we had driven all the enemy's men from the Gate, we took possession of it but the affair was past discussion because they, in the citadel, were 2000 or 3000, we, in the outer fort, 100 or 200. Moreover they had chased off Jahāngīr Mīrzā, as long before as it takes milk to boil, and with him had gone half my men. This notwithstanding, we sent a man, while we were in the Gate, to say to him, 'If you are near at hand, come, let us attack again.' But the matter had gone past that! Ibrāhīm Beg, either because his horse was really weak or because of his wound, said, 'My horse is done.' On this, Sulaimān, one of Muḥ. `Alī's _Mubashir's_ servants, did a plucky thing, for with matters [Sidenote: Fol. 113b.] as they were and none constraining him, while we were waiting in the Gate, he dismounted and gave his horse to Ibrāhīm Beg. Kīchīk (little) `Alī, now the Governor of Koel,[658] also shewed courage while we were in the Gate; he was a retainer of Sl. Muḥ. Wais and twice did well, here and in Aūsh. We delayed in the Gate till those sent to Jahāngīr Mīrzā came back and said he had gone off long before. It was too late to stay there; off we flung; it was ill-judged to have stayed as long as we did. Twenty or thirty men were with me. Just as we hustled out of the Gate, a number of armed men[659] came right down upon us, reaching the town-side of the drawbridge just as we had crossed. Banda-`alī, the maternal grandfather of Qāsim Beg's son, Ḥamza, called out to Ibrāhīm Beg, 'You are always boasting of your zeal! Let's take to our swords!' 'What hinders? Come along!' said Ibrāhīm Beg, from beside me. The senseless fellows were for displaying their zeal at a time of such disaster! Ill-timed zeal! That was no time to make stand or delay! We went off quickly, the enemy following and unhorsing our men.

(_m. Bābur a fugitive before Taṃbal's men._)

When we were passing Meadow-dome (Guṃbaz-i-chaman), two miles out of Akhsī, Ibrāhīm Beg called out to me. Looking [Sidenote: Fol. 114.] back, I saw a page of Shaikh Bāyazīd's striking at him and turned rein, but Bayān-qulī's Khān-qulī, said at my side, 'This is a bad time for going back,' seized my rein and pushed ahead. Many of our men had been unhorsed before we reached Sang, 4 miles (2 _shar`ī_) out of Akhsī.[660] Seeing no pursuers at Sang, we passed it by and turned straight up its water. In this position of our affairs there were eight men of us;—Nāṣir's Dost, Qāsim Beg's Qaṃbar-`alī, Bayān-qulī's Khān-qulī, Mīrzā Qulī _Kūkūldāsh_, Nāṣir's Shāham, Sayyidī Qarā's `Abdu'l-qadūs, Khwāja Ḥusainī and myself, the eighth. Turning up the stream, we found, in the broad valley, a good little road, far from the beaten track. We made straight up the valley, leaving the stream on the right, reached its waterless part and, near the Afternoon Prayer, got up out of it to level land. When we looked across the plain, we saw a blackness on it, far away. I made my party take cover and myself had gone to look out from higher ground, when a number of men came at a gallop up the hill behind us. Without waiting to know whether they were many or few, we mounted and rode off. There were 20 or 25; we, as has been said, were eight. If we had known their number at first, we should have made a good stand against them but we thought they would not be pursuing us, unless they had good support behind. A [Sidenote: Fol. 114b.] fleeing foe, even if he be many, cannot face a few pursuers, for as the saying is, '_Hāī_ is enough for the beaten ranks.'[661]

Khān-qulī said, 'This will never do! They will take us all. From amongst the horses there are, you take two good ones and go quickly on with Mīrzā Qulī _Kūkūldāsh_, each with a led horse. May-be you will get away.' He did not speak ill; as there was no fighting to hand, there was a chance of safety in doing as he said, but it really would not have looked well to leave any man alone, without a horse, amongst his foes. In the end they all dropped off, one by one, of themselves. My horse was a little tired; Khān-qulī dismounted and gave me his; I jumped off at once and mounted his, he mine. Just then they unhorsed Sayyidī Qarā's `Abdu'l-qadūs and Nāṣir's Shāham who had fallen behind. Khān-qulī also was left. It was no time to profer help or defence; on it was gone, at the full speed of our mounts. The horses began to flag; Dost Beg's failed and stopped. Mine began to tire; Qaṃbar-`alī got off and gave me his; I mounted his, he mine. He was left. Khwāja Ḥusainī was a lame man; he turned aside to the higher ground. I was left with Mīrzā Qulī _Kūkūldāsh_. Our [Sidenote: Fol. 115.] horses could not possibly gallop, they trotted. His began to flag. Said I, 'What will become of me, if you fall behind? Come along! let's live or die together.' Several times I looked back at him; at last he said, 'My horse is done! It can't go on. Never mind me! You go on, perhaps you will get away.' It was a miserable position for me; he remained behind, I was alone.

Two of the enemy were in sight, one Bābā of Sairām, the other Banda-`alī. They gained on me; my horse was done; the mountains were still 2 miles (1 _kuroh_) off. A pile of rock was in my path. Thought I to myself, 'My horse is worn out and the hills are still somewhat far away; which way should I go? In my quiver are at least 20 arrows; should I dismount and shoot them off from this pile of rock?' Then again, I thought I might reach the hills and once there, stick a few arrows in my belt and scramble up. I had a good deal of confidence in my feet and went on, with this plan in mind. My horse could not possibly trot; the two men came within arrow's reach. [Sidenote: Fol. 115b.] For my own sake sparing my arrows, I did not shoot; they, out of caution, came no nearer. By sunset I was near the hills. Suddenly they called out, 'Where are you going in this fashion? Jahāngīr Mīrzā has been brought in a prisoner; Nāṣir Mīrzā also is in their hands.' I made no reply and went on towards the hills. When a good distance further had been gone, they spoke again, this time more respectfully, dismounting to speak. I gave no ear to them but went on up a glen till, at the Bed-time prayer, I reached a rock as big as a house. Going behind it, I saw there were places to be jumped, where no horse could go. They dismounted again and began to speak like servants and courteously. Said they, 'Where are you going in this fashion, without a road and in the dark? Sl. Aḥmad Taṃbal will make you _pādshāh_.' They swore this. Said I, 'My mind is not easy as to that. I cannot go to him. [Sidenote: Fol. 116.] If you think to do me timely service, years may pass before you have such another chance. Guide me to a road by which I can go to The Khān's presence. If you will do this, I will shew you favour and kindness greater than your heart's-desire. If you will not do it, go back the way you came; that also would be to serve me well.' Said they, 'Would to God we had never come! But since we are here, after following you in the way we have done, how can we go back from you? If you will not go with us, we are at your service, wherever you go.' Said I, 'Swear that you speak the truth.' They, for their part, made solemn oath upon the Holy Book.

I at once confided in them and said, 'People have shewn me a road through a broad valley, somewhere near this glen; take me to it.' Spite of their oath, my trust in them was not so complete but that I gave them the lead and followed. After 2 to 4 miles (1-2 _kuroh_), we came to the bed of a torrent. 'This will not be the road for the broad valley,' I said. They drew back, saying, 'That road is a long way ahead,' but it really must have been the one we were on and they have been concealing the fact, in order to deceive me. About half through the night, we reached another stream. This time they said, 'We have been negligent; it now seems to us that the road through the broad valley is behind.' Said I, 'What is to be done?' Said they, 'The Ghawā road is certainly in front; by it people cross for Far-kat.[662] They guided me for that and we went on till in [Sidenote: Fol. 116b.] the third watch of the night we reached the Karnān gully which comes down from Ghawā. Here Bābā Sairāmī said, 'Stay here a little while I look along the Ghawā road.' He came back after a time and said, 'Some men have gone along that road, led by one wearing a Mughūl cap; there is no going that way.' I took alarm at these words. There I was, at dawn, in the middle of the cultivated land, far from the road I wanted to take. Said I, 'Guide me to where I can hide today, and tonight when you will have laid hands on something for the horses, lead me to cross the Khujand-water and along its further bank.' Said they, 'Over there, on the upland, there might be hiding.'

Banda-`alī was Commandant in Karnān. 'There is no doing without food for ourselves or our horses;' he said, 'let me go into Karnān and bring what I can find.' We stopped 2 miles (1 _kuroh_) out of Karnān; he went on. He was a long time away; near dawn there was no sign of him. The day had shot when he hurried up, bringing three loaves of bread but no corn for the horses. Each of us putting a loaf into the breast of his tunic, we went quickly up the rise, tethered our horses there in the open valley and went to higher ground, each to keep watch.

[Sidenote: Fol. 117.] Near mid-day, Aḥmad the Falconer went along the Ghawā road for Akhsī. I thought of calling to him and of saying, with promise and fair word, 'You take those horses,' for they had had a day and a night's strain and struggle, without corn, and were utterly done. But then again, we were a little uneasy as we did not entirely trust him. We decided that, as the men Bābā Sairāmī had seen on the road would be in Karnān that night, the two with me should fetch one of their horses for each of us, and that then we should go each his own way.

At mid-day, a something glittering was seen on a horse, as far away as eye can reach. We were not able to make out at all what it was. It must have been Muḥ. Bāqir Beg himself; he had been with us in Akhsī and when we got out and scattered, he must have come this way and have been moving then to a hiding-place.[663]

Banda-`alī and Bābā Sairāmī said, 'The horses have had no corn for two days and two nights; let us go down into the dale and put them there to graze.' Accordingly we rode down and put them to the grass. At the Afternoon Prayer, a horseman passed along the rising-ground where we had been. We recognized him for Qādīr-bīrdī, the head-man of Ghawā. 'Call him,' I said. They called; he came. After questioning him, and speaking to him of favour and kindness, and giving him promise and fair word, I sent him to bring rope, and a grass-hook, and an axe, and material for crossing water,[664] and corn [Sidenote: Fol. 117b.] for the horses, and food and, if it were possible, other horses. We made tryst with him for that same spot at the Bed-time Prayer.

Near the Evening Prayer, a horseman passed from the direction of Karnān for Ghawā. 'Who are you?' we asked. He made some reply. He must have been Muḥ. Bāqir Beg himself, on his way from where we had seen him earlier, going at night-fall to some other hiding-place, but he so changed his voice that, though he had been years with me, I did not know it. It would have been well if I had recognized him and he had joined me. His passing caused much anxiety and alarm; tryst could not be kept with Qādīr-bīrdī of Ghawā. Banda-`alī said, 'There are retired gardens in the suburbs of Karnān where no one will suspect us of being; let us go there and send to Qādīr-bīrdī and have him brought there.' With this idea, we mounted and went to the Karnān suburbs. It was winter and very cold. They found a worn, coarse sheepskin coat and brought it to me; I put it on. They brought me a bowl of millet-porridge; I ate it and was wonderfully refreshed. 'Have you sent off the man to Qādīr-bīrdī?' said I to Banda-`alī. 'I have sent,' he said. But those luckless, clownish mannikins seem to have agreed together to send the man to Taṃbal in Akhsī!

We went into a house and for awhile my eyes closed in sleep. Those mannikins artfully said to me, 'You must not bestir yourself to leave Karnān till there is news of Qādīr-bīrdī but this house is right amongst the suburbs; on the outskirts the orchards are empty; no-one will suspect if we go [Sidenote: Fol. 118.] there.' Accordingly we mounted at mid-night and went to a distant orchard. Bābā Sairāmī kept watch from the roof of a house. Near mid-day he came down and said, 'Commandant Yūsuf is coming.' Great fear fell upon me! 'Find out,' I said, 'whether he comes because he knows about me.' He went and after some exchange of words, came back and said, 'He says he met a foot-soldier in the Gate of Akhsī who said to him, "The pādshāh is in such a place," that he told no-one, put the man with Walī the Treasurer whom he had made prisoner in the fight, and then gallopped off here.' Said I, 'How does it strike you?' 'They are all your servants,' he said, 'you must go. What else can you do? They will make you their ruler.' Said I, 'After such rebellion and fighting, with what confidence could I go?' We were saying this, when Yūsuf knelt before me, saying, 'Why should it be hidden? Sl. Aḥmad Taṃbal has no news of you, but Shaikh Bāyazīd has and he sent me here.' On hearing this, my state of mind was miserable indeed, for well is it understood that nothing in the world is worse than fear for one's life. 'Tell the truth!' I said, 'if the affair is likely to go on to worse, I will make [Sidenote: Fol. 118b.] ablution.' Yūsuf swore oaths, but who would trust them? I knew the helplessness of my position. I rose and went to a corner of the garden, saying to myself, 'If a man live a hundred years or a thousand years, at the last nothing ...'[665]

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.

Friends are likely to have rescued Bābur from his dangerous isolation. His presence in Karnān was known both in Ghawā and in Akhsī; Muḥ. Bāqir Beg was at hand (f. 117); some of those he had dropped in his flight would follow him when their horses had had rest; Jahāngīr was somewhere north of the river with the half of Bābur's former force (f. 112); The Khāns, with their long-extended line of march, may have been on the main road through or near Karnān. If Yūsuf took Bābur as a prisoner along the Akhsī road, there were these various chances of his meeting friends.

His danger was evaded; he joined his uncles and was with them, leading 1000 men (Sh. N. p. 268), when they were defeated at Archīān just before or in the season of Cancer, _i.e._ _circa_ June (T. R. p. 164). What he was doing between the winter cold of Karnān (f. 117b) and June might have been known from his lost pages. Muḥ. Ṣāliḥ writes at length of one affair falling within the time,—Jahāngīr's occupation of Khujand, its siege and its capture by Shaibānī. This capture will have occurred considerably more than a month before the defeat of The Khāns (Sh. N. p. 230).

It is not easy to decide in what month of 908 AH. they went into Farghāna or how long their campaign lasted. Bābur chronicles a series of occurrences, previous to the march of the army, which must have filled some time. The road over the Kīndīrlīk-pass was taken, one closed in Bābur's time (f. 1b) though now open through the winter. Looking at the rapidity of his own movements in Farghāna, it seems likely that the pass was crossed after and not before its closed time. If so, the campaign may have covered 4 or 5 months. Muḥ. Ṣāliḥ's account of Shaibāq's operations strengthens this view. News that Aḥmad had joined Maḥmūd in Tāshkīnt (f. 102) went to Shaibānī in Khusrau Shāh's territories; he saw his interests in Samarkand threatened by this combination of the Chaghatāī brothers to restore Bābur in Farghāna, came north therefore in order to help Taṃbal. He then waited a month in Samarkand (Sh. N. p. 230), besieged Jahāngīr, went back and stayed in Samarkand long enough to give his retainers time to equip for a year's campaigning (l. c. p. 244) then went to Akhsī and so to Archīān.

Bābur's statement (f. 110b) that The Khāns went from Andijān to the Khujand-crossing over the Sīr attracts attention because this they might have done if they had meant to leave Farghāna by Mīrzā-rabāṯ but they are next heard of as at Akhsī. Why did they make that great détour? Why not have crossed opposite Akhsī or at Sang? Or if they had thought of retiring, what turned them east again? Did they place Jahāngīr in Khujand? Bābur's missing pages would have answered these questions no doubt. It was useful for them to encamp where they did, east of Akhsī, because they there had near them a road by which reinforcement could come from Kāshghar or retreat be made. The Akhsī people told Shaibānī that he could easily overcome The Khāns if he went without warning, and if they had not withdrawn by the Kulja road (Sh. N. p. 262). By that road the few men who went with Aḥmad to Tāshkīnt (f. 103) may have been augmented to the force, enumerated as his in the battle by Muḥ. Ṣāliḥ (Sh. N. cap. LIII.).

When The Khāns were captured, Bābur escaped and made 'for Mughūlistān,' a vague direction seeming here to mean Tāshkīnt, but, finding his road blocked, in obedience to orders from Shaibāq that he and Abū'l-makāram were to be captured, he turned back and, by unfrequented ways, went into the hill-country of Sūkh and Hushīār. There he spent about a year in great misery (f. 14 and Ḥ. S. ii, 318). Of the wretchedness of the time Ḥaidar also writes. If anything was attempted in Farghāna in the course of those months, record of it has been lost with Bābur's missing pages. He was not only homeless and poor, but shut in by enemies. Only the loyalty or kindness of the hill-tribes can have saved him and his few followers. His mother was with him; so also were the families of his men. How Qūtlūq-nigār contrived to join him from Tāshkīnt, though historically a small matter, is one he would chronicle. What had happened there after the Mughūl defeat, was that the horde had marched away for Kāshghar while Shāh Begīm remained in charge of her daughters with whom the Aūzbeg chiefs intended to contract alliance. Shaibānī's orders for her stay and for the general exodus were communicated to her by her son, The Khān, in what Muḥ. Ṣāliḥ, quoting its purport, describes as a right beautiful letter (p. 296).

By some means Qūtlūq-nigār joined Bābur, perhaps helped by the circumstance that her daughter, Khān-zāda was Shaibāq's wife. She spent at least some part of those hard months with him, when his fortunes were at their lowest ebb. A move becoming imperative, the ragged and destitute company started in mid-June 1504 (Muḥ. 910 AH.) on that perilous mountain journey to which Ḥaidar applies the Prophet's dictum, 'Travel is a foretaste of Hell,' but of which the end was the establishment of a Tīmūrid dynasty in Hindūstān. To look down the years from the destitute Bābur to Akbar, Shāh-jahān and Aurangzīb is to see a great stream of human life flow from its source in his resolve to win upward, his quenchless courage and his abounding vitality. Not yet 22, the sport of older men's intrigues, he had been tempered by failure, privation and dangers.

He left Sūkh intending to go to Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā in Khurāsān but he changed this plan for one taking him to Kābul where a Tīmūrid might claim to dispossess the Arghūns, then holding it since the death, in 907 AH. of his uncle, Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā _Kābulī_.

THE MEMOIRS OF BABUR

SECTION II. KĀBUL[666]

910 AH.-JUNE 14TH 1504 TO JUNE 4TH 1505 AD.[667]

(_a. Bābur leaves Farghāna._)

In the month of Muḥarram, after leaving the Farghāna country [Sidenote: Ḥaidarābād MS. Fol. 120.] intending to go to Khurāsān, I dismounted at Aīlāk-yīlāq,[668] one of the summer pastures of Ḥiṣār. In this camp I entered my 23rd year, and applied the razor to my face.[669] Those who, hoping in me, went with me into exile, were, small and great, between 2 and 300; they were almost all on foot, had walking-staves in their hands, brogues[670] on their feet, and long coats[671] on their shoulders. So destitute were we that we had but two tents (_chādar_) amongst us; my own used to be pitched for my mother, and they set an _ālāchūq_ at each stage for me to sit in.[672]

Though we had started with the intention of going into Khurāsān, yet with things as they were[673] something was hoped for from the Ḥiṣār country and Khusrau Shāh's retainers. Every few days some-one would come in from the country or a tribe or the (Mughūl) horde, whose words made it probable that we had growing ground for hope. Just then Mullā Bābā of Pashāghar came back, who had been our envoy to Khusrau Shāh; from Khusrau Shāh he brought nothing likely to please, but he did from the tribes and the horde.

[Sidenote: Fol. 120b.] Three or four marches beyond Aīlāk, when halt was made at a place near Ḥiṣār called Khwāja `Imād, Muḥibb-`alī, the Armourer, came to me from Khusrau Shāh. Through Khusrau Shāh's territories I have twice happened to pass;[674] renowned though he was for kindness and liberality, he neither time showed me the humanity he had shown to the meanest of men.

As we were hoping something from the country and the tribes, we made delay at every stage. At this critical point Sherīm T̤aghāī, than whom no man of mine was greater, thought of leaving me because he was not keen to go into Khurāsān. He had sent all his family off and stayed himself unencumbered, when after the defeat at Sar-i-pul (906 AH.) I went back to defend Samarkand; he was a bit of a coward and he did this sort of thing several times over.

(_b. Bābur joined by one of Khusrau Shāh's kinsmen._)

After we reached Qabādīān, a younger brother of Khusrau Shāh, Bāqī _Chaghānīānī_, whose holdings were Chaghānīān,[675] Shahr-i-ṣafā and Tīrmīẕ, sent the _khatīb_[676] of Qarshī to me to express his good wishes and his desire for alliance, and, after we had crossed the Amū at the Aūbāj-ferry, he came himself to wait on me. By his wish we moved down the river to opposite Tīrmīẕ, where, without fear [or, without going over himself],[677] he had their families[678] and their goods brought across to join us. This done, we set out together for Kāhmard and Bāmīān, then held by his son[679] Aḥmad-i-qāsim, the son of Khusrau Shāh's sister. Our plan was to leave the households (_awī-aīl_) safe in Fort Ajar of the Kāhmard-valley and to take action wherever [Sidenote: Fol. 121.] action might seem well. At Aībak, Yār-`alī Balāl,[680] who had fled from Khusrau Shāh, joined us with several braves; he had been with me before, and had made good use of his sword several times in my presence, but was parted from me in the recent throneless times[681] and had gone to Khusrau Shāh. He represented to me that the Mughūls in Khusrau Shāh's service wished me well. Moreover, Qaṃbar-`alī Beg, known also as Qaṃbar-`alī _Silākh_ (Skinner), fled to me after we reached the Zindān-valley.[682]

(_c. Occurrences in Kākmard._)

We reached Kāhmard with three or four marches and deposited our households and families in Ajar. While we stayed there, Jahāngīr Mīrzā married (Aī Begīm) the daughter of Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā and Khān-zāda Begīm, who had been set aside for him during the lifetime of the Mīrzās.[683]

Meantime Bāqī Beg urged it upon me, again and again, that two rulers in one country, or two chiefs in one army are a source of faction and disorder—a foundation of dissension and ruin. "For they have said, 'Ten darwīshes can sleep under one blanket, but two kings cannot find room in one clime.'

If a man of God eat half a loaf, He gives the other to a darwīsh; Let a king grip the rule of a clime, He dreams of another to grip."[684]

Bāqī Beg urged further that Khusrau Shāah's retainers and followers would be coming in that day or the next to take service with the Pādshāh (_i.e._ Bābur); that there were such [Sidenote: Fol. 121b.] sedition-mongers with them as the sons of Ayūb _Begchīk_, besides other who had been the stirrers and spurs to disloyalty amongst their Mīrzās,[685] and that if, at this point, Jahāngīr Mīrzā were dismissed, on good and friendly terms, for Khurāsān, it would remove a source of later repentance. Urge it as he would, however, I did not accept his suggestion, because it is against my nature to do an injury to my brethren, older or younger,[686] or to any kinsman soever, even when something untoward has happened. Though formerly between Jahāngīr Mīrzā and me, resentments and recriminations had occurred about our rule and retainers, yet there was nothing whatever then to arouse anger against him; he had come out of that country (_i.e._ Farghāna) with me and was behaving like a blood-relation and a servant. But in the end it was just as Bāqī Beg predicted;—those tempters to disloyalty, that is to say, Ayūb's Yūsuf and Ayūb's Bihlūl, left me for Jahāngīr Mīrzā, took up a hostile and mutinous position, parted him from me, and conveyed him into Khurāsān.

(_d. Co-operation invited against Shaibāq Khān._)

In those days came letters from Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā, long and far-fetched letters which are still in my possession and in that [Sidenote: Fol. 122.] of others, written to Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā, myself, Khusrau Shāh and Ẕū'n-nūn Beg, all to the same purport, as follows:—"When the three brothers, Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā, Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā, and Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā, joined together and advanced against me, I defended the bank of the Murgh-āb[687] in such a way that they retired without being able to effect anything. Now if the Aūzbegs advance, I might myself guard the bank of the Murgh-āb again; let Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā leave men to defend the forts of Balkh, Shibarghān, and Andikhūd while he himself guards Girzawān, the Zang-valley, and the hill-country thereabouts." As he had heard of my being in those parts, he wrote to me also, "Do you make fast Kāhmard, Ajar, and that hill-tract; let Khusrau Shāh place trusty men in Ḥiṣār and Qūndūz; let his younger brother Walī make fast Badakhshān and the Khutlān hills; then the Aūzbeg will retire, able to do nothing."

These letters threw us into despair;—for why? Because at that time there was in Tīmūr Beg's territory (_yūrt_) no ruler so great as Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā, whether by his years, armed strength, or dominions; it was to be expected, therefore, that envoys would go, treading on each other's heels, with clear and sharp orders, such as, "Arrange for so many boats at the Tīrmīz, [Sidenote: Fol. 122b.] Kilīf, and Kīrkī ferries," "Get any quantity of bridge material together," and "Well watch the ferries above Tūqūz-aūlūm,"[688] so that men whose spirit years of Aūzbeg oppression had broken, might be cheered to hope again.[689] But how could hope live in tribe or horde when a great ruler like Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā, sitting in the place of Tīmūr Beg, spoke, not of marching forth to meet the enemy, but only of defence against his attack?

When we had deposited in Ajar what had come with us of hungry train (_aj aūrūq_) and household (_awī-aīl_), together with the families of Bāqī Beg, his son, Muḥ. Qāsim, his soldiers and his tribesmen, with all their goods, we moved out with our men.

(_e. Increase of Bābur's following._)

One man after another came in from Khusrau Shāh's Mughūls and said, "We of the Mughūl horde, desiring the royal welfare, have drawn off from T̤āīkhān (T̤ālīkān) towards Ishkīmīsh and Fūlūl. Let the Pādshāh advance as fast as possible, for the greater part of Khusrau Shāh's force has broken up and is ready to take service with him." Just then news arrived that Shaibāq Khān, after taking Andijān,[690] was getting to horse again against Ḥiṣār and Qūndūz. On hearing [Sidenote: Fol. 123.] this, Khusrau Shāh, unable to stay in Qūndūz, marched out with all the men he had, and took the road for Kābul. No sooner had he left than his old servant, the able and trusted Mullā Muḥammad _Turkistānī_ made Qūndūz fast for Shaibāq Khān.

Three or four thousand heads-of-houses in the Mughūl horde, former dependants of Khusrau Shāh, brought their families and joined us when, going by way of Sham-tū, we were near the Qīzīl-sū.[691]

(_f. Qaṃbar-`alī, the Skinner, dismissed._)

Qaṃbar-`alī Beg's foolish talk has been mentioned several times already; his manners were displeasing to Bāqī Beg; to gratify Bāqī Beg, he was dismissed. Thereafter his son, `Abdu'l-shukūr, was in Jahāngīr Mīrzā's service.

(_g. Khusrau Shāh waits on Bābur._)

Khusrau Shāh was much upset when he heard that the Mughūl horde had joined me; seeing nothing better to do for himself, he sent his son-in-law, Ayūb's Yaq`ūb, to make profession of well-wishing and submission to me, and respectfully to represent that he would enter my service if I would make terms and compact with him. His offer was accepted, because Bāqī _Chaghānīānī_ was a man of weight, and, however steady in his favourable disposition to me, did not overlook his brother's side in this matter. Compact was made that Khusrau Shāh's life should be safe, and that whatever amount of his goods he selected, should not be refused him. After giving Yaq`ūb leave to go, we marched down the Qīzīl-sū and dismounted near to where it joins the water of Andar-āb. [Sidenote: Fol. 123b.]

Next day, one in the middle of the First Rabī` (end of August, 1504 AD.), riding light, I crossed the Andar-āb water and took my seat under a large plane-tree near Dūshī, and thither came Khusrau Shāh, in pomp and splendour, with a great company of men. According to rule and custom, he dismounted some way off and then made his approach. Three times he knelt when we saw one another, three times also on taking leave; he knelt once when asking after my welfare, once again when he offered his tribute, and he did the same with Jahāngīr Mīrzā and with Mīrzā Khān (Wais). That sluggish old mannikin who through so many years had just pleased himself, lacking of sovereignty one thing only, namely, to read the _Khuṯba_ in his own name, now knelt 25 or 26 times in succession, and came and went till he was so wearied out that he tottered forward. His many years of begship and authority vanished from his view. When we had seen one another and he had offered his gift, I desired him to be seated. We stayed in that place for one or two _garīs_,[692] exchanging tale and talk. His conversation was vapid and empty, presumably because he was a coward and false to his salt. Two things he said were extraordinary for the time when, under his eyes, his trusty and trusted retainers were becoming mine, and when his affairs had reached the point that he, the sovereign-aping mannikin, had had to come, willy-nilly, abased and unhonoured, to what sort [Sidenote: Fol. 124.] of an interview! One of the things he said was this:—When condoled with for the desertion of his men, he replied, "Those very servants have four times left me and returned." The other was said when I had asked him where his brother Walī would cross the Amū and when he would arrive. "If he find a ford, he will soon be here, but when waters rise, fords change; the (Persian) proverb has it, 'The waters have carried down the fords.'" These words God brought to his tongue in that hour of the flowing away of his own authority and following!

After sitting a _garī_ or two, I mounted and rode back to camp, he for his part returning to his halting-place. On that day his begs, with their servants, great and small, good and bad, and tribe after tribe began to desert him and come, with their families, to me. Between the two Prayers of the next afternoon not a man remained in his presence.

"Say,—O God! who possessest the kingdom! Thou givest it to whom Thou wilt and Thou takest it from whom Thou wilt! In Thy hand is good, for Thou art almighty."[693]

Wonderful is His power! This man, once master of 20 or 30,000 retainers, once owning Sl. Maḥmūd's dominions from Qaḥlūgha,—known also as the Iron-gate,—to the range of [Sidenote: Fol. 124b.] Hindū-kush, whose old mannikin of a tax-gatherer, Ḥasan _Barlās_ by name, had made us march, had made us halt, with all the tax-gatherer's roughness, from Aīlāk to Aūbāj,[694] that man He so abased and so bereft of power that, with no blow struck, no sound made, he stood, without command over servants, goods, or life, in the presence of a band of 200 or 300 men, defeated and destitute as we were.

In the evening of the day on which we had seen Khusrau Shāh and gone back to camp, Mīrzā Khān came to my presence and demanded vengeance on him for the blood of his brothers.[695] Many of us were at one with him, for truly it is right, both by Law and common justice, that such men should get their desserts, but, as terms had been made, Khusrau Shāh was let go free. An order was given that he should be allowed to take whatever of his goods he could convey; accordingly he loaded up, on three or four strings of mules and camels, all jewels, gold, silver, and precious things he had, and took them with him.[696] Sherīm T̤aghāī was told off to escort him, who after setting Khusrau Shāh on his road for Khurāsān, by way of Ghūrī and Dahānah, was to go to Kāhmard and bring the families after us to Kābul.

(_h. Bābur marches for Kābul._)

Marching from that camp for Kābul, we dismounted in Khwāja Zaid.

On that day, Ḥamza Bī _Mangfīt_,[697] at the head of Aūzbeg raiders, was over-running round about Dūshī. Sayyid Qāsim, the Lord of the Gate, and Aḥmad-i-qāsim _Kohbur_ were sent [Sidenote: Fol. 125.] with several braves against him; they got up with him, beat his Aūzbegs well, cut off and brought in a few heads.

In this camp all the armour (_jība_) of Khusrau Shāh's armoury was shared out. There may have been as many as 7 or 800 coats-of-mail (_joshan_) and horse accoutrements (_kūhah_);[698] these were the one thing he left behind; many pieces of porcelain also fell into our hands, but, these excepted, there was nothing worth looking at.

With four or five marches we reached Ghūr-bund, and there dismounted in Ushtur-shahr. We got news there that Muqīm's chief beg, Sherak (var. Sherka) _Arghūn_, was lying along the Bārān, having led an army out, not through hearing of me, but to hinder `Abdu'r-razzāq Mīrzā from passing along the Panjhīr-road, he having fled from Kābul[699] and being then amongst the Tarkalānī Afghāns towards Lamghān. On hearing this we marched forward, starting in the afternoon and pressing on through the dark till, with the dawn, we surmounted the Hūpīān-pass.[700]

I had never seen Suhail;[701] when I came out of the pass I saw a star, bright and low. "May not that be Suhail?" said I. Said they, "It is Suhail." Bāqī _Chaghānīānī_ recited this couplet;—[702]

"How far dost thou shine, O Suhail, and where dost thou rise? A sign of good luck is thine eye to the man on whom it may light."

The Sun was a spear's-length high[703] when we reached the foot of the Sanjid (Jujube)-valley and dismounted. Our scouting [Sidenote: Fol. 125b.] braves fell in with Sherak below the Qarā-bāgh,[704] near Aīkarī-yār, and straightway got to grips with him. After a little of some sort of fighting, our men took the upper hand, hurried their adversaries off, unhorsed 70-80 serviceable braves and brought them in. We gave Sherak his life and he took service with us.

(_i. Death of Walī of Khusrau._)

The various clans and tribes whom Khusrau Shāh, without troubling himself about them, had left in Qūndūz, and also the Mughūl horde, were in five or six bodies (_būlāk_). One of those belonging to Badakhshān,—it was the Rūstā-hazāra,:—came, with Sayyidīm `Alī _darbān_,[705] across the Panjhīr-pass to this camp, did me obeisance and took service with me. Another body came under Ayūb's Yūsuf and Ayūb's Bihlūl; it also took service with me. Another came from Khutlān, under Khusrau Shāh's younger brother, Walī; another, consisting of the (Mughūl) tribesmen (_aīmāq_) who had been located in Yīlānchaq, Nikdiri (?), and the Qūndūz country, came also. The last-named two came by Andar-āb and Sar-i-āb,[706] meaning to cross by the Panjhīr-pass; at Sar-i-āb the tribesmen were ahead; Walī came up behind; they held the road, fought and beat him. He himself fled to the Aūzbegs,[707] and Shaibāq Khān had his head struck off in the Square (_Chār-sū_) of Samarkand; his followers, beaten and plundered, came on with the tribesmen, and like these, took service with me. With them came Sayyid [Sidenote: Fol. 126.] Yūsuf Beg (the Grey-wolfer).

(_j. Kābul gained._)

From that camp we marched to the Āq-sarāī meadow of the Qarā-bāgh and there dismounted. Khusrau Shāh's people were well practised in oppression and violence; they tyrannized over one after another till at last I had up one of Sayyidīm `Alī's good braves to my Gate[708] and there beaten for forcibly taking a jar of oil. There and then he just died under the blows; his example kept the rest down.

We took counsel in that camp whether or not to go at once against Kābul. Sayyid Yūsuf and some others thought that, as winter was near, our first move should be into Lamghān, from which place action could be taken as advantage offered. Bāqī Beg and some others saw it good to move on Kābul at once; this plan was adopted; we marched forward and dismounted in Ābā-qūrūq.

My mother and the belongings left behind in Kāhmard rejoined us at Ābā-qūrūq. They had been in great danger, the particulars of which are these:—Sherīm T̤aghāī had gone to set Khusrau Shāh on his way for Khurāsān, and this done, was to fetch the families from Kāhmard. When he reached Dahānah, he found he was not his own master; Khusrau Shāh went on with him into Kāhmard, where was his sister's son, Aḥmad-i-qāsim. These two took up an altogether wrong [Sidenote: Fol. 126b.] position towards the families in Kāhmard. Hereupon a number of Bāqī Beg's Mughūls, who were with the families, arranged secretly with Sherīm T̤aghāī to lay hands on Khusrau Shāh and Aḥmad-i-qāsim. The two heard of it, fled along the Kāhmard-valley on the Ajar side[709] and made for Khurāsān. To bring this about was really what Sherīm T̤aghāī and the Mughūls wanted. Set free from their fear of Khusrau Shāh by his flight, those in charge of the families got them out of Ajar, but when they reached Kāhmard, the Sāqānchī (var. Asīqanchī) tribe blocked the road, like an enemy, and plundered the families of most of Bāqī Beg's men.[710] They made prisoner Qul-i-bāyazīd's little son, Tīzak; he came into Kābul three or four years later. The plundered and unhappy families crossed by the Qībchāq-pass, as we had done, and they rejoined us in Ābā-qūrūq.

Leaving that camp we went, with one night's halt, to the Chālāk-meadow, and there dismounted. After counsel taken, it was decided to lay siege to Kābul, and we marched forward. With what men of the centre there were, I dismounted between Ḥaidar _Tāqī's_[711] garden and the tomb of Qul-i-bāyazīd, the Taster (_bakāwal_);[712] Jahāngīr Mīrzā, with the men of the right, [Sidenote: Fol. 127.] dismounted in my great Four-gardens (_Chār-bāgh_), Nāṣir Mīrzā, with the left, in the meadow of Qūtlūq-qadam's tomb. People of ours went repeatedly to confer with Muqīm; they sometimes brought excuses back, sometimes words making for agreement. His tactics were the sequel of his dispatch, directly after Sherak's defeat, of a courier to his father and elder brother (in Qandahār); he made delays because he was hoping in them.

One day our centre, right, and left were ordered to put on their mail and their horses' mail, to go close to the town, and to display their equipment so as to strike terror on those within. Jahāngīr Mīrzā and the right went straight forward by the Kūcha-bāgh;[713] I, with the centre, because there was water, went along the side of Qūtlūq-qadam's tomb to a mound facing the rising-ground;[714] the van collected above Qūtlūq-qadam's bridge,—at that time, however, there was no bridge. When the braves, showing themselves off, galloped close up to the Curriers'-gate,[715] a few who had come out through it fled in again without making any stand. A crowd of Kābulīs who had come out to see the sight raised a great dust when they ran away from the high slope of the glacis of the citadel (_i.e._ Bālā-ḥiṣār). A number of pits had been dug up the rise [Sidenote: Fol. 127b.] between the bridge and the gate, and hidden under sticks and rubbish; Sl. Qulī _Chūnāq_ and several others were thrown as they galloped over them. A few braves of the right exchanged sword-cuts with those who came out of the town, in amongst the lanes and gardens, but as there was no order to engage, having done so much, they retired.

Those in the fort becoming much perturbed, Muqīm made offer through the begs, to submit and surrender the town. Bāqī Beg his mediator, he came and waited on me, when all fear was chased from his mind by our entire kindness and favour. It was settled that next day he should march out with retainers and following, goods and effects, and should make the town over to us. Having in mind the good practice Khusrau Shāh's retainers had had in indiscipline and longhandedness, we appointed Jahāngīr Mīrzā and Nāṣir Mīrzā with the great and household begs, to escort Muqīm's family out of Kābul[716] and to bring out Muqīm himself with his various dependants, goods and effects. Camping-ground was assigned to him at Tīpa.[717] When the Mīrzās and the Begs went at dawn to the Gate, they saw much mobbing and tumult of the common people, so they sent me a man to say, "Unless you come yourself, there will be no holding these people in." In the end I got to horse, had two or three persons shot, two or three cut in pieces, and so stamped the rising down. Muqīm and his belongings then got out, safe and sound, [Sidenote: Fol. 128.] and they betook themselves to Tīpa.

It was in the last ten days of the Second Rabī` (Oct. 1504 AD.)[718] that without a fight, without an effort, by Almighty God's bounty and mercy, I obtained and made subject to me Kābul and Ghaznī and their dependent districts.

DESCRIPTION OF KĀBUL[719]

The Kābul country is situated in the Fourth climate and in the midst of cultivated lands.[720] On the east it has the Lamghānāt,[721] Parashāwar (Pashāwar), Hash(t)-nagar and some of the countries of Hindūstān. On the west it has the mountain region in which are Karnūd (?) and Ghūr, now the refuge and dwelling-places of the Hazāra and Nikdīrī (var. Nikudārī) tribes. On the north, separated from it by the range of Hindū-kush, it has the Qūndūz and Andar-āb countries. On the south, it has Farmūl, Naghr (var. Naghz), Bannū and Afghānistān.[722]

(_a. Town and environs of Kābul._)

The Kābul district itself is of small extent, has its greatest length from east to west, and is girt round by mountains. Its walled-town connects with one of these, rather a low one known as Shāh-of-Kābul because at some time a (Hindū) Shāh of Kābul built a residence on its summit.[723] Shāh-of-Kābul begins at the Dūrrīn narrows and ends at those of Dih-i-yaq`ūb[724]; it may be 4 miles (2 _shar`ī_) round; its skirt is covered with gardens fertilized from a canal which was brought along the hill-slope in the time of my paternal uncle, Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā by his guardian, Wais Atāka.[725] The water of this canal comes to an end in a retired corner, a quarter known as Kul-kīna[726] where much debauchery has gone on. About this place it [Sidenote: Fol. 128b.] sometimes used to be said, in jesting parody of Khwāja Ḥāfiẓ[727],—"Ah! the happy, thoughtless time when, with our names in ill-repute, we lived days of days at Kul-kīna!"

East of Shāh-of-Kabūl and south of the walled-town lies a large pool[728] about a 2 miles [_shar`ī_] round. From the town side of the mountain three smallish springs issue, two near Kul-kīna; Khwāja Shamū's[729] tomb is at the head of one; Khwāja Khiẓr's Qadam-gāh[730] at the head of another, and the third is at a place known as Khwāja Raushānāī, over against Khwāja `Abdu'ṣ-ṣamad. On a detached rock of a spur of Shāh-of-Kābul, known as `Uqābain,[731] stands the citadel of Kābul with the great walled-town at its north end, lying high in excellent air, and overlooking the large pool already mentioned, and also three meadows, namely, Siyāh-sang (Black-rock), Sūng-qūrghān (Fort-back), and Chālāk (Highwayman?),—a most beautiful outlook when the meadows are green. The north-wind does not fail Kābul in the heats; people call it the Parwān-wind[732]; it makes a delightful temperature in the windowed houses on the northern part of the citadel. In praise of the citadel of Kābul, Mullā Muḥammad _T̤ālib Mu`ammāī_ (the Riddler)[733]

[Sidenote: Fol. 129.] used to recite this couplet, composed on Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā's name:—

Drink wine in the castle of Kābul and send the cup round without pause; For Kābul is mountain, is river, is city, is lowland in one.[734]

(_b. Kābul as a trading-town._)

Just as `Arabs call every place outside `Arab (Arabia), `Ajam, so Hindūstānīs call every place outside Hindūstān, Khurāsān. There are two trade-marts on the land-route between Hindūstān and Khurāsān; one is Kābul, the other, Qandahār. To Kābul caravans come from Kāshghar,[735] Farghāna,Turkistān, Samarkand, Bukhārā, Balkh, Ḥiṣār and Badakhshān. To Qandahār they come from Khurāsān. Kābul is an excellent trading-centre; if merchants went to Khīta or to Rūm,[736] they might make no higher profit. Down to Kābul every year come 7, 8, or 10,000 horses and up to it, from Hindūstān, come every year caravans of 10, 15 or 20,000 heads-of-houses, bringing slaves (_barda_), white cloth, sugar-candy, refined and common sugars, and aromatic roots. Many a trader is not content with a profit of 30 or 40 on 10.[737] In Kābul can be had the products of Khurāsān, Rūm, `Irāq and Chīn (China); while it is Hindūstān's own market.

(_c. Products and climate of Kābul._)

In the country of Kābul, there are hot and cold districts close to one another. In one day, a man may go out of the town of Kābul to where snow never falls, or he may go, in two sidereal [Sidenote: Fol. 129b.] hours, to where it never thaws, unless when the heats are such that it cannot possibly lie.

Fruits of hot and cold climates are to be had in the districts near the town. Amongst those of the cold climate, there are had in the town the grape, pomegranate, apricot, apple, quince, pear, peach, plum, _sinjid_, almond and walnut.[738] I had cuttings of the _ālū-bālū_[739] brought there and planted; they grew and have done well. Of fruits of the hot climate people bring into the town;—from the Lamghānāt, the orange, citron, _amlūk_ (_diospyrus lotus_), and sugar-cane; this last I had had brought and planted there;[740]—from Nijr-au (Nijr-water), they bring the _jīl-ghūza,[741] and, from the hill-tracts, much honey. Bee-hives are in use; it_ is only from towards Ghaznī, that no honey comes.

The rhubarb[742] of the Kābul district is good, its quinces and plums very good, so too its _badrang_;[743] it grows an excellent grape, known as the water-grape.[744] Kābul wines are heady, those of the Khwāja Khāwand Sa`īd hill-skirt being famous for their strength; at this time however I can only repeat the praise of others about them:—[745]

The flavour of the wine a drinker knows; What chance have sober men to know it?

Kābul is not fertile in grain, a four or five-fold return is reckoned good there; nor are its melons first-rate, but they are not altogether bad when grown from Khurāsān seed.

It has a very pleasant climate; if the world has another so pleasant, it is not known. Even in the heats, one cannot sleep at night without a fur-coat.[746] Although the snow in most places lies deep in winter, the cold is not excessive; whereas in [Sidenote: Fol. 130.] Samarkand and Tabrīz, both, like Kābul, noted for their pleasant climate, the cold is extreme.

(_d. Meadows of Kābul._)

There are good meadows on the four sides of Kābul. An excellent one, Sūng-qūrghān, is some 4 miles (2 _kuroh_) to the north-east; it has grass fit for horses and few mosquitos. To the north-west is the Chālāk meadow, some 2 miles (1 _shar`ī_) away, a large one but in it mosquitos greatly trouble the horses. On the west is the Dūrrīn, in fact there are two, Tīpa and Qūsh-nādir (var. nāwar),—if two are counted here, there would be five in all. Each of these is about 2 miles from the town; both are small, have grass good for horses, and no mosquitos; Kābul has no others so good. On the east is the Siyāh-sang meadow with Qūtlūq-qadam's tomb[747] between it and the Currier's-gate; it is not worth much because, in the heats, it swarms with mosquitos. Kamarī[748] meadow adjoins it; counting this in, the meadows of Kābul would be six, but they are always spoken of as four.

(_e. Mountain-passes into Kābul._)

The country of Kābul is a fastness hard for a foreign foe to make his way into.

The Hindū-kush mountains, which separate Kābul from Balkh, Qūndūz and Badakhshān, are crossed by seven roads.[749] Three of these lead out of Panjhīr (Panj-sher), _viz._ Khawāk, the uppermost, T̤ūl, the next lower, and Bāzārak.[750] Of the passes on them, the one on the T̤ūl road is the best, but the road itself is rather [Sidenote: Fol. 130b.] the longest whence, seemingly, it is called T̤ūl. Bāzārak is the most direct; like T̤ūl, it leads over into Sar-i-āb; as it passes through Pārandī, local people call its main pass, the Pārandī. Another road leads up through Parwān; it has seven minor passes, known as Haft-bacha (Seven-younglings), between Parwān and its main pass (Bāj-gāh). It is joined at its main pass by two roads from Andar-āb, which go on to Parwān by it. This is a road full of difficulties. Out of Ghūr-bund, again, three roads lead over. The one next to Parwān, known as the Yāngī-yūl pass (New-road), goes through Wālīān to Khinjan; next above this is the Qīpchāq road, crossing to where the water of Andar-āb meets the Sūrkh-āb (Qīzīl-sū); this also is an excellent road; and the third leads over the Shibr-tū pass;[751] those crossing by this in the heats take their way by Bāmīān and Saighān, but those crossing by it in winter, go on by Āb-dara (Water-valley).[752] Shibr-tū excepted, all the Hindū-kush roads are closed for three or four months in winter,[753] because no road through a valley-bottom is passable when the waters are high. If any-one thinks to cross the Hindū-kush at that time, over the mountains instead of through a valley-bottom, his journey is hard indeed. The time to cross is during the three or four autumn months when the snow is less and the waters are low. [Sidenote: Fol. 131.] Whether on the mountains or in the valley-bottoms, Kāfir highwaymen are not few.

The road from Kābul into Khurāsān passes through Qandahār; it is quite level, without a pass.

Four roads lead into Kābul from the Hindūstān side; one by rather a low pass through the Khaibar mountains, another by way of Bangash, another by way of Naghr (var. Naghz),[754] and another through Farmūl;[755] the passes being low also in the three last-named. These roads are all reached from three ferries over the Sind. Those who take the Nīl-āb[756] ferry, come on through the Lamghānāt.[757] In winter, however, people ford the Sind-water (at Hāru) above its junction with the Kābul-water,[758] and ford this also. In most of my expeditions into Hindūstān, I crossed those fords, but this last time (932 AH.-1525 AD.), when I came, defeated Sl. Ibrāhīm and conquered the country, I crossed by boat at Nīl-āb. Except at the one place mentioned above, the Sind-water can be crossed only by boat. Those again, who cross at Dīn-kot[759] go on through Bangash. Those crossing at Chaupāra, if they take the Farmūl road, go on to Ghaznī, or, if they go by the Dasht, go on to Qandahār.[760]

(_f. Inhabitants of Kābul._)

There are many differing tribes in the Kābul country; in its dales and plains are Turks and clansmen[761] and `Arabs; in its town and in many villages, Sārts; out in the districts and also [Sidenote: Fol. 131b.] in villages are the Pashāī, Parājī, Tājīk, Bīrkī and Afghān tribes. In the western mountains are the Hazāra and Nikdīrī tribes, some of whom speak the Mughūlī tongue. In the north-eastern mountains are the places of the Kāfirs, such as Kitūr (Gawār?) and Gibrik. To the south are the places of the Afghān tribes.

Eleven or twelve tongues are spoken in Kābul,—`Arabī, Persian, Turkī, Mughūlī, Hindī, Afghānī, Pashāī, Parājī, Gibrī, Bīrkī and Lamghānī. If there be another country with so many differing tribes and such a diversity of tongues, it is not known.

(_e. Sub-divisions of the Kābul country._)

The [Kābul] country has fourteen _tūmāns_.[762]

Bajaur, Sawād and Hash-nagar may at one time have been dependencies of Kābul, but they now have no resemblance to cultivated countries (_wilāyāt_), some lying desolate because of the Afghāns, others being now subject to them.

In the east of the country of Kābul is the Lamghānāt, 5 _tūmāns_ and 2 _bulūks_ of cultivated lands.[763] The largest of these is Nīngnahār, sometimes written Nagarahār in the histories.[764] Its _dārogha's_ residence is in Adīnapūr,[765] some 13 _yīghāch_ east of Kābul by a very bad and tiresome road, going in three or four places over small hill-passes, and in three or four others, through [Sidenote: Fol. 132.] narrows.[766] So long as there was no cultivation along it, the Khirilchī and other Afghān thieves used to make it their beat, but it has become safe[767] since I had it peopled at Qarā-tū,[768] below Qūrūq-sāī. The hot and cold climates are separated on this road by the pass of Bādām-chashma (Almond-spring); on its Kābul side snow falls, none at Qūrūq-sāī, towards the Lamghānāt.[769] After descending this pass, another world comes into view, other trees, other plants (or grasses), other animals, and other manners and customs of men. Nīngnahār is nine torrents (_tūqūz-rūd_).[770] It grows good crops of rice and corn, excellent and abundant oranges, citrons and pomegranates. In 914 AH. (1508-9 AD.) I laid out the Four-gardens, known as the Bāgh-i-wafā (Garden-of-fidelity), on a rising-ground, facing south and having the Sūrkh-rūd between it and Fort Adīnapūr.[771] There oranges, citrons and pomegranates grow in abundance. The year I defeated Pahār Khān and took Lāhor and Dipālpūr,[772] I had plantains (bananas) brought and planted there; they did very well. The year before I had had sugar-cane planted there; it also did well; some of it was sent to Bukhārā and Badakhshān.[773] The garden lies high, has running-water close at hand, and a mild winter [Sidenote: Fol. 132b.] climate. In the middle of it, a one-mill stream flows constantly past the little hill on which are the four garden-plots. In the south-west part of it there is a reservoir, 10 by 10,[774] round which are orange-trees and a few pomegranates, the whole encircled by a trefoil-meadow. This is the best part of the garden, a most beautiful sight when the oranges take colour. Truly that garden is admirably situated!

The Safed-koh runs along the south of Nīngnahār, dividing it from Bangash; no riding-road crosses it; nine torrents (_tūqūz-rūd_) issue from it.[775] It is called Safed-koh[776] because its snow never lessens; none falls in the lower parts of its valleys, a half-day's journey from the snow-line. Many places along it have an excellent climate; its waters are cold and need no ice.

The Sūrkh-rūd flows along the south of Adīnapūr. The fort stands on a height having a straight fall to the river of some 130 ft. (40-50 _qārī_) and isolated from the mountain behind it on the north; it is very strongly placed. That mountain runs between Nīngnahār and Lamghān[777]; on its head snow falls when it snows [Sidenote: Fol. 133.] in Kābul, so Lamghānīs know when it has snowed in the town.

In going from Kābul into the Lamghānāt,[778]—if people come by Qūrūq-sāī, one road goes on through the Dīrī-pass, crosses the Bārān-water at Būlān, and so on into the Lamghānāt,—another goes through Qarā-tū, below Qūrūq-sāī, crosses the Bārān-water at Aūlūgh-nūr (Great-rock?), and goes into Lamghān by the pass of Bād-i-pīch.[779] If however people come by Nijr-aū, they traverse Badr-aū (Tag-aū), and Qarā-nakariq (?), and go on through the pass of Bād-i-pīch.

Although Nīngnahār is one of the five _tūmāns_ of the Lamghān _tūmān_ the name Lamghānāt applies strictly only to the three (mentioned below).

One of the three is the `Alī-shang _tūmān_, to the north of which are fastness-mountains, connecting with Hindū-kush and inhabited by Kāfirs only. What of Kāfiristān lies nearest to `Alī-shang, is Mīl out of which its torrent issues. The tomb of Lord Lām,[780] father of his Reverence the prophet Nuḥ (Noah), is in this _tūmān_. In some histories he is called Lamak and Lamakān. Some people are observed often to change _kāf_ for _ghain_ (_k_ for _gh_); it would seem to be on this account that the country is called Lamghān.

The second is Alangār. The part of Kāfiristān nearest to it is Gawār (Kawār), out of which its torrent issues (the Gau or Kau). This torrent joins that of `Alī-shang and flows with it [Sidenote: Fol. 133b.] into the Bārān-water, below Mandrāwar, which is the third _tūmān_ of the Lamghānāt.

Of the two _bulūks_ of Lamghān one is the Nūr-valley.[781] This is a place (_yīr_) without a second[782]; its fort is on a beak (_tūmshūq_) of rock in the mouth of the valley, and has a torrent on each side; its rice is grown on steep terraces, and it can be traversed by one road only.[783] It has the orange, citron and other fruits of hot climates in abundance, a few dates even. Trees cover the banks of both the torrents below the fort; many are _amlūk_, the fruit of which some Turks call _qarā-yīmīsh_;[784] here they are many, but none have been seen elsewhere. The valley grows grapes also, all trained on trees.[785] Its wines are those of Lamghān that have reputation. Two sorts of grapes are grown, the _arah-tāshī_ and the _sūhān-tāshī_;[786] the first are yellowish, the second, full-red of fine colour. The first make the more cheering wine, but it must be said that neither wine equals its reputation for cheer. High up in one of its glens, apes (_maimūn_) are found, none below. Those people (_i.e._ Nūrīs) used to keep swine but they have given it up in our time.[787]

Another _tūmān_ of Lamghān is Kūnār-with-Nūr-gal. It lies somewhat out-of-the-way, remote from the Lamghānāt, with its borders in amongst the Kāfir lands; on these accounts its people give in tribute rather little of what they have. The Chaghān-sarāī [Sidenote: Fol. 134.] water enters it from the north-east, passes on into the _bulūk_ of Kāma, there joins the Bārān-water and with that flows east.

Mīr Sayyid `Alī _Hamadānī_,[788]—God's mercy on him!—coming here as he journeyed, died 2 miles (1 _shar`ī_) above Kūnār. His disciples carried his body to Khutlān. A shrine was erected at the honoured place of his death, of which I made the circuit when I came and took Chaghān-sarāī in 920 AH.[789]

The orange, citron and coriander[790] abound in this _tūmān_. Strong wines are brought down into it from Kāfiristān.

A strange thing is told there, one seeming impossible, but one told to us again and again. All through the hill-country above Multa-kundī, _viz._ in Kūnār, Nūr-gal, Bajaur, Sawād and thereabouts, it is commonly said that when a woman dies and has been laid on a bier, she, if she has not been an ill-doer, gives the bearers such a shake when they lift the bier by its four sides, that against their will and hindrance, her corpse falls to the ground; but, if she has done ill, no movement occurs. This was heard not only from Kūnārīs but, again and again, in Bajaur, [Sidenote: Fol. 134b.] Sawād and the whole hill-tract. Ḥaidar-`alī _Bajaurī_,—a sulṯān who governed Bajaur well,—when his mother died, did not weep, or betake himself to lamentation, or put on black, but said, "Go! lay her on the bier! if she move not, I will have her burned."[792] They laid her on the bier; the desired movement followed; when he heard that this was so, he put on black and betook himself to lamentation.

(_Authors note to Multa-kundī._) As Multa-kundī is known the lower part of the _tūmān_ of Kūnār-with-Nūr-gal; what is below (_i.e._ on the river) belongs to the valley of Nūr and to Atar.[791]

Another _bulūk_ is Chaghān-sarāī,[793] a single village with little land, in the mouth of Kāfiristān; its people, though Muṣalmān, mix with the Kāfirs and, consequently, follow their customs.[794] A great torrent (the Kūnār) comes down to it from the north-east from behind Bajaur, and a smaller one, called Pīch, comes down out of Kāfiristān. Strong yellowish wines are had there, not in any way resembling those of the Nūr-valley, however. The village has no grapes or vineyards of its own; its wines are all brought from up the Kāfiristān-water and from Pīch-i-kāfiristānī.

The Pīch Kāfirs came to help the villagers when I took the place. Wine is so commonly used there that every Kāfir has his leathern wine-bag (_khīg_) at his neck, and drinks wine instead of water.[795]

Kāma, again, though not a separate district but dependent on Nīngnahār, is also called a _bulūk_.[796] [Sidenote: Fol. 135.]

Nijr-aū[797] is another _tūmān_. It lies north of Kābul, in the Kohistān, with mountains behind it inhabited solely by Kāfirs; it is a quite sequestered place. It grows grapes and fruits in abundance. Its people make much wine but, they boil it. They fatten many fowls in winter, are wine-bibbers, do not pray, have no scruples and are Kāfir-like.[798]

In the Nijr-aū mountains is an abundance of _archa_, _jīlghūza_, _bīlūt_ and _khanjak_.[799] The first-named three do not grow above Nigr-aū but they grow lower, and are amongst the trees of Hindūstān. _Jīlghūza_-wood is all the lamp the people have; it burns like a candle and is very remarkable. The flying-squirrel[800] is found in these mountains, an animal larger than a bat and having a curtain (_parda_), like a bat's wing, between its arms and legs. People often brought one in; it is said to fly, downward from one tree to another, as far as a _giz_ flies;[801] I myself have never seen one fly. Once we put one to a tree; it clambered up directly and got away, but, when people went after it, it spread its wings and came down, without hurt, as if it had flown. Another of the curiosities of the Nijr-aū mountains is the _lūkha_ (var. _lūja_) bird, called also _bū-qalamūn_ (chameleon) because, between head and tail, it has four or five changing colours, resplendent like a pigeon's throat.[802] It is about as large as the _kabg-i-darī_ and seems to be the _kabg-i-darī_ of Hindūstān.[803] People tell this wonderful thing about it:—When the birds, at [Sidenote: Fol. 135b.] the on-set of winter, descend to the hill-skirts, if they come over a vineyard, they can fly no further and are taken.[804] There is a kind of rat in Nijr-aū, known as the musk-rat, which smells of musk; I however have never seen it.[805]

Panjhīr (Panj-sher) is another _tūmān_; it lies close to Kāfiristān, along the Panjhīr road, and is the thoroughfare of Kāfir highwaymen who also, being so near, take tax of it. They have gone through it, killing a mass of persons, and doing very evil deeds, since I came this last time and conquered Hindūstān (932 AH.-1526 AD.).[806]

Another is the _tūmān_ of Ghūr-bund. In those countries they call a _kūtal_ (_koh_?) a _bund_;[807] they go towards Ghūr by this pass (_kūtal_); apparently it is for this reason that they have called (the _tūmān_?) Ghūr-bund. The Hazāra hold the heads of its valleys.[808] It has few villages and little revenue can be raised from it. There are said to be mines of silver and lapis lazuli in its mountains.

Again, there are the villages on the skirts of the (Hindū-kush) mountains,[809] with Mīta-kacha and Parwān at their head, and Dūr-nāma[810] at their foot, 12 or 13 in all. They are fruit-bearing villages, and they grow cheering wines, those of Khwāja Khāwand Sa`īd being reputed the strongest roundabouts. The villages all lie on the foot-hills; some pay taxes but not all are taxable because they lie so far back in the mountains.

Between the foot-hills and the Bārān-water are two detached stretches of level land, one known as _Kurrat-tāziyān_,[811] the other as _Dasht-i-shaikh_ (Shaikh's-plain). As the green grass of the millet[812] grows well there, they are the resort of Turks and [Sidenote: Fol. 136.] (Mughūl) clans (_aīmāq_).

Tulips of many colours cover these foot-hills; I once counted them up; it came out at 32 or 33 different sorts. We named one the Rose-scented, because its perfume was a little like that of the red rose; it grows by itself on Shaikh's-plain, here and nowhere else. The Hundred-leaved tulip is another; this grows, also by itself, at the outlet of the Ghūr-bund narrows, on the hill-skirt below Parwān. A low hill known as Khwāja Reg-i-rawān (Khwāja-of-the-running-sand), divides the afore-named two pieces of level land; it has, from top to foot, a strip of sand from which people say the sound of nagarets and tambours issues in the heats.[813]

Again, there are the villages depending on Kābul itself. South-west from the town are great snow mountains[814] where snow falls on snow, and where few may be the years when, falling, it does not light on last year's snow. It is fetched, 12 miles may-be, from these mountains, to cool the drinking water when ice-houses in Kābul are empty. Like the Bāmiān mountains, these are fastnesses. Out of them issue the Harmand (Halmand), Sind, Dūghāba of Qūndūz, and Balkh-āb,[815] so that in a single day, a man might drink of the water of each of these four rivers.

It is on the skirt of one of these ranges (Pamghān) that most of the villages dependent on Kābul lie.[816] Masses of grapes ripen in their vineyards and they grow every sort of fruit in abundance. No-one of them equals Istālīf or Astar-ghach; these must be the [Sidenote: Fol. 136b.] two which Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā used to call his Khurāsān and Samarkand. Pamghān is another of the best, not ranking in fruit and grapes with those two others, but beyond comparison with them in climate. The Pamghān mountains are a snowy range. Few villages match Istālīf, with vineyards and fine orchards on both sides of its great torrent, with waters needing no ice, cold and, mostly, pure. Of its Great garden Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā had taken forcible possession; I took it over, after paying its price to the owners. There is a pleasant halting-place outside it, under great planes, green, shady and beautiful. A one-mill stream, having trees on both banks, flows constantly through the middle of the garden; formerly its course was zig-zag and irregular; I had it made straight and orderly; so the place became very beautiful. Between the village and the valley-bottom, from 4 to 6 miles down the slope, is a spring, known as Khwāja Sih-yārān (Three-friends), round which three sorts of tree grow. A group of planes gives pleasant shade above it; holm-oak [Sidenote: Fol. 137.] (_quercus bīlūt_) grows in masses on the slope at its sides,—these two oaklands (_bīlūtistān_) excepted, no holm-oak grows in the mountains of western Kābul,—and the Judas-tree (_arghwān_)[817] is much cultivated in front of it, that is towards the level ground,—cultivated there and nowhere else. People say the three different sorts of tree were a gift made by three saints,[818] whence its name. I ordered that the spring should be enclosed in mortared stone-work, 10 by 10, and that a symmetrical, right-angled platform should be built on each of its sides, so as to overlook the whole field of Judas-trees. If, the world over, there is a place to match this when the _arghwāns_ are in full bloom, I do not know it. The yellow _arghwān_ grows plentifully there also, the red and the yellow flowering at the same time.[819]

In order to bring water to a large round seat which I had built on the hillside and planted round with willows, I had a channel dug across the slope from a half-mill stream, constantly flowing in a valley to the south-west of Sih-yārān. The date of cutting this channel was found in _jūī-khūsh_ (kindly channel).[820]

Another of the _tūmāns_ of Kābul is Luhūgur (mod. Logar). Its one large village is Chīrkh from which were his Reverence Maulānā Ya`qūb and Mullā-zāda `Us̤mān.[821] Khwāja Aḥmad [Sidenote: Fol. 137b.] and Khwāja Yūnas were from Sajāwand, another of its villages. Chīrkh has many gardens, but there are none in any other village of Luhūgur. Its people are Aūghān-shāl, a term common in Kābul, seeming to be a mispronouncement of Aūghān-sha`ār.[822]

Again, there is the _wilāyat_, or, as some say, _tūmān_ of Ghaznī, said to have been[823] the capital of Sabuk-tīgīn, Sl. Maḥmūd and their descendants. Many write it Ghaznīn. It is said also to have been the seat of government of Shihābu'd-dīn _Ghūrī_,[824] styled Mu`iz̤z̤u'd-dīn in the _T̤abaqāt-i-nāṣirī_ and also some of the histories of Hind.

Ghaznī is known also as _Zābulistān_; it belongs to the Third climate. Some hold that Qandahār is a part of it. It lies 14 _yīghāch_ (south-) west of Kābul; those leaving it at dawn, may reach Kābul between the Two Prayers (_i.e._ in the afternoon); whereas the 13 _yīghāch_ between Adīnapūr and Kābul can never be done in one day, because of the difficulties of the road.

Ghaznī has little cultivated land. Its torrent, a four-mill or five-mill stream may-be, makes the town habitable and fertilizes four or five villages; three or four others are cultivated from under-ground water-courses (_kārez_). Ghaznī grapes are better than those of Kābul; its melons are more abundant; its apples [Sidenote: Fol. 138.] are very good, and are carried to Hindūstān. Agriculture is very laborious in Ghaznī because, whatever the quality of the soil, it must be newly top-dressed every year; it gives a better return, however, than Kābul. Ghaznī grows madder; the entire crop goes to Hindūstān and yields excellent profit to the growers. In the open-country of Ghaznī dwell Hazāra and Afghāns. Compared with Kābul, it is always a cheap place. Its people hold to the Ḥanafī faith, are good, orthodox Muṣalmāns, many keep a three months' fast,[825] and their wives and children live modestly secluded.

One of the eminent men of Ghaznī was Mullā `Abdu'r-raḥmān, a learned man and always a learner (_dars_), a most orthodox, pious and virtuous person; he left this world the same year as Nāṣir Mīrzā (921 AH.-1515 AD.). Sl. Maḥmūd's tomb is in the suburb called Rauẓa,[826] from which the best grapes come; there also are the tombs of his descendants, Sl. Mas`ūd and Sl. Ibrāhīm. Ghaznī has many blessed tombs. The year[827] I took Kābul and Ghaznī, over-ran Kohāt, the plain of Bannū and lands of the Afghāns, and went on to Ghaznī by way of Dūkī (Dūgī) and Āb-istāda, people told me there was a tomb, in a village of Ghaznī, which moved when a benediction on the Prophet was [Sidenote: Fol. 138b.] pronounced over it. We went to see it. In the end I discovered that the movement was a trick, presumably of the servants at the tomb, who had put a sort of platform above it which moved when pushed, so that, to those on it, the tomb seemed to move, just as the shore does to those passing in a boat. I ordered the scaffold destroyed and a dome built over the tomb; also I forbad the servants, with threats, ever to bring about the movement again.

Ghaznī is a very humble place; strange indeed it is that rulers in whose hands were Hindūstān and Khurāsānāt,[828] should have chosen it for their capital. In the Sulṯān's (Maḥmūd's) time there may have been three or four dams in the country; one he made, some three _yīghāch_ (18 m.?) up the Ghaznī-water to the north; it was about 40-50 _qārī_ (yards) high and some 300 long; through it the stored waters were let out as required.[829] It was destroyed by `Alāu'u'd-dīn _Jahān-soz Ghūrī_ when he conquered the country (550 AH.-1152 AD.), burned and ruined the tombs of several descendants of Sl. Maḥmūd, sacked and burned the town, in short, left undone no tittle of murder and rapine. Since [Sidenote: Fol. 139.] that time, the Sulṯān's dam has lain in ruins, but, through God's favour, there is hope that it may become of use again, by means of the money which was sent, in Khwāja Kalān's hand, in the year Hindūstān was conquered (932 AH.-1526 AD.).[830] The Sakhandam is another, 2 or 3 _yīghāch_ (12-18 m.), may-be, on the east of the town; it has long been in ruins, indeed is past repair. There is a dam in working order at Sar-i-dih (Village-head).

In books it is written that there is in Ghaznī a spring such that, if dirt and foul matter be thrown into it, a tempest gets up instantly, with a blizzard of rain and wind. It has been seen said also in one of the histories that Sabuk-tīgīn, when besieged by the Rāī (Jāī-pāl) of Hind, ordered dirt and foulness to be thrown into the spring, by this aroused, in an instant, a tempest with blizzard of rain and snow, and, by this device, drove off his foe.[831] Though we made many enquiries, no intimation of the spring's existence was given us.

In these countries Ghaznī and Khwārizm are noted for cold, in the same way that Sulṯānīā and Tabrīz are in the two `Irāqs and Aẕarbāījān.

Zurmut is another _tūmān_, some 12-13 _yīghāch_ south of Kābul and 7-8 south-east of Ghaznī.[832] Its _dārogha's_ head-quarters are [Sidenote: Fol. 139b.] in Gīrdīz; there most houses are three or four storeys high. It does not want for strength, and gave Nāṣir Mīrzā trouble when it went into hostility to him. Its people are Aūghān-shāl; they grow corn but have neither vineyards nor orchards. The tomb of Shaikh Muḥammad _Muṣalmān_ is at a spring, high on the skirt of a mountain, known as Barakistān, in the south of the _tūmān_.

Farmūl is another _tūmān_,[833] a humble place, growing not bad apples which are carried into Hindūstān. Of Farmūl were the Shaikh-zādas, descendants of Shaikh Muḥammad _Muṣalmān_, who were so much in favour during the Afghān period in Hindūstān.

Bangash is another _tūmān_.[834] All round about it are Afghān highwaymen, such as the Khūgīānī, Khirilchī, Tūrī and Landar. Lying out-of-the-way, as it does, its people do not pay taxes willingly. There has been no time to bring it to obedience; greater tasks have fallen to me,—the conquests of Qandahār, Balkh, Badakhshān and Hindūstān! But, God willing! when I get the chance, I most assuredly will take order with those Bangash thieves.

One of the _bulūks_ of Kābul is Ālā-sāī,[835] 4 to 6 miles (2-3 _shar`ī_) east of Nijr-aū. The direct road into it from Nijr-aū leads, at a place called Kūra, through the quite small pass which in that locality separates the hot and cold climates. Through this pass the birds migrate at the change of the seasons, and at those times many are taken by the people of Pīchghān, one of the dependencies of Nijr-aū, in the following manner:—From [Sidenote: Fol. 140.] distance to distance near the mouth of the pass, they make hiding-places for the bird-catchers. They fasten one corner of a net five or six yards away, and weight the lower side to the ground with stones. Along the other side of the net, for half its width, they fasten a stick some 3 to 4 yards long. The hidden bird-catcher holds this stick and by it, when the birds approach, lifts up the net to its full height. The birds then go into the net of themselves. Sometimes so many are taken by this contrivance that there is not time to cut their throats.[836]

Though the Ālā-sāī pomegranates are not first-rate, they have local reputation because none are better there-abouts; they are carried into Hindūstān. Grapes also do not grow badly, and the wines of Ālā-sāī are better and stronger than those of Nijr-aū.

Badr-aū (Tag-aū) is another _bulūk_; it runs with Ālā-sāī, grows no fruit, and for cultivators has corn-growing Kāfirs.[837]

(_f. Tribesmen of Kābul._)

Just as Turks and (Mughūl) clans (_aīmāq_) dwell in the open country of Khurāsān and Samarkand, so in Kābul do the Hazāra and Afghāns. Of the Hazāra, the most widely-scattered are the Sulṯān-mas`ūdi Hazāra, of Afghāns, the Mahmand.

(_g. Revenue of Kābul._)

The revenues of Kābul, whether from the cultivated lands or from tolls (_tamghā_) or from dwellers in the open country, amount to 8 _laks_ of _shāhrukhīs_.[838] [Sidenote: Fol. 140b.]

(_h. The mountain-tracts of Kābul._)

Where the mountains of Andar-āb, Khwāst,[839] and the Badakh-shānāt have conifers (_archa_), many springs and gentle slopes, those of eastern Kābul have grass (_aūt_), grass like a beautiful floor, on hill, slope and dale. For the most part it is _būta-kāh_ grass (_aūt_), very suitable for horses. In the Andijān country they talk of _būta-kāh_, but why they do so was not known (to me?); in Kābul it was heard-say to be because the grass comes up in tufts (_būta, būta_).[840] The alps of these mountains are like those of Ḥiṣār, Khutlān, Farghāna, Samarkand and Mughūlistān,—all these being alike in mountain and alp, though the alps of Farghāna and Mughūlistān are beyond comparison with the rest.

From all these the mountains of Nijr-aū, the Lamghānāt and Sawād differ in having masses of cypresses,[841] holm-oak, olive and mastic (_khanjak_); their grass also is different,—it is dense, it is tall, it is good neither for horse nor sheep. Although these mountains are not so high as those already described, indeed they look to be low, none-the-less, they are strongholds; what to the eye is even slope, really is hard rock on which it is impossible to ride. Many of the beasts and birds of Hindūstān [Sidenote: Fol. 141.] are found amongst them, such as the parrot, _mīna_, peacock and _lūja_ (_lūkha_), the ape, _nīl-gāu_ and hog-deer (_kūta-pāī_);[842] some found there are not found even in Hindūstān.

The mountains to the west of Kābul are also all of one sort, those of the Zindān-valley, the Ṣūf-valley, Garzawān and Gharjistān (Gharchastān).[843] Their meadows are mostly in the dales; they have not the same sweep of grass on slope and top as some of those described have; nor have they masses of trees; they have, however, grass suiting horses. On their flat tops, where all the crops are grown, there is ground where a horse can gallop. They have masses of _kīyik_.[844] Their valley-bottoms are strongholds, mostly precipitous and inaccessible from above. It is remarkable that, whereas other mountains have their fastnesses in their high places, these have theirs below.

Of one sort again are the mountains of Ghūr, Karnūd (var. Kuzūd) and Hazāra; their meadows are in their dales; their trees are few, not even the _archa_ being there;[845] their grass is fit for horses and for the masses of sheep they keep. They differ from those last described in this, their strong places are not below.

The mountains (south-east of Kābul) of Khwāja Ismā`īl, Dasht, Dūgī (Dūkī)[846] and Afghānistān are all alike; all low, scant of vegetation, short of water, treeless, ugly and good-for-nothing. Their people take after them, just as has been said, _Tīng būlmā-ghūncha_ [Sidenote: Fol 141b.] _tūsh būlmās_.[847] Likely enough the world has few mountains so useless and disgusting.

(_h. Fire-wood of Kabul._)

The snow-fall being so heavy in Kābul, it is fortunate that excellent fire-wood is had near by. Given one day to fetch it, wood can be had of the _khanjak_ (mastic), _bīlūt_ (holm-oak), _bādāmcha_ (small-almond) and _qarqand_.[848] Of these _khanjak_ wood is the best; it burns with flame and nice smell, makes plenty of hot ashes and does well even if sappy. Holm-oak is also first-rate fire-wood, blazing less than mastic but, like it, making a hot fire with plenty of hot ashes, and nice smell. It has the peculiarity in burning that when its leafy branches are set alight, they fire up with amazing sound, blazing and crackling from bottom to top. It is good fun to burn it. The wood of the small-almond is the most plentiful and commonly-used, but it does not make a lasting fire. The _qarqand_ is quite a low shrub, thorny, and burning sappy or dry; it is the fuel of the Ghaznī people.

(_i. Fauna of Kābul._)

The cultivated lands of Kābul lie between mountains which are like great dams[849] to the flat valley-bottoms in which most villages and peopled places are. On these mountains _kīyik_ and _āhū_[850] are scarce. Across them, between its summer and winter quarters, the dun sheep,[851] the _arqārghalcha_, have their regular track,[852] to which braves go out with dogs and birds[853] to take them. [Sidenote: Fol. 142.] Towards Khūrd-kābul and the Sūrkh-rūd there is wild-ass, but there are no white _kīyik_ at all; Ghaznī has both and in few other places are white _kīyik_ found in such good condition.[854]

In the heats the fowling-grounds of Kābul are crowded. The birds take their way along the Bārān-water. For why? It is because the river has mountains along it, east and west, and a great Hindū-kush pass in a line with it, by which the birds must cross since there is no other near.[855] They cannot cross when the north wind blows, or if there is even a little cloud on Hindū-kush; at such times they alight on the level lands of the Bārān-water and are taken in great numbers by the local people. Towards the end of winter, dense flocks of mallards (_aūrdūq_) reach the banks of the Bārān in very good condition. Follow these the cranes and herons,[856] great birds, in large flocks and countless numbers.

(_j. Bird-catching._)

Along the Bārān people take masses of cranes (_tūrna_) with the cord; masses of _aūqār_, _qarqara_ and _qūṯān_ also.[857] This method of bird-catching is unique. They twist a cord as long as the arrow's[858] flight, tie the arrow at one end and a _bīldūrga_[859] at the other, and wind it up, from the arrow-end, on a piece of wood, span-long and wrist-thick, right up to the _bīldūrga_. They [Sidenote: Fol. 142b.] then pull out the piece of wood, leaving just the hole it was in. The _bīldūrga_ being held fast in the hand, the arrow is shot off[860] towards the coming flock. If the cord twists round a neck or wing, it brings the bird down. On the Bārān everyone takes birds in this way; it is difficult; it must be done on rainy nights, because on such nights the birds do not alight, but fly continually and fly low till dawn, in fear of ravening beasts of prey. Through the night the flowing river is their road, its moving water showing through the dark; then it is, while they come and go, up and down the river, that the cord is shot. One night I shot it; it broke in drawing in; both bird and cord were brought in to me next day. By this device Bārān people catch the many herons from which they take the turban-aigrettes sent from Kābul for sale in Khurāsān.

Of bird-catchers there is also the band of slave-fowlers, two or three hundred households, whom some descendant of Tīmūr Beg made migrate from near Multān to the Bārān.[861] Bird-catching [Sidenote: Fol. 143.] is their trade; they dig tanks, set decoy-birds[862] on them, put a net over the middle, and in this way take all sorts of birds. Not fowlers only catch birds, but every dweller on the Bārān does it, whether by shooting the cord, setting the springe, or in various other ways.

(_k. Fishing._)

The fish of the Bārān migrate at the same seasons as birds. At those times many are netted, and many are taken on wattles (_chīgh_) fixed in the water. In autumn when the plant known as _wild-ass-tail_[863] has come to maturity, flowered and seeded, people take 10-20 loads (of seed?) and 20-30 of green branches (_gūk-shībāk_) to some head of water, break it up small and cast it in. Then going into the water, they can at once pick up drugged fish. At some convenient place lower down, in a hole below a fall, they will have fixed beforehand a wattle of finger-thick willow-withes, making it firm by piling stones on its sides. The water goes rushing and dashing through the wattle, but leaves on it any fish that may have come floating down. This way of catching fish is practised in Gul-bahār, Parwān and Istālīf.

[Sidenote: Fol. 143b.] Fish are had in winter in the Lamghānāt by this curious device:—People dig a pit to the depth of a house, in the bed of a stream, below a fall, line it with stones like a cooking-place, and build up stones round it above, leaving one opening only, under water. Except by this one opening, the fish have no inlet or outlet, but the water finds its way through the stones. This makes a sort of fish-pond from which, when wanted in winter, fish can be taken, 30-40 together. Except at the opening, left where convenient, the sides of the fish-pond are made fast with rice-straw, kept in place by stones. A piece of wicker-work is pulled into the said opening by its edges, gathered together, and into this a second piece, (a tube,) is inserted, fitting it at the mouth but reaching half-way into it only.[864] The fish go through the smaller piece into the larger one, out from which they cannot get. The second narrows towards its inner mouth, its pointed ends being drawn so close that the fish, once entered, cannot [Sidenote: Fol. 144.] turn, but must go on, one by one, into the larger piece. Out of that they cannot return because of the pointed ends of the inner, narrow mouth. The wicker-work fixed and the rice-straw making the pond fast, whatever fish are inside can be taken out;[865] any also which, trying to escape may have gone into the wicker-work, are taken in it, because they have no way out. This method of catching fish we have seen nowhere else.[866]

HISTORICAL NARRATIVE RESUMED.[867]

(_a. Departure of Muqīm and allotment of lands._)

A few days after the taking of Kābul, Muqīm asked leave to set off for Qandahār. As he had come out of the town on terms and conditions, he was allowed to go to his father (Ẕu'n-nūn) and his elder brother (Shāh Beg), with all his various people, his goods and his valuables, safe and sound.

Directly he had gone, the Kābul-country was shared out to the Mīrzās and the guest-begs.[868] To Jahāngīr Mīrzā was given Ghaznī with its dependencies and appurtenancies; to Nāṣir Mīrzā, the Nīngnahār _tūmān_, Mandrāwar, Nūr-valley, Kūnār, Nūr-gal (Rock-village?) and Chīghān-sarāī. To some of the begs who had been with us in the guerilla-times and had come to Kābul with us, were given villages, fief-fashion.[869] _Wilāyat_ [Sidenote: Fol. 144b.] itself was not given at all.[870] It was not only then that I looked with more favour on guest-begs and stranger-begs than I did on old servants and Andijānīs; this I have always done whenever the Most High God has shown me His favour; yet it is remarkable that, spite of this, people have blamed me constantly as though I had favoured none but old servants and Andijānīs. There is a proverb, (Turkī) "What will a foe not say? what enters not into dream?" and (Persian) "A town-gate can be shut, a foe's mouth never."

(_b. A levy in grain._)

Many clans and hordes had come from Samarkand, Ḥiṣār and Qūndūz into the Kābul-country. Kābul is a small country; it is also of the sword, not of the pen;[871] to take in money from it for all these tribesmen was impossible. It therefore seemed advisable to take in grain, provision for the families of these clans so that their men could ride on forays with the army. Accordingly it was decided to levy 30,000 ass-loads[872] of grain on Kābul, Ghaznī and their dependencies; we knew nothing at that time about the harvests and incomings; the impost was excessive, and under it the country suffered very grievously.

In those days I devised the Bāburī script.[873]

(_c. Foray on the Hazāra._)

A large tribute in horses and sheep had been laid on the Sulṯān Mas`ūdī Hazāras;[874] word came a few days after collectors [Sidenote: Fol. 145.] had gone to receive it, that the Hazāras were refractory and would not give their goods. As these same tribesmen had before that come down on the Ghaznī and Gīrdīz roads, we got to horse, meaning to take them by surprise. Riding by the Maidān-road, we crossed the Nirkh-pass[875] by night and at the Morning-prayer fell upon them near Jāl-tū (var. Chā-tū). The incursion was not what was wished.[876] We came back by the Tunnel-rock (Sang-i-sūrākh); Jahāngīr Mīrzā (there?) took leave for Ghaznī. On our reaching Kābul, Yār-i-ḥusain, son of Daryā Khān, coming in from Bhīra, waited on me.[877]

(_d. Bābur's first start for Hindūstān._)

When, a few days later, the army had been mustered, persons acquainted with the country were summoned and questioned about its every side and quarter. Some advised a march to the Plain (Dasht);[878] some approved of Bangash; some wished to go into Hindūstān. The discussion found settlement in a move on Hindūstān.

It was in the month of Sha`bān (910 AH.-Jan. 1505 AD.), the Sun being in Aquarius, that we rode out of Kābul for Hindūstān. We took the road by Bādām-chashma and Jagdālīk and reached Adīnapūr in six marches. Till that time I had never seen a hot country or the Hindūstān border-land. In Nīngnahār[879] another world came to view,—other grasses, other trees, other animals, other birds, and other manners and customs of clan and horde. We were amazed, and truly there was ground for amaze. [Sidenote: Fol. 145b.]

Nāṣir Mīrzā, who had gone earlier to his district, waited on me in Adīnapūr. We made some delay in Adīnapūr in order to let the men from behind join us, also a contingent from the clans which had come with us into Kābul and were wintering in the Lamghānāt.[880] All having joined us, we marched to below Jūī-shāhī and dismounted at Qūsh-guṃbaz.[881] There Nāṣir Mīrzā asked for leave to stay behind, saying he would follow in a few days after making some sort of provision for his dependants and followers. Marching on from Qūsh-guṃbaz, when we dismounted at Hot-spring (Garm-chashma), a head-man of the Gāgīānī was brought in, a _Fajjī_[882] presumably with his caravan. We took him with us to point out the roads. Crossing Khaibar in a march or two, we dismounted at Jām.[883]

Tales had been told us about Gūr-khattrī;[884] it was said to be a holy place of the Jogīs and Hindūs who come from long distances to shave their heads and beards there. I rode out at once from Jām to visit Bīgrām,[885] saw its great tree,[886] and all the country round, but, much as we enquired about Gūr-khattrī, our guide, one Malik Bū-sa`īd _Kamarī_,[887] would say nothing [Sidenote: Fol. 146.] about it. When we were almost back in camp, however, he told Khwāja Muḥammad-amīn that it was in Bīgrām and that he had said nothing about it because of its confined cells and narrow passages. The Khwāja, having there and then abused him, repeated to us what he had said, but we could not go back because the road was long and the day far spent.

(_e. Move against Kohāt._)

Whether to cross the water of Sind, or where else to go, was discussed in that camp.[888] Bāqī _Chaghānīānī_ represented that it seemed we might go, without crossing the river and with one night's halt, to a place called Kohāt where were many rich tribesmen; moreover he brought Kābulīs forward who represented the matter just as he had done. We had never heard of the place, but, as he, my man in great authority, saw it good to go to Kohāt and had brought forward support of his recommendation,—this being so! we broke up our plan of crossing the Sind-water into Hindūstān, marched from Jām, forded the Bāra-water, and dismounted not far from the pass (_dābān_) through the Muḥammad-mountain (_fajj_). At the time the Gāgīānī Afghāns were located in Parashawār but, in dread of our army, had drawn off to the skirt-hills. One of their headmen, coming into this camp, did me obeisance; we took him, as well as the Fajjī, with us, so that, between them, they might [Sidenote: Fol. 146b.] point out the roads. We left that camp at midnight, crossed Muḥammad-fajj at day-rise[889] and by breakfast-time descended on Kohāt. Much cattle and buffalo fell to our men; many Afghāns were taken but I had them all collected and set them free. In the Kohāt houses corn was found without limit. Our foragers raided as far as the Sind-river (_daryā_), rejoining us after one night's halt. As what Bāqī _Chaghānīānī_ had led us to expect did not come to hand, he grew rather ashamed of his scheme.

When our foragers were back and after two nights in Kohāt, we took counsel together as to what would be our next good move, and we decided to over-run the Afghāns of Bangash and the Bannū neighbourhood, then to go back to Kābul, either through Naghr (Bāghzān?), or by the Farmūl-road (Tochī-valley?).

In Kohāt, Daryā Khān's son, Yār-i-ḥusain, who had waited on me in Kābul made petition, saying, "If royal orders were given me for the Dilazāk,[890] the Yūsuf-zāī, and the Gāgīānī, these would not go far from my orders if I called up the Pādshāh's swords on the other side of the water of Sind."[891] The farmān he petitioned for being given, he was allowed to go from Kohāt.

(_f. March to Thāl._)

Marching out of Kohāt, we took the Hangū-road for Bangash. [Sidenote: Fol. 147.] Between Kohāt and Hangū that road runs through a valley shut in on either hand by the mountains. When we entered this valley, the Afghāns of Kohāt and thereabouts who were gathered on both hill-skirts, raised their war-cry with great clamour. Our then guide, Malik Bū-sa`īd _Kamarī_ was well-acquainted with the Afghān locations; he represented that further on there was a detached hill on our right, where, if the Afghāns came down to it from the hill-skirt, we might surround and take them. God brought it right! The Afghāns, on reaching the place, did come down. We ordered one party of braves to seize the neck of land between that hill and the mountains, others to move along its sides, so that under attack made from all sides at once, the Afghāns might be made to reach their doom. Against the allround assault, they could not even fight; a hundred or two were taken, some were brought in alive but of most, the heads only were brought. We had been told that when Afghāns are powerless to resist, they go before their foe with grass between their teeth, this being as much as to say, "I am your cow."[892] Here [Sidenote: Fol. 147b.] we saw this custom; Afghāns unable to make resistance, came before us with grass between their teeth. Those our men had brought in as prisoners were ordered to be beheaded and a pillar of their heads was set up in our camp.[893]

Next day we marched forward and dismounted at Hangū, where local Afghāns had made a _sangur_ on a hill. I first heard the word _sangur_ after coming to Kābul where people describe fortifying themselves on a hill as making a _sangur_. Our men went straight up, broke into it and cut off a hundred or two of insolent Afghān heads. There also a pillar of heads was set up.

From Hangū we marched, with one night's halt, to Tīl (Thāl),[894] below Bangash; there also our men went out and raided the Afghāns near-by; some of them however turned back rather lightly from a _sangur_.[895]

(_g. Across country into Bannū._)

On leaving Tīl (Thāl) we went, without a road, right down a steep descent, on through out-of-the-way narrows, halted one night, and next day came down into Bannū,[896] man, horse and camel all worn out with fatigue and with most of the booty in cattle left on the way. The frequented road must have been a few miles to our right; the one we came by did not seem a riding-road at all; it was understood to be called the Gosfandliyār [Sidenote: Fol. 148.] (Sheep-road),—_liyār_ being Afghānī for a road,—because sometimes shepherds and herdsmen take their flocks and herds by it through those narrows. Most of our men regarded our being brought down by that left-hand road as an ill-design of Malik Bū-sa`īd _Kamarī_.[897]

(_h. Bannū and the `Īsa-khail country._)

The Bannū lands lie, a dead level, immediately outside the Bangash and Naghr hills, these being to their north. The Bangash torrent (the Kūrām) comes down into Bannū and fertilizes its lands. South(-east) of them are Chaupāra and the water of Sind; to their east is Dīn-kot; (south-)west is the Plain (Dasht), known also as Bāzār and Tāq.[898] The Bannū lands are cultivated by the Kurānī, Kīwī, Sūr, `Īsa-khail and Nīā-zāī of the Afghān tribesmen.

After dismounting in Bannū, we heard that the tribesmen in the Plain (Dasht) were for resisting and were entrenching themselves on a hill to the north. A force headed by Jahāngīr Mīrzā, went against what seemed to be the Kīwī _sangur_, took it at once, made general slaughter, cut off and brought in many heads. Much white cloth fell into (their) hands. In Bannū also a pillar of heads was set up. After the _sangur_ had been taken, the Kīwī head-man, Shādī Khān, came to my presence, with grass between his teeth, and did me obeisance. I pardoned all the prisoners.

After we had over-run Kohāt, it had been decided that Bangash and Bannū should be over-run, and return to Kābul [Sidenote: Fol. 148b.] made through Naghr or through Farmūl. But when Bannū had been over-run, persons knowing the country represented that the Plain was close by, with its good roads and many people; so it was settled to over-run the Plain and to return to Kābul afterwards by way of Farmūl.[899]

Marching next day, we dismounted at an `Īsa-khail village on that same water (the Kūrām) but, as the villagers had gone into the Chaupāra hills on hearing of us, we left it and dismounted on the skirt of Chaupāra. Our foragers went from there into the hills, destroyed the `Īsa-khail _sangur_ and came back with sheep, herds and cloth. That night the `Īsa-khail made an attack on us but, as good watch was kept all through these operations, they could do nothing. So cautious were we that at night our right and left, centre and van were just in the way they had dismounted, each according to its place in battle, each prepared for its own post, with men on foot all round the camp, at an arrow's distance from the tents. Every night the army was posted in this way and every night three or four of my household [Sidenote: Fol. 149.] made the rounds with torches, each in his turn. I for my part made the round once each night. Those not at their posts had their noses slit and were led round through the army. Jahāngīr Mīrzā was the right wing, with Bāqī _Chaghānīānī_, Sherīm T̤aghāī, Sayyid Ḥusain Akbar, and other begs. Mīrzā Khān was the left wing, with `Abdu'r-razzāq Mīrzā, Qāsīm Beg and other begs. In the centre there were no great begs, all were household-begs. Sayyid Qāsim Lord-of-the-gate, was the van, with Bābā Aūghūlī, Allāh-bīrdī (var. Allāh-qulī Purān), and some other begs. The army was in six divisions, each of which had its day and night on guard.

Marching from that hill-skirt, our faces set west, we dismounted on a waterless plain (_qūl_) between Bannū and the Plain. The soldiers got water here for themselves, their herds and so on, by digging down, from one to one-and-a-half yards, into the dry water-course, when water came. Not here only did this happen for all the rivers of Hindūstān have the peculiarity that water is safe to be found by digging down from one to one-and-a-half yards in their beds. It is a wonderful provision of God that where, except for the great rivers, there are no running-waters,[900] water should be so placed within reach in dry water-courses.

We left that dry channel next morning. Some of our men, riding light, reached villages of the Plain in the afternoon, raided a few, and brought back flocks, cloth and horses bred for trade.[901] Pack-animals and camels and also the braves we had outdistanced, kept coming into camp all through that night till dawn and on till that morrow's noon. During our stay there, the foragers [Sidenote: Fol. 149b.] brought in from villages in the Plain, masses of sheep and cattle, and, from Afghān traders met on the roads, white cloths, aromatic roots, sugars, _tīpūchāqs_, and horses bred for trade. Hindī (var. Mindī) _Mughūl_ unhorsed Khwāja Khiẓr _Lūhānī_, a well-known and respected Afghān merchant, cutting off and bringing in his head. Once when Sherīm T̤aghāī went in the rear of the foragers, an Afghān faced him on the road and struck off his index-finger.

(_i. Return made for Kābul._)

Two roads were heard of as leading from where we were to Ghaznī; one was the Tunnel-rock (Sang-i-sūrākh) road, passing Birk (Barak) and going on to Farmūl; the other was one along the Gūmāl, which also comes out at Farmūl but without touching Birk (Barak).[902] As during our stay in the Plain rain had fallen incessantly, the Gūmāl was so swollen that it would have been difficult to cross at the ford we came to; moreover persons well-acquainted with the roads, represented that going by the Gūmāl road, this torrent must be crossed several times, that this was always difficult when the waters were so high and that there was always uncertainty on the Gūmāl road. Nothing was settled then as to which of these two roads to take; I expected it to be settled next day when, after the drum of departure had sounded, [Sidenote: Fol. 150.] we talked it over as we went.[903] It was the `Īd-i-fitr (March 7th 1505 AD.); while I was engaged in the ablutions due for the breaking of the fast, Jahāngīr Mīrzā and the begs discussed the question of the roads. Some-one said that if we were to turn the bill[904] of the Mehtar Sulaimān range, this lying between the Plain and the Hill-country (_desht u dūkī_),[905] we should get a level road though it might make the difference of a few marches. For this they decided and moved off; before my ablutions were finished the whole army had taken the road and most of it was across the Gūmāl. Not a man of us had ever seen the road; no-one knew whether it was long or short; we started off just on a rumoured word!

The Prayer of the `Id was made on the bank of the Gūmāl. That year New-year's Day[906] fell close to the `Id-i-fitr, there being only a few days between; on their approximation I composed the following (Turkī) ode:—

Glad is the Bairām-moon for him who sees both the face of the Moon and the Moon-face of his friend; Sad is the Bairām-moon for me, far away from thy face and from thee.[907]

O Bābur! dream of your luck when your Feast is the meeting, your New-year the face; For better than that could not be with a hundred New-years and Bairāms.

After crossing the Gūmāl torrent, we took our way along the skirt of the hills, our faces set south. A mile or two further on, [Sidenote: Fol. 150b.] some death-devoted Afghāns shewed themselves on the lower edge of the hill-slope. Loose rein, off we went for them; most of them fled but some made foolish stand on rocky-piles[908] of the foot-hills. One took post on a single rock seeming to have a precipice on the further side of it, so that he had not even a way of escape. Sl. Qulī _Chūnāq_ (One-eared), all in his mail as he was, got up, slashed at, and took him. This was one of Sl. Qulī's deeds done under my own eyes, which led to his favour and promotion.[909] At another pile of rock, when Qūtlūq-qadam exchanged blows with an Afghān, they grappled and came down together, a straight fall of 10 to 12 yards; in the end Qūtlūq-qadam cut off and brought in his man's head. Kūpūk Beg got hand-on-collar with an Afghān at another hill; both rolled down to the bottom; that head also was brought in. All Afghāns taken prisoner were set free.

Marching south through the Plain, and closely skirting Mehtar Sulaimān, we came, with three nights' halt, to a small township, called Bīlah, on the Sind-water and dependent on Multān.[910] The villagers crossed the water, mostly taking to their boats, but some flung themselves in to cross. Some were seen standing on an island in front of Bīlah. Most of our men, man and horse in [Sidenote: Fol. 151.] mail, plunged in and crossed to the island; some were carried down, one being Qul-i-arūk (thin slave), one of my servants, another the head tent-pitcher, another Jahāngīr Mīrzā's servant, Qāītmās _Turkmān_.[911] Cloth and things of the baggage (_partaldīk nīma_) fell to our men. The villagers all crossed by boat to the further side of the river; once there, some of them, trusting to the broad water, began to make play with their swords. Qul-i-bāyazīd, the taster, one of our men who had crossed to the island, stripped himself and his horse and, right in front of them, plunged by himself into the river. The water on that side of the island may have been twice or thrice as wide as on ours. He swum his horse straight for them till, an arrow's-flight away, he came to a shallow where his weight must have been up-borne, the water being as high as the saddle-flap. There he stayed for as long as milk takes to boil; no-one supported him from behind; he had not a chance of support. He made a dash at them; they shot a few arrows at him but, this not checking him, they took to flight. To swim such a river as the Sind, alone, bare on a bare-backed horse, no-one behind him, and to chase off a foe and occupy his ground, was a mightily bold deed! He having driven the enemy off, other soldiers went over who [Sidenote: Fol. 151b.] returned with cloth and droves of various sorts. Qul-i-bāyazīd had already his place in my favour and kindness on account of his good service, and of courage several times shewn; from the cook's office I had raised him to the royal taster's; this time, as will be told, I took up a position full of bounty, favour and promotion,—in truth he was worthy of honour and advancement.

Two other marches were made down the Sind-water. Our men, by perpetually gallopping off on raids, had knocked up their horses; usually what they took, cattle mostly, was not worth the gallop; sometimes indeed in the Plain there had been sheep, sometimes one sort of cloth or other, but, the Plain left behind, nothing was had but cattle. A mere servant would bring in 3 or 400 head during our marches along the Sind-water, but every march many more would be left on the road than they brought in.

(_j. The westward march._)

Having made three more marches[912] close along the Sind, we left it when we came opposite Pīr Kānū's tomb.[913] Going to the tomb, we there dismounted. Some of our soldiers having injured [Sidenote: Fol. 152.] several of those in attendance on it, I had them cut to pieces. It is a tomb on the skirt of one of the Mehtar Sulaimān mountains and held in much honour in Hindūstān.

Marching on from Pīr Kānū, we dismounted in the (Pawat) pass; next again in the bed of a torrent in Dūkī.[914] After we left this camp there were brought in as many as 20 to 30 followers of a retainer of Shāh Beg, Fāẓil _Kūkūldāsh_, the dārogha of Sīwī. They had been sent to reconnoitre us but, as at that time, we were not on bad terms with Shāh Beg, we let them go, with horse and arms. After one night's halt, we reached Chūtīālī, a village of Dūkī.

Although our men had constantly gallopped off to raid, both before we reached the Sind-water and all along its bank, they had not left horses behind, because there had been plenty of green food and corn. When, however, we left the river and set our faces for Pīr Kānū, not even green food was to be had; a little land under green crop might be found every two or three marches, but of horse-corn, none. So, beyond the camps mentioned, there began the leaving of horses behind. After passing Chūtīālī, my own felt-tent[915] had to be left from want of baggage-beasts. One night at that time, it rained so much, that water stood knee-deep in my tent (_chādār_); I watched the night out till dawn, uncomfortably sitting on a pile of blankets.

(_k. Bāqī Chaghānīānī's treachery._)

A few marches further on came Jahāngīr Mīrzā, saying, "I [Sidenote: Fol. 152b.] have a private word for you." When we were in private, he said, "Bāqī _Chaghānīānī_ came and said to me, 'You make the Pādshāh cross the water of Sind with 7, 8, 10 persons, then make yourself Pādshāh.'" Said I, "What others are heard of as consulting with him?" Said he, "It was but a moment ago Bāqī Beg spoke to me; I know no more." Said I, "Find out who the others are; likely enough Sayyid Ḥusain Akbar and Sl. `Alī the page are in it, as well as Khusrau Shāh's begs and braves." Here the Mīrzā really behaved very well and like a blood-relation; what he now did was the counterpart of what I had done in Kāhmard,[916] in this same ill-fated mannikin's other scheme of treachery.[917]

On dismounting after the next march, I made Jahāngīr Mīrzā lead a body of well-mounted men to raid the Aūghāns (Afghāns) of that neighbourhood.

Many men's horses were now left behind in each camping-ground, the day coming when as many as 2 or 300 were left. Braves of the first rank went on foot; Sayyid Maḥmūd _Aūghlāqchī_, one of the best of the household-braves, left his horses behind and walked. In this state as to horses we went all the rest of the way to Ghaznī.

Three or four marches further on, Jahāngīr Mīrzā plundered [Sidenote: Fol. 153.] some Afghāns and brought in a few sheep.

(_l. The Āb-i-istāda._)

When, with a few more marches, we reached the Standing-water (_Āb-i-istāda_) a wonderfully large sheet of water presented itself to view; the level lands on its further side could not be seen at all; its water seemed to join the sky; the higher land and the mountains of that further side looked to hang between Heaven and Earth, as in a mirage. The waters there gathered are said to be those of the spring-rain floods of the Kattawāz-plain, the Zurmut-valley, and the Qarā-bāgh meadow of the Ghaznī-torrent,—floods of the spring-rains, and the over-plus[918] of the summer-rise of streams.

When within two miles of the Āb-i-istāda, we saw a wonderful thing,—something as red as the rose of the dawn kept shewing and vanishing between the sky and the water. It kept coming and going. When we got quite close we learned that what seemed the cause were flocks of geese,[919] not 10,000, not 20,000 in a flock, but geese innumerable which, when the mass of birds flapped their wings in flight, sometimes shewed red feathers, sometimes not. Not only was this bird there in countless numbers, but birds of every sort. Eggs lay in masses on the shore. When two Afghāns, come there to collect eggs, saw us, [Sidenote: Fol. 153b.] they went into the water half a _kuroh_ (a mile). Some of our men following, brought them back. As far as they went the water was of one depth, up to a horse's belly; it seemed not to lie in a hollow, the country being flat.

We dismounted at the torrent coming down to the Āb-i-istāda from the plain of Kattawāz. The several other times we have passed it, we have found a dry channel with no water whatever,[920] but this time, there was so much water, from the spring-rains, that no ford could be found. The water was not very broad but very deep. Horses and camels were made to swim it; some of the baggage was hauled over with ropes. Having got across, we went on through Old Nānī and Sar-i-dih to Ghaznī where for a few days Jahāngīr Mīrzā was our host, setting food before us and offering his tribute.

(_m. Return to Kābul._)

That year most waters came down in flood. No ford was found through the water of Dih-i-yaq`ūb.[921] For this reason we went straight on to Kamarī, through the Sajāwand-pass. At Kamarī I had a boat fashioned in a pool, brought and set on the Dih-i-yaq`ūb-water in front of Kamarī. In this all our people were put over.

We reached Kābul in the month of Ẕū'l-ḥijja (May 1505 AD.).[922] A few days earlier Sayyid Yūsuf _Aūghlāqchī_ had gone to God's [Sidenote: Fol. 154.] mercy through the pains of colic.

(_n. Misconduct of Nāṣīr Mīrzā._)

It has been mentioned that at Qūsh-guṃbaz, Nāṣir Mīrzā asked leave to stay behind, saying that he would follow in a few days after taking something from his district for his retainers and followers.[923] But having left us, he sent a force against the people of Nūr-valley, they having done something a little refractory. The difficulty of moving in that valley owing to the strong position of its fort and the rice-cultivation of its lands, has already been described.[924] The Mīrzā's commander, Faẓlī, in ground so impracticable and in that one-road tract, instead of safe-guarding his men, scattered them to forage. Out came the valesmen, drove the foragers off, made it impossible to the rest to keep their ground, killed some, captured a mass of others and of horses,—precisely what would happen to any army chancing to be under such a person as Faẓlī! Whether because of this affair, or whether from want of heart, the Mīrzā did not follow us at all; he stayed behind.

Moreover Ayūb's sons, Yūsuf and Bahlūl (Begchīk), more seditious, silly and arrogant persons than whom there may not exist,—to whom I had given, to Yūsuf Alangār, to Bahlūl `Alī-shang, they like Nāṣir Mīrzā, were to have taken something from [Sidenote: Fol. 154b.] their districts and to have come on with him, but, he not coming, neither did they. All that winter they were the companions of his cups and social pleasures. They also over-ran the Tarkalānī Afghāns in it.[925] With the on-coming heats, the Mīrzā made march off the families of the clans, outside-tribes and hordes who had wintered in Nīngnahār and the Lamghānāt, driving them like sheep before him, with all their goods, as far as the Bārān-water.[926]

(_o. Affairs of Badakhshān._)

While Nāṣir Mīrzā was in camp on the Bārān-water, he heard that the Badakhshīs were united against the Aūzbegs and had killed some of them.

Here are the particulars:—When Shaibāq Khān had given Qūndūz to Qaṃbar Bī and gone himself to Khwārizm[927]; Qaṃbar Bī, in order to conciliate the Badakhshīs, sent them a son of Muḥammad-i-makhdūmī, Maḥmūd by name, but Mubārak Shāh,—whose ancestors are heard of as begs of the Badakhshān Shāhs,—having uplifted his own head, and cut off Maḥmūd's and those of some Aūzbegs, made himself fast in the fort once known as Shāf-tiwār but re-named by him Qila`-i-ẕafar. Moreover, in Rustāq Muḥammad _qūrchī_, an armourer of Khusrau Shāh, then occupying Khamalangān, slew Shaibāq Khān's _ṣadr_ and some Aūzbegs and made that place fast. Zubair of Rāgh, again, [Sidenote: Fol. 155.] whose forefathers also will have been begs of the Badakhshān Shāhs, uprose in Rāgh.[928] Jahāngīr _Turkmān_, again, a servant of Khusrau Shāh's Walī, collected some of the fugitive soldiers and tribesmen Walī had left behind, and with them withdrew into a fastness.[929]

Nāṣir Mīrzā, hearing these various items of news and spurred on by the instigation of a few silly, short-sighted persons to covet Badakhshān, marched along the Shibr-tū and Āb-dara road, driving like sheep before him the families of the men who had come into Kābul from the other side of the Amū.[930]

(_p. Affairs of Khusrau Shāh._)

At the time Khusrau Shāh and Aḥmad-i-qāsim were in flight from Ājar for Khurāsān,[931] they meeting in with Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā and Ẕū'n-nūn Beg, all went on together to the presence of Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā in Herī. All had long been foes of his; all had behaved unmannerly to him; what brands had they not set on his heart! Yet all now went to him in their distress, and all went through me. For it is not likely they would have seen him if I had not made Khusrau Shāh helpless by parting him from his following, and if I had not taken Kābul from Ẕū'n'nūn's son, Muqīm. Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā himself was as dough in the [Sidenote: Fol. 155b.] hands of the rest; beyond their word he could not go. Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā took up a gracious attitude towards one and all, mentioned no-one's misdeeds, even made them gifts.

Shortly after their arrival Khusrau Shāh asked for leave to go to his own country, saying, "If I go, I shall get it all into my hands." As he had reached Herī without equipment and without resources, they finessed a little about his leave. He became importunate. Muḥammad Barandūq retorted roundly on him with, "When you had 30,000 men behind you and the whole country in your hands, what did you effect against the Aūzbeg? What will you do now with your 500 men and the Aūzbegs in possession?" He added a little good advice in a few sensible words, but all was in vain because the fated hour of Khusrau Shāh's death was near. Leave was at last given because of his importunity; Khusrau Shāh with his 3 or 400 followers, went straight into the borders of Dahānah. There as Nāṣir Mīrzā had just gone across, these two met.

Now the Badakhshī chiefs had invited only the Mīrzā; they had not invited Khusrau Shāh. Try as the Mīrzā did to persuade Khusrau Shāh to go into the hill-country,[932] the latter, quite understanding the whole time, would not consent to go, his own idea being that if he marched under the Mīrzā, he would get the [Sidenote: Fol. 156.] country into his own hands. In the end, unable to agree, each of them, near Ishkīmīsh, arrayed his following, put on mail, drew out to fight, and—departed. Nāṣir Mīrzā went on for Badakhshān; Khusrau Shāh after collecting a disorderly rabble, good and bad of some 1,000 persons, went, with the intention of laying siege to Qūndūz, to Khwāja Chār-tāq, one or two _yīghāch_ outside it.

(_q. Death of Khusrau Shāh._)

At the time Shaibāq Khān, after overcoming Sulṯān Aḥmad _Taṃbal_ and Andijān, made a move on Ḥiṣār, his Honour Khusrau Shāh[933] flung away his country (Qūndūz and Ḥiṣār) without a blow struck, and saved himself. Thereupon Shaibāq Khān went to Ḥiṣār in which were Sherīm the page and a few good braves. _They_ did not surrender Ḥiṣār, though their honourable beg had flung _his_ country away and gone off; they made Ḥiṣār fast. The siege of Ḥiṣār Shaibāq Khān entrusted to Ḥamza Sl. and Mahdī Sulṯān,[934] went to Qūndūz, gave Qūndūz to his younger brother, Maḥmūd Sulṯān and betook himself without delay to Khwārizm against Chīn Ṣūfī. But as, before he reached Samarkand on his way to Khwārizm, he heard of the death in Qūndūz of his brother, Maḥmūd Sulṯān, he gave that place to Qaṃbar Bī of Marv.[935]

Qaṃbar Bī was in Qūndūz when Khusrau Shāh went against it; he at once sent off galloppers to summon Ḥamza Sl. and the [Sidenote: Fol. 156b.] others Shaibāq Khān had left behind. Ḥamza Sl. came himself as far as the _sarāī_ on the Amū bank where he put his sons and begs in command of a force which went direct against Khusrau Shāh. There was neither fight nor flight for that fat, little man; Ḥamza Sulṯān's men unhorsed him, killed his sister's son, Aḥmad-i-qāsim, Sherīm the page and several good braves. Him they took into Qūndūz, there struck his head off and from there sent it to Shaibāq Khān in Khwārizm.[936]

(_r. Conduct in Kābul of Khusrau Shāh's retainers._)

Just as Khusrau Shāh had said they would do, his former retainers and followers, no sooner than he marched against Qūndūz, changed in their demeanour to me,[937] most of them marching off to near Khwāja-i-riwāj.[938] The greater number of the men in my service had been in his. The Mughūls behaved well, taking up a position of adherence to me.[939] On all this the news of Khusrau Shāh's death fell like water on fire; it put his men out.

911 AH.—JUNE 4TH 1505 TO MAY 24TH 1506 AD.[940]

(_a. Death of Qūtlūq-nigār Khānīm._)

In the month of Muḥarram my mother had fever. Blood was let without effect and a Khurāsānī doctor, known as Sayyid T̤abīb, in accordance with the Khurāsān practice, gave her water-melon, but her time to die must have come, for on the [Sidenote: Fol. 157.] Saturday after six days of illness, she went to God's mercy.

On Sunday I and Qāsim Kūkūldāsh conveyed her to the New-year's Garden on the mountain-skirt[941] where Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā had built a house, and there, with the permission of his heirs,[942] we committed her to the earth. While we were mourning for her, people let me know about (the death of) my younger Khān _dādā_ Alacha Khān, and my grandmother Aīsān-daulat Begīm.[943] Close upon Khānīm's Fortieth[944] arrived from Khurāsān Shāh Begīm the mother of the Khāns, together with my maternal-aunt Mihr-nigār Khānīm, formerly of Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā's _ḥaram_, and Muḥammad Ḥusain _Kūrkān Dūghlāt_.[945] Lament broke out afresh; the bitterness of these partings was extreme. When the mourning-rites had been observed, food and victuals set out for the poor and destitute, the Qorān recited, and prayers offered for the departed souls, we steadied ourselves and all took heart again.

(_b. A futile start for Qandahār._)

When set free from these momentous duties, we got an army to horse for Qandahār under the strong insistance of Bāqī _Chaghānīānī_. At the start I went to Qūsh-nādir (var. nāwar) where on dismounting I got fever. It was a strange sort of illness for whenever with much trouble I had been awakened, my eyes closed again in sleep. In four or five days I got quite well.

(_c. An earthquake._)

At that time there was a great earthquake[946] such that most of the ramparts of forts and the walls of gardens fell down; houses were levelled to the ground in towns and villages and many persons lay dead beneath them. Every house fell in Paghmān-village, [Sidenote: Fol. 157b.] and 70 to 80 strong heads-of-houses lay dead under their walls. Between Pagh-mān and Beg-tūt[947] a piece of ground, a good stone-throw[948] wide may-be, slid down as far as an arrow's-flight; where it had slid springs appeared. On the road between Istarghach and Maidān the ground was so broken up for 6 to 8 _yīghāch_ (36-48 m.) that in some places it rose as high as an elephant, in others sank as deep; here and there people were sucked in. When the Earth quaked, dust rose from the tops of the mountains. Nūru'l-lāh the _ṯambourchī_[949] had been playing before me; he had two instruments with him and at the moment of the quake had both in his hands; so out of his own control was he that the two knocked against each other. Jahāngīr Mīrzā was in the porch of an upper-room at a house built by Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā in Tīpa; when the Earth quaked, he let himself down and was not hurt, but the roof fell on some-one with him in that upper-room, presumably one of his own circle; that this person was not hurt in the least must have been solely through God's mercy. In Tīpa most of the houses were levelled to the ground. The Earth quaked 33 times on the first day, and for a month afterwards used to quake two or three times in the 24 hours. The begs and soldiers having been ordered to repair the breaches made in the towers and ramparts [Sidenote: Fol. 158.] of the fort (Kābul), everything was made good again in 20 days or a month by their industry and energy.

(_d. Campaign against Qalāt-i-ghilzāī._)

Owing to my illness and to the earthquake, our plan of going to Qandahār had fallen somewhat into the background. The illness left behind and the fort repaired, it was taken up again. We were undecided at the time we dismounted below Shniz[950] whether to go to Qandahār, or to over-run the hills and plains. Jahāngīr Mīrzā and the begs having assembled, counsel was taken and the matter found settlement in a move on Qalāt. On this move Jahāngīr Mīrzā and Bāqī _Chaghānīānī_ insisted strongly.

At Tāzī[951] there was word that Sher-i-`alī the page with Kīchīk Bāqī _Diwāna_ and others had thoughts of desertion; all were arrested; Sher-i-`alī was put to death because he had given clear signs of disloyalty and misdoing both while in my service and not in mine, in this country and in that country.[952] The others were let go with loss of horse and arms.

On arriving at Qalāt we attacked at once and from all sides, without our mail and without siege-appliances. As has been mentioned in this History, Kīchīk Khwāja, the elder brother of Khwāja Kalān, was a most daring brave; he had used his sword [Sidenote: Fol. 158b.] in my presence several times; he now clambered up the south-west tower of Qalāt, was pricked in the eye with a spear when almost up, and died of the wound two or three days after the place was taken. Here that Kīchīk Bāqī _Dīwāna_ who had been arrested when about to desert with Sher-i-`alī the page, expiated his baseness by being killed with a stone when he went under the ramparts. One or two other men died also. Fighting of this sort went on till the Afternoon Prayer when, just as our men were worn-out with the struggle and labour, those in the fort asked for peace and made surrender. Qalāt had been given by Ẕū'n-nūn _Arghūn_ to Muqīm, and in it now were Muqīm's retainers, Farrukh _Arghūn_ and Qarā _Bīlūt_ (Afghān). When they came out with their swords and quivers hanging round their necks, we forgave their offences.[953] It was not my wish to reduce this high family[954] to great straits; for why? Because if we did so when such a foe as the Aūzbeg was at our side, what would be said by those of far and near, who saw and heard?

As the move on Qalāt had been made under the insistance of Jahāngīr Mīrzā and Bāqī _Chaghānīānī_, it was now made over to the Mīrzā's charge. He would not accept it; Bāqī also could give no good answer in the matter. So, after such a storming and assaulting of Qalāt, its capture was useless.

We went back to Kābul after over-running the Afghāns of Sawā-sang and Ālā-tāgh on the south of Qalāt. [Sidenote: Fol. 159.]

The night we dismounted at Kābul I went into the fort; my tent and stable being in the Chār-bāgh, a Khirilchī thief going into the garden, fetched out and took away a bay horse of mine with its accoutrements, and my _khachar_.[955]

(_e. Death of Bāqī Chaghānīānī._)

From the time Bāqī _Chaghānīanī_ joined me on the Amū-bank, no man of mine had had more trust and authority.[956] If a word were said, if an act were done, that word was his word, that act, his act. Spite of this, he had not done me fitting service, nor had he shewn me due civility. Quite the contrary! he had done things bad and unmannerly. Mean he was, miserly and malicious, ill-tongued, envious and cross-natured. So miserly was he that although when he left Tīrmīẕ, with his family and possessions, he may have owned 30 to 40,000 sheep, and although those masses of sheep used to pass in front of us at every camping-ground, he did not give a single one to our bare braves, tortured as they were by the pangs of hunger; at last in Kāh-mard, he gave 50!

Spite of acknowledging me for his chief (_pādshāh_), he had nagarets beaten at his own Gate. He was sincere to none, had regard for none. What revenue there is from Kābul (town) comes from the _ṯamghā_[957]; the whole of this he had, together [Sidenote: Fol. 159b.] with the _dārogha_-ship in Kābul and Panjhīr, the Gadai (var. Kidī) Hazāra, and _kūshlūk_[958] and control of the Gate.[959] With all this favour and finding, he was not in the least content; quite the reverse! What medley of mischief he planned has been told; we had taken not the smallest notice of any of it, nor had we cast it in his face. He was always asking for leave, affecting scruple at making the request. We used to acknowledge the scruple and excuse ourselves from giving the leave. This would put him down for a few days; then he would ask again. He went too far with his affected scruple and his takings of leave! Sick were we too of his conduct and his character. We gave the leave; he repented asking for it and began to agitate against it, but all in vain! He got written down and sent to me, "His Highness made compact not to call me to account till nine[960] misdeeds had issued from me." I answered with a reminder of eleven successive faults and sent this to him through Mullā Bābā of Pashāghar. He submitted and was allowed to go towards Hindūstān, taking his family and possessions. A few of his retainers escorted him through Khaibar and returned; he joined Bāqī _Gāgīānī's_ caravan and crossed at Nīl-āb.

Daryā Khān's son, Yār-i-ḥusain was then in Kacha-kot,[961] having drawn into his service, on the warrant of the _farmān_ taken from me in Kohāt, a few Afghāns of the Dilazāk (var. Dilah-zāk) and Yūsuf-zāī and also a few Jats and Gujūrs.[962] With these he beat the roads, taking toll with might and main. Hearing about Bāqī, he blocked the road, made the whole party [Sidenote: Fol. 160.] prisoner, killed Bāqī and took his wife.

We ourselves had let Bāqī go without injuring him, but his own misdeeds rose up against him; his own acts defeated him.

Leave thou to Fate the man who does thee wrong; For Fate is an avenging servitor.

(_f. Attack on the Turkmān Hazāras._)

That winter we just sat in the Chār-bāgh till snow had fallen once or twice.

The Turkmān Hazāras, since we came into Kābul, had done a variety of insolent things and had robbed on the roads. We thought therefore of over-running them, went into the town to Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā's house at the Būstān-sarāī, and thence rode out in the month of Sha`bān (Feb. 1506 AD.).

We raided a few Hazāras at Janglīk, at the mouth of the Dara-i-khūsh (Happy-valley).[963] Some were in a cave near the valley-mouth, hiding perhaps. Shaikh Darwīsh Kūkūldāsh went incautiously right (_auq_) up to the cave-mouth, was shot (_aūqlāb_) in the nipple by a Hazāra inside and died there and then (_aūq_).[964]

(_Author's note on Shaikh Darwīsh._) He had been with me in the guerilla-times, was Master-armourer (_qūr-begī_), drew a strong bow and shot a good shaft.

As most of the Turkmān Hazāras seemed to be wintering inside the Dara-i-khūsh, we marched against them.

The valley is shut in,[965] by a mile-long gully stretching inwards from its mouth. The road engirdles the mountain, having [Sidenote: Fol. 160b.] a straight fall of some 50 to 60 yards below it and above it a precipice. Horsemen go along it in single-file. We passed the gully and went on through the day till between the Two Prayers (3 p.m.) without meeting a single person. Having spent the night somewhere, we found a fat camel[966] belonging to the Hazāras, had it killed, made part of its flesh into _kabābs_[967] and cooked part in a ewer (_aftāb_). Such good camel-flesh had never been tasted; some could not tell it from mutton.

Next day we marched on for the Hazāra winter-camp. At the first watch (9 a.m.) a man came from ahead, saying that the Hazāras had blocked a ford in front with branches, checked our men and were fighting. That winter the snow lay very deep; to move was difficult except on the road. The swampy meadows (_tuk-āb_) along the stream were all frozen; the stream could only be crossed from the road because of snow and ice. The Hazāras had cut many branches, put them at the exit from the water and were fighting in the valley-bottom with horse and foot or raining [Sidenote: Fol. 161.] arrows down from either side.

Muḥammad `Alī _Mubashshir_[968] Beg, one of our most daring braves, newly promoted to the rank of beg and well worthy of favour, went along the branch-blocked road without his mail, was shot in the belly and instantly surrendered his life. As we had gone forward in haste, most of us were not in mail. Shaft after shaft flew by and fell; with each one Yūsuf's Aḥmad said anxiously, "Bare[969] like this you go into it! I have seen two arrows go close to your head!" Said I, "Don't fear! Many as good arrows as these have flown past my head!" So much said, Qāsim Beg, his men in full accoutrement,[970] found a ford on our right and crossed. Before their charge the Hazāras could make no stand; they fled, swiftly pursued and unhorsed one after the other by those just up with them.

In guerdon for this feat Bangash was given to Qāsim Beg. Ḥātim the armourer having been not bad in the affair, was promoted to Shaikh Darwīsh's office of _qūr-begī_. Bābā Qulī's Kīpik (_sic_) also went well forward in it, so we entrusted Muḥ. `Alī _Mubashshir's_ office to him.

Sl. Qulī _Chūnāq_ (one-eared) started in pursuit of the Hazāras but there was no getting out of the hollow because of the snow. [Sidenote: Fol. 161b.] For my own part I just went with these braves.

Near the Hazāra winter-camp we found many sheep and herds of horses. I myself collected as many as 4 to 500 sheep and from 20 to 25 horses. Sl. Qulī _Chūnāq_ and two or three of my personal servants were with me. I have ridden in a raid twice[971]; this was the first time; the other was when, coming in from Khurāsān (912 AH.), we raided these same Turkmān Hazāras. Our foragers brought in masses of sheep and horses. The Hazāra wives and their little children had gone off up the snowy slopes and stayed there; we were rather idle and it was getting late in the day; so we turned back and dismounted in their very dwellings. Deep indeed was the snow that winter! Off the road it was up to a horse's _qāptāl_,[972] so deep that the night-watch was in the saddle all through till shoot of dawn.

Going out of the valley, we spent the next night just inside the mouth, in the Hazāra winter-quarters. Marching from there, we dismounted at Janglīk. At Janglīk Yārak T̤aghāī and other late-comers were ordered to take the Hazāras who had killed Shaikh Darwīsh and who, luckless and death-doomed, seemed still to be in the cave. Yārak T̤aghāī and his band by sending smoke into the cave, took 70 to 80 Hazāras who mostly died by the sword.

(_g. Collection of the Nijr-aū tribute._)

On the way back from the Hazāra expedition we went to the Āī-tūghdī neighbourhood below Bārān[973] in order to collect the revenue of Nijr-aū. Jahāngīr Mīrzā, come up from Ghaznī, [Sidenote: Fol. 162.] waited on me there. At that time, on Ramẓān 13th (Feb. 7th) such sciatic-pain attacked me that for 40 days some-one had to turn me over from one side to the other.

Of the (seven) valleys of the Nijr-water the Pīchkān-valley,—and of the villages in the Pīchkān-valley Ghain,—and of Ghain its head-man Ḥusain _Ghainī_ in particular, together with his elder and younger brethren, were known and notorious for obstinacy and daring. On this account a force was sent under Jahāngīr Mīrzā, Qāsim Beg going too, which went to Sar-i-tūp (Hill-top), stormed and took a _sangur_ and made a few meet their doom.

Because of the sciatic pain, people made a sort of litter for me in which they carried me along the bank of the Bārān and into the town to the Būstān-sarāī. There I stayed for a few days; before that trouble was over a boil came out on my left cheek; this was lanced and for it I also took a purge. When relieved, I went out into the Chār-bāgh.

(_h. Misconduct of Jahāngīr Mīrzā._)

At the time Jahāngīr Mīrzā waited on me, Ayūb's sons Yūsuf and Buhlūl, who were in his service, had taken up a strifeful and seditious attitude towards me; so the Mīrzā was not found to be what he had been earlier. In a few days he marched out of Tīpa in his mail,[974] hurried back to Ghaznī, there took Nānī, killed some of its people and plundered all. [Sidenote: Fol. 162b.] After that he marched off with whatever men he had, through the Hazāras,[975] his face set for Bāmīān. God knows that nothing had been done by me or my dependants to give him ground for anger or reproach! What was heard of later on as perhaps explaining his going off in the way he did, was this;—When Qāsim Beg went with other begs, to give him honouring meeting as he came up from Ghaznī, the Mīrzā threw a falcon off at a quail. Just as the falcon, getting close, put out its pounce to seize the quail, the quail dropped to the ground. Hereupon shouts and cries, "Taken! is it taken?" Said Qāsim Beg, "Who looses the foe in his grip?" Their misunderstanding of this was their sole reason for going off, but they backed themselves on one or two other worse and weaker old cronish matters.[976] After doing in Ghaznī what has been mentioned, they drew off through the Hazāras to the Mughūl clans.[977] These clans at that time had left Nāṣir Mīrzā but had not joined the Aūzbeg, and were in Yāī, Astar-āb and the summer-pastures thereabouts.

(_i. Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā calls up help against Shaibāq Khān._)

Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā, having resolved to repel Shaibāq Khān, summoned all his sons; me too he summoned, sending to me Sayyid Afẓal, son of Sayyid `Alī _Khwāb-bīn_ (Seer-of-dreams). It was right on several grounds for us to start for Khurāsān. One ground was that when a great ruler, sitting, as Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā sat, in Tīmūr Beg's place, had resolved to act against [Sidenote: Fol. 163.] such a foe as Shaibāq Khān and had called up many men and had summoned his sons and his begs, if there were some who went on foot it was for us to go if on our heads! if some took the bludgeon, we would take the stone! A second ground was that, since Jahāngīr Mīrzā had gone to such lengths and had behaved so badly,[978] we had either to dispel his resentment or to repel his attack.

(_j. Chīn Ṣūfī's death._)

This year Shaibāq Khān took Khwārizm after besieging Chīn Sūfī in it for ten months. There had been a mass of fighting during the siege; many were the bold deeds done by the Khwārizmī braves; nothing soever did they leave undone. Again and again their shooting was such that their arrows pierced shield and cuirass, sometimes the two cuirasses.[979] For ten months they sustained that siege without hope in any quarter. A few bare braves then lost heart, entered into talk with the Aūzbeg and were in the act of letting him up into the fort when Chīn Ṣūfī had the news and went to the spot. Just as he was beating and forcing down the Aūzbegs, his own page, in a discharge of arrows, shot him from behind. No man was left to fight; the Aūzbegs took Khwārizm. God's mercy on Chīn Ṣūfī, who never for one moment ceased to stake his life [Sidenote: Fol. 163b.] for his chief![980]

Shaibāq Khān entrusted Khwārizm to Kūpuk (_sic_) Bī and went back to Samarkand.

(_k. Death of Sultān Ḥusain Mīrzā._)

Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā having led his army out against Shaibāq Khān as far as Bābā Ilāhī[981] went to God's mercy, in the month of Ẕū'l-ḥijja (Ẕū'l-ḥijja 11th 911 AH.-May 5th 1506 AD.).

SULT̤ĀN ḤUSAIN MĪRZĀ AND HIS COURT.[982]

(_a._) _His birth and descent._

He was born in Herī (Harāt), in (Muḥarram) 842 (AH.-June-July, 1438 AD.) in Shāhrukh Mīrzā's time[983] and was the son of Manṣūr Mīrzā, son of Bāī-qarā Mīrzā, son of `Umar Shaikh Mīrzā, son of Amīr Tīmūr. Manṣūr Mīrzā and Bāī-qarā Mīrzā never reigned.

His mother was Fīrūza Begīm, a (great-)grandchild (_nabīra_) of Tīmūr Beg; through her he became a grandchild of Mīrān-shāh also.[984] He was of high birth on both sides, a ruler of royal lineage.[985] Of the marriage (of Manṣūr with Fīrūza) were born two sons and two daughters, namely, Bāī-qarā Mīrzā and Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā, Ākā Begīm and another daughter, Badka Begīm whom Aḥmad Khān took.[986]

Bāī-qarā Mīrzā was older than Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā; he was his younger brother's retainer but used not to be present as head of the Court;[987] except in Court, he used to share his brother's divan (_tūshak_). He was given Balkh by his younger brother and was its Commandant for several years. He had three sons, Sl. Muḥammad Mīrzā, Sl. Wais Mīrzā and Sl. Iskandar Mīrzā.[988]

Ākā Begīm was older than the Mīrzā; she was taken by [Sidenote: Fol. 164.] Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā,[989] a grandson (_nabīra_) of Mīrān-shāh; by him she had a son (Muḥammad Sulṯān Mīrzā), known as Kīchīk (Little) Mīrzā, who at first was in his maternal-uncle's service, but later on gave up soldiering to occupy himself with letters. He is said to have become very learned and also to have taste in verse.[990] Here is a Persian quatrain of his:—

For long on a life of devotion I plumed me, As one of the band of the abstinent ranged me; Where when Love came was devotion? denial? By the mercy of God it is I have proved me!

This quatrain recalls one by the Mullā.[991] Kīchīk Mīrzā made the circuit of the _ka'ba_ towards the end of his life.

Badka (Badī`u'l-jamāl) Begīm also was older[992] than the Mīrzā. She was given in the guerilla times to Aḥmad Khān of Ḥājī-tarkhān;[993] by him she had two sons (Sl. Maḥmūd Khān and Bahādur Sl.) who went to Herī and were in the Mīrzā's service.

(_b._) _His appearance and habits._

He was slant-eyed (_qīyik gūzlūq_) and lion-bodied, being slender from the waist downwards. Even when old and white-bearded, he wore silken garments of fine red and green. He used to wear either the black lambskin cap (_būrk_) or the _qālpāq_,[994] but on a Feast-day would sometimes set up a little three-fold turban, wound broad and badly,[995] stick a heron's plume in it and so go to Prayers.

When he first took Herī, he thought of reciting the names of [Sidenote: Fol. 164b.] the Twelve Imāms in the _khuṯba_,[996] but `Alī-sher Beg and others prevented it; thereafter all his important acts were done in accordance with orthodox law. He could not perform the Prayers on account of a trouble in the joints,[997] and he kept no fasts. He was lively and pleasant, rather immoderate in temper, and with words that matched his temper. He shewed great respect for the law in several weighty matters; he once surrendered to the Avengers of blood a son of his own who had killed a man, and had him taken to the Judgment-gate (_Dāru'l-qaẓā_). He was abstinent for six or seven years after he took the throne; later on he degraded himself to drink. During the almost 40 years of his rule[998] in Khurāsān, there may not have been one single day on which he did not drink after the Mid-day prayer; earlier than that however he did not drink. What happened with his sons, the soldiers and the town was that every-one pursued vice and pleasure to excess. Bold and daring he was! Time and again he got to work with his own sword, getting his own hand in wherever he arrayed to fight; no man of Tīmūr Beg's line has been known to match him in the slashing of swords. He had a leaning to poetry and even put a _dīwān_ together, writing in Turkī with Ḥusainī for his pen-name.[999] Many couplets in his _dīwān_ are not bad; it is however in one and the same metre throughout. Great ruler though he was, [Sidenote: Fol. 165.] both by the length of his reign (_yāsh_) and the breadth of his dominions, he yet, like little people kept fighting-rams, flew pigeons and fought cocks.

(_c._) _His wars and encounters._[1000]

He swam the Gurgān-water[1001] in his guerilla days and gave a party of Aūzbegs a good beating.

Again,—with 60 men he fell on 3000 under Pay-master Muḥammad `Alī, sent ahead by Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā, and gave them a downright good beating (868 AH.). This was his one fine, out-standing feat-of-arms.[1002]

Again,—he fought and beat Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā near Astarābād (865 AH.).[1003]

Again,—this also in Astarābād, he fought and beat Sa`īdlīq Sa`īd, son of Ḥusain _Turkmān_ (873 AH.?).

Again,—after taking the throne (of Herī in Ramẓān 873 AH.-March 1469 AD.), he fought and beat Yādgār-i-muḥammad Mīrzā at Chanārān (874 AH.).[1004]

Again,—coming swiftly[1005] from the Murgh-āb bridge-head (Sar-i-pul), he fell suddenly on Yādgār-i-muḥammad Mīrzā where he lay drunk in the Ravens'-garden (875 AH.), a victory which kept all Khurāsān quiet.

Again,—he fought and beat Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā at Chīkmān-sarāī in the neighbourhood of Andikhūd and Shibrghān (876 AH.).[1006]

Again,—he fell suddenly on Abā-bikr Mīrzā[1007] after that Mīrzā, joined by the Black-sheep Turkmāns, had come out of `Irāq, beaten Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā (_Kābulī_) in Takāna and Khimār (var. Ḥimār), taken Kābul, left it because of turmoil in `Irāq, crossed Khaibar, gone on to Khūsh-āb and Multān, on again to [Sidenote: Fol. 165b.] Sīwī,[1008] thence to Karmān and, unable to stay there, had entered the Khurāsān country (884 AH.).[1009]

Again,—he defeated his son Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā at Pul-i-chirāgh (902 AH.); he also defeated his sons Abū'l-muḥsin Mīrzā and Kūpuk (Round-shouldered) Mīrzā at Ḥalwā-spring (904 AH.).[1010]

Again,—he went to Qūndūz, laid siege to it, could not take it, and retired; he laid siege to Ḥiṣār, could not take that either, and rose from before it (901 AH.); he went into Ẕū'n-nūn's country, was given Bast by its _dārogha_, did no more and retired (903 AH.).[1011] A ruler so great and so brave, after resolving royally on these three movements, just retired with nothing done!

Again,—he fought his son Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā in the Nīshīn-meadow, who had come there with Ẕū'n-nūn's son, Shāh Beg (903 AH.). In that affair were these curious coincidences:—The Mīrzā's force will have been small, most of his men being in Astarābād; on the very day of the fight, one force rejoined him coming back from Astarābād, and Sl. Mas`ūd Mīrzā arrived to join Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā after letting Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā take Ḥiṣār, and Ḥaidar Mīrzā came back from reconnoitring Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā at Sabzawār.

(_d._) _His countries._

His country was Khurāsān, with Balkh to the east, Bistām and Damghān to the west, Khwārizm to the north, Qandahār [Sidenote: Fol. 166.] and Sīstān to the south. When he once had in his hands such a town as Herī, his only affair, by day and by night, was with comfort and pleasure; nor was there a man of his either who did not take his ease. It followed of course that, as he no longer tolerated the hardships and fatigue of conquest and soldiering, his retainers and his territories dwindled instead of increasing right down to the time of his departure.[1012]

(_e._) _His children._

Fourteen sons and eleven daughters were born to him.[1013] The oldest of all his children was Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā; (Bega Begīm) a daughter of Sl. Sanjar of Marv, was his mother.

Shāh-i-gharīb Mīrzā was another; he had a stoop (_būkūrī_); though ill to the eye, he was of good character; though weak of body, he was powerful of pen. He even put a _dīwān_ together, using Gharbatī (Lowliness) for his pen-name and writing both Turkī and Persian verse. Here is a couplet of his:—

Seeing a peri-face as I passed, I became its fool; Not knowing what was its name, where was its home.

For a time he was his father's Governor in Herī. He died before his father, leaving no child.

Muz̤affar-i-ḥusain Mīrzā was another; he was his father's favourite son, but though this favourite, had neither accomplishments nor character. It was Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā's over-fondness for this son that led his other sons into rebellion. The mother of Shāh-i-gharīb Mīrzā and of Muz̤affar-i-ḥusain Mīrzā was [Sidenote: Fol. 166b.] Khadīja Begīm, a former mistress of Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā by whom she had had a daughter also, known as Āq (Fair) Begīm.

Two other sons were Abū'l-ḥusain Mīrzā and Kūpuk (var. Kīpik) Mīrzā whose name was Muḥammad Muḥsin Mīrzā; their mother was Laṯīf-sulṯān Āghācha.

Abū-turāb Mīrzā was another. From his early years he had an excellent reputation. When the news of his father's increased illness[1014] reached him and other news of other kinds also, he fled with his younger brother Muḥammad-i-ḥusain Mīrzā into `Irāq,[1015] and there abandoned soldiering to lead the darwish-life; nothing further has been heard about him.[1016] His son Sohrāb was in my service when I took Ḥiṣār after having beaten the sulṯāns led by Ḥamza Sl. and Mahdī Sl. (917 AH.-1511 AD.); he was blind of one eye and of wretchedly bad aspect; his disposition matched even his ill-looks. Owing to some immoderate act (_bī i`tidāl_), he could not stay with me, so went off. For some of his immoderate doings, Nijm S̤ānī put him to death near Astarābād.[1017]

Muḥammad-i-ḥusain Mīrzā was another. He must have been shut up (_bund_) with Shāh Ismā`īl at some place in `Irāq and have become his disciple;[1018] he became a rank heretic later on and became this although his father and brethren, older and younger, were all orthodox. He died in Astarābād, still on the same wrong road, still with the same absurd opinions. A good deal is heard about his courage and heroism, but no deed of his stands out as worthy of record. He may have been poetically-disposed; here is a couplet of his:—

Grimed with dust, from tracking what game dost thou come? Steeped in sweat, from whose heart of flame dost thou come?

Farīdūn-i-ḥusain Mīrzā was another. He drew a very strong [Sidenote: Fol. 167.] bow and shot a first-rate shaft; people say his cross-bow (_kamān-i-guroha_) may have been 40 _bātmāns_.[1019] He himself was very brave but he had no luck in war; he was beaten wherever he fought. He and his younger brother Ibn-i-ḥusain Mīrzā were defeated at Rabāṯ-i-dūzd (var. Dudūr) by Tīmūr Sl. and `Ubaid Sl. leading Shaibāq Khān's advance (913 AH.?), but he had done good things there.[1020] In Dāmghān he and Muḥammad-i-zamān Mīrzā[1021] fell into the hands of Shaibāq Khān who, killing neither, let both go free. Farīdūn-i-ḥusain Mīrzā went later on to Qalāt[1022] where Shāh Muḥammad _Diwāna_ had made himself fast; there when the Aūzbegs took the place, he was captured and killed. The three sons last-named were by Mīnglī Bībī Āghācha, Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā's Aūzbeg mistress.

Ḥaidar Mīrzā was another; his mother Payānda-sulṯān Begīm was a daughter of Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā. Ḥaidar Mīrzā was Governor of Balkh and Mashhad for some time during his father's life. For him his father, when besieging Ḥiṣār (901 AH.) took (Bega Begīm) a daughter of Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā and Khān-zāda Begīm; this done, he rose from before Ḥiṣār. One daughter only[1023] was born of that marriage; she was named Shād (Joy) Begīm and given to `Ādil Sl.[1024] when she came to Kābul later on. Ḥaidar Mīrzā departed from the world in his father's [Sidenote: Fol. 167b.] life-time.

Muḥammad Ma`ṣūm Mīrzā was another. He had Qandahār given to him and, as was fitting with this, a daughter of Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā, (Bega Begīm), was set aside for him; when she went to Herī (902 AH.), Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā made a splendid feast, setting up a great _chār-ṯāq_ for it.[1025] Though Qandahār was given to Muḥ. Ma`ṣūm Mīrzā, he had neither power nor influence there, since, if black were done, or if white were done, the act was Shāh Beg _Arghūn's_. On this account the Mīrzā left Qandahār and went into Khurāsān. He died before his father.

Farrukh-i-ḥusain Mīrzā was another. Brief life was granted to him; he bade farewell to the world before his younger brother Ibrāhīm-i-ḥusain Mīrzā.

Ibrāhīm-i-ḥusain Mīrzā was another. They say his disposition was not bad; he died before his father from bibbing and bibbing Herī wines.

Ibn-i-ḥusain Mīrzā and Muḥ. Qāsim Mīrzā were others;[1026] their story will follow. Pāpā Āghācha was the mother of the five sons last-named.

Of all the Mīrzā's daughters, Sulṯānīm Begīm was the oldest. She had no brother or sister of the full-blood. Her mother, known as Chūlī (Desert) Begīm, was a daughter of one of the Aẕāq begs. Sulṯānīm Begīm had great acquaintance with words (_soz bīlūr aīdī_); she was never at fault for a word. Her father sent her out[1027] to Sl. Wais Mīrzā, the middle son of his own elder brother Bāī-qarā Mīrzā; she had a son and a daughter by him; the daughter was sent out to Aīsān-qulī Sl. younger brother of Yīlī-bārs of the Shabān sulṯāns;[1028] the son is that Muḥammad Sl. Mīrzā to whom I have given the Qanauj district.[1029] At that same date Sulṯānīm Begīm, when on her way with her grandson [Sidenote: Fol. 168.] from Kābul to Hindūstān, went to God's mercy at Nīl-āb. Her various people turned back, taking her bones; her grandson came on.[1030]

Four daughters were by Payānda-sulṯān Begīm. Āq Begīm, the oldest, was sent out to Muḥammad Qāsim _Arlāt_, a grandson of Bega Begīm the younger sister of Bābur Mīrzā;[1031] there was one daughter (_bīr gīna qīz_), known as Qarā-gūz (Dark-eyed) Begīm, whom Nāṣir Mīrzā (_Mīrān-shāhī_) took. Kīchīk Begīm was the second; for her Sl. Mas`ūd Mīrzā had great desire but, try as he would, Payānda-sulṯān Begīm, having an aversion for him, would not give her to him;[1032] she sent Kīchīk Begīm out afterwards to Mullā Khwāja of the line of Sayyid Ātā.[1033] Her third and fourth daughters Bega Begīm and Āghā Begīm, she gave to Bābur Mīrzā and Murād Mīrzā the sons of her younger sister, Rābī`a-sulṯān Begīm.[1034]

Two other daughters of the Mīrzā were by Mīnglī Bībī Āghācha. They gave the elder one, Bairam-sulṯān Begīm to Sayyid `Abdu'l-lāh, one of the sayyids of Andikhūd who was a grandson of Bāī-qarā Mīrzā[1035] through a daughter. A son of this marriage, Sayyid Barka[1036] was in my service when Samarkand was taken (917 AH.-1511 AD.); he went to Aūrganj later and there made claim to rule; the Red-heads[1037] killed him in Astarābād. Mīnglī Bībī's second daughter was Fāṯima-sulṯān Begīm; her they gave to Yādgār(-i-farrukh) Mīrzā of Tīmūr Beg's line.[1038]

Three daughters[1039] were by Pāpā Āghācha. Of these the oldest, Sulṯān-nizhād Begīm was made to go out to Iskandar Mīrzā, youngest son of Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā's elder brother Bāī-qarā Mīrzā. The second, (Sa`ādat-bakht, known as) Begīm Sulṯān, [Sidenote: Fol. 168b.] was given to Sl. Mas`ūd Mīrzā after his blinding.[1040] By Sl. Mas`ūd Mīrzā she had one daughter and one son. The daughter was brought up by Apāq Begīm of Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā's _ḥaram_; from Herī she came to Kābul and was there given to Sayyid Mīrzā Apāq.[1041] (Sa`ādat-bakht) Begīm Sulṯān after the Aūzbeg killed her husband, set out for the _ka`ba_ with her son.[1042] News has just come (_circa_ 934 AH.) that they have been heard of as in Makka and that the boy is becoming a bit of a great personage.[1043] Pāpā Āghācha's third daughter was given to a sayyid of Andikhūd, generally known as Sayyid Mīrzā.[1044]

Another of the Mīrzā's daughters, `Āyisha-sulṯān Begīm, was by a mistress, Zubaida Āghācha the grand-daughter of Ḥusain-i-Shaikh Tīmūr.[1045] They gave her to Qāsim Sl. of the Shabān sulṯāns; she had by him a son, named Qāsim-i-ḥusain Sl. who came to serve me in Hindūstān, was in the Holy Battle with Rānā Sangā, and was given Badāyūn.[1046] When Qāsim Sl. died, (his widow) `Āyisha-sulṯān Begīm was taken by Būrān Sl. one of his relations,[1047] by whom she had a son, named `Abdu'l-lāh Sl. now serving me and though young, not doing badly.

(_f. His wives and concubines._)

The wife he first took was Bega Sulṯān Begīm, a daughter of Sl. Sanjar of Marv. She was the mother of Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā. She was very cross-tempered and made the Mīrzā endure much wretchedness, until driven at last to despair, he set himself [Sidenote: Fol. 169.] free by divorcing her. What was he to do? Right was with him.[1048]

A bad wife in a good man's house Makes this world already his hell.[1049]

God preserve every Musalmān from this misfortune! Would that not a single cross or ill-tempered wife were left in the world!

Chūlī Begīm was another; she was a daughter of the Aẕāq begs and was the mother of Sulṯānīm Begīm.

Shahr-bānū Begīm was another; she was Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā's daughter, taken after Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā took the throne (873 AH.). When the Mīrzā's other ladies got out of their litters and mounted horses, at the battle of Chīkmān, Shahr-bānū Begīm, putting her trust in her younger brother (Sl. Maḥmūd M.), did not leave her litter, did not mount a horse;[1050] people told the Mīrzā of this, so he divorced her and took her younger sister Payānda-sulṯān Begīm. When the Aūzbegs took Khurāsān (913 AH.), Payānda-sulṯān Begīm went into `Irāq, and in `Irāq she died in great misery.

Khadīja Begīm was another.[1051] She had been a mistress of Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā and by him had had a daughter, Āq Begīm; after his defeat (873 AH.-1468 AD.) she betook herself to Herī where Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā took her, made her a great favourite, and promoted her to the rank of Begīm. Very dominant indeed she became later on; she it was wrought Muḥ. Mūmin Mīrzā's death;[1052] she in chief it was caused Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā's sons to rebel against him. She took herself for a sensible woman but was a silly chatterer, may also have been a heretic. Of her were [Sidenote: Fol. 169b.] born Shāh-i-gharīb Mīrzā and Muz̤affar-i-ḥusain Mīrzā.

Apāq Begīm was another;[1053] she had no children; that Pāpā Āghācha the Mīrzā made such a favourite of was her foster-sister. Being childless, Apāq Begīm brought up as her own the children of Pāpā Āghācha. She nursed the Mīrzā admirably when he was ill; none of his other wives could nurse as she did. The year I came into Hindūstān (932 AH.)[1054] she came into Kābul from Herī and I shewed her all the honour and respect I could. While I was besieging Chandīrī (934 AH.) news came that in Kābul she had fulfilled God's will.[1055]

One of the Mīrzā's mistresses was Laṯīf-sulṯān Āghācha of the Chār-shamba people[1056]; she became the mother of Abū'l-muḥsin Mīrzā and Kūpuk (or Kīpik) Mīrzā (_i.e._ Muḥammad Muḥsin).

Another mistress was Mīnglī Bībī Āghācha,[1057] an Aūzbeg and one of Shahr-bānū Begīm's various people. She became the mother of Abū-turāb Mīrzā, Muḥammad-i-ḥusain Mīrzā, Farīdūn-i-ḥusain Mīrzā and of two daughters.

Pāpā Āghācha, the foster-sister of Apāq Begīm was another mistress. The Mīrzā saw her, looked on her with favour, took her and, as has been mentioned, she became the mother of five of his sons and four of his daughters.[1058]

Begī Sulṯān Āghācha was another mistress; she had no child. There were also many concubines and mistresses held in little respect; those enumerated were the respected wives and mistresses of Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā.

Strange indeed it is that of the 14 sons born to a ruler so great as Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā, one governing too in such a town as Herī, three only were born in legal marriage.[1059] In him, in his sons, and in his tribes and hordes vice and debauchery were [Sidenote: Fol. 170.] extremely prevalent. What shews this point precisely is that of the many sons born to his dynasty not a sign or trace was left in seven or eight years, excepting only Muḥammad-i-zamān Mīrzā.[1060]

(_g. His amīrs._)

There was Muḥammad Barandūq _Barlās_, descending from Chākū _Barlās_ as follows,—Muḥammad Barandūq, son of `Alī, son of Barandūq, son of Jahān-shāh, son of Chākū _Barlās_.[1061] He had been a beg of Bābur Mīrzā's presence; later on Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā favoured him, gave him Kābul conjointly with Jahāngīr _Barlās_, and made him Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā's guardian. After the death of Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā, Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā formed designs against the two Barlās; they got to know this, kept tight hold of him, made the tribes and hordes march,[1062] moved as for Qūndūz, and when up on Hindū-kush, courteously compelled Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā to start back for Kābul, they themselves going on to Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā in Khurāsān, who, in his turn, shewed them great favour. Muḥammad Barandūq was remarkably intelligent, a very leaderlike man indeed! He was extravagantly fond of a hawk; so much so, they say, that if a hawk of his had strayed or had died, he would ask, taking the names of his sons on his lips, what it would have mattered if such or such a son had died or had broken his neck, rather than this or that bird had died or had strayed.

Muz̤affar _Barlās_ was another.[1063] He had been with the Mīrzā in the guerilla fighting and, for some cause unknown, had received extreme favour. In such honour was he in those guerilla days that the compact was for the Mīrzā to take four _dāng_ (sixths) [Sidenote: Fol. 170b.] of any country conquered, and for him to take two _dāng_. A strange compact indeed! How could it be right to make even a faithful servant a co-partner in rule? Not even a younger brother or a son obtains such a pact; how then should a beg?[1064] When the Mīrzā had possession of the throne, he repented the compact, but his repentance was of no avail; that muddy-minded mannikin, favoured so much already, made growing assumption to rule. The Mīrzā acted without judgment; people say Muz̤affar _Barlās_ was poisoned in the end.[1065] God knows the truth!

`Alī-sher _Nawā'ī_ was another, the Mīrzā's friend rather than his beg. They had been learners together in childhood and even then are said to have been close friends. It is not known for what offence Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā drove `Alī-sher Beg from Herī; he then went to Samarkand where he was protected and supported by Aḥmad Ḥājī Beg during the several years of his stay.[1066] He was noted for refinement of manner; people fancied this due to the pride of high fortune but it may not have been so, it may have been innate, since it was equally noticeable also in Samarkand.[1067] `Alī-sher Beg had no match. For as long as verse has been written in the Turkī tongue, no-one has written so much or so well as he. He wrote six books of poems (mas̤nawī), five of them answering to the Quintet (_Khamsah_),[1068] the sixth, entitled the _Lisānu'ṯ-ṯair_ (Tongue of the birds), was in the same metre as the _Manṯiqu'ṯ-ṯair_ (Speech of the birds).[1069] He put together four _dīwāns_ (collections) of odes, bearing the names, _Curiosities of Childhood_, _Marvels of Youth_, _Wonders of Manhood_ and _Advantages of Age_.[1070] There are good quatrains of his also. Some others of his compositions rank below those [Sidenote: Fol. 171.] mentioned; amongst them is a collection of his letters, imitating that of Maulānā `Abdu'r-raḥmān _Jāmī_ and aiming at gathering together every letter on any topic he had ever written to any person. He wrote also the _Mīzānu'l-aūzān_ (Measure of measures) on prosody; it is very worthless; he has made mistake in it about the metres of four out of twenty-four quatrains, while about other measures he has made mistake such as any-one who has given attention to prosody, will understand. He put a Persian _dīwān_ together also, Fānī (transitory) being his pen-name for Persian verse.[1071] Some couplets in it are not bad but for the most part it is flat and poor. In music also he composed good things (_nīma_), some excellent airs and preludes (_nakhsh u peshrau_). No such patron and protector of men of parts and accomplishments is known, nor has one such been heard of as ever appearing. It was through his instruction and support that Master (Ustād) Qul-i-muḥammad the lutanist, Shaikhī the flautist, and Ḥusain the lutanist, famous performers all, rose to eminence and renown. It was through his effort and supervision that Master Bih-zād and Shāh Muz̤affar became so distinguished in painting. Few are heard of as having helped to lay the good foundation for future excellence he helped to lay. He had neither son nor daughter, wife or family; he let the world pass by, alone and unencumbered. At first he was Keeper of the Seal; in middle-life he became a beg and for a time was Commandant in Astarābād; later on he forsook soldiering. He took nothing from the Mīrzā, on the contrary, he each year [Sidenote: Fol. 171b.] offered considerable gifts. When the Mīrzā was returning from the Astarābād campaign, `Alī-sher Beg went out to give him meeting; they saw one another but before `Alī-sher Beg should have risen to leave, his condition became such that he could not rise. He was lifted up and carried away; the doctors could not tell what was wrong; he went to God's mercy next day,[1072] one of his own couplets suiting his case:—

I was felled by a stroke out of their ken and mine; What, in such evils, can doctors avail?

Aḥmad the son of Tawakkal _Barlās_ was another;[1073] for a time he held Qandahār.

Walī Beg was another; he was of Ḥājī Saifu'd-dīn Beg's line,[1074] and had been one of the Mīrzā's father's (Manṣūr's) great begs.[1075] Short life was granted to him after the Mīrzā took the throne (973 AH.); he died directly afterwards. He was orthodox and made the Prayers, was rough (_turk_) and sincere.

Ḥusain of Shaikh Tīmūr was another; he had been favoured and raised to the rank of beg[1076] by Bābur Mīrzā.

Nuyān Beg was another. He was a Sayyid of Tīrmīẕ on his father's side; on his mother's he was related both to Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā and to Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā.[1077] Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā had favoured him; he was the beg honoured in Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā's presence and he met with very great favour when he went to Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā's. He was a bragging, easy-going, wine-bibbing, jolly person. Through being in his father's service,[1078] Ḥasan of Ya`qūb used to be called also Nuyān's Ḥasan.

Jahāngīr _Barlās_ was another.[1079] For a time he shared the Kābul command with Muḥammad Barandūq _Barlās_, later on [Sidenote: Fol. 172.] went to Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā's presence and received very great favour. His movements and poses (_ḥarakāt u sakanāt_) were graceful and charming; he was also a man of pleasant temper. As he knew the rules of hunting and hawking, in those matters the Mīrzā gave him chief charge. He was a favourite of Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā and, bearing that Mīrzā's friendliness in mind, used to praise him.

Mīrzā Aḥmad of `Alī _Farsī Barlās_ was another. Though he wrote no verse, he knew what was poetry. He was a gay-hearted, elegant person, one by himself.

`Abdu'l-khalīq Beg was another. Fīrūz Shāh, Shāhrukh Mīrzā's greatly favoured beg, was his grandfather;[1080] hence people called him Fīrūz Shāh's `Abdu'l-khalīq. He held Khwārizm for a time.

Ibrāhīm _Dūldāī_ was another. He had good knowledge of revenue matters and the conduct of public business; his work was that of a second Muḥ. Barandūq.

Ẕū'n-nūn _Arghūn_ was another.[1081] He was a brave man, using his sword well in Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā's presence and later on getting his hand into the work whatever the fight. As to his courage there was no question at all, but he was a bit of a fool. After he left our (_Mīrān-shāhī_) Mīrzās to go to Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā, the Mīrzā gave him Ghūr and the Nikdīrīs. He did [Sidenote: Fol. 172b.] excellent work in those parts with 70 to 80 men, with so few beating masses and masses of Hazāras and Nikdīrīs; he had not his match for keeping those tribes in order. After a while Zamīn-dāwar was given to him. His son Shāh-i-shujā` _Arghūn_ used to move about with him and even in childhood used to chop away with his sword. The Mīrzā favoured Shāh-i-shujā` and, somewhat against Ẕū'n-nūn Beg's wishes, joined him with his father in the government of Qandahār. Later on this father and son made dissension between that father and that son,[1082] and stirred up much commotion. After I had overcome Khusrau Shāh and parted his retainers from him, and after I had taken Kābul from Ẕū'n-nūn _Arghūn_'s son Muqīm, Ẕū'n-nūn Beg and Khusrau Shāh both went, in their helplessness, to see Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā. Ẕū'n-nūn _Arghūn_ grew greater after the Mīrzā's death when they gave him the districts of the Herī Koh-dāman, such as Aūba (Ubeh) and Chachcharān.[1083] He was made Lord of Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā's Gate[1084] and Muḥammad Barandūq _Barlās_ Lord of Muz̤affar-i-ḥusain Mīrzā's, when the two Mīrzās became joint-rulers in Herī. Brave though he was, he was a little crazed and shallow-pated; if he had not been so, would he have accepted flattery as he did? would he have made himself so contemptible? Here are the details of the matter:—While he was so dominant and so trusted in Herī, a few shaikhs and mullās went to him and said, "The Spheres are holding commerce with us; you are to be styled _Hizabru'l-lāh_ (Lion of God); you will overcome the Aūzbeg." Fully accepting this flattery, he put his _fūṯa_ (bathing-cloth) round his neck[1085] and gave thanks. Then, after Shaibāq Khān, coming against the Mīrzās, had beaten them one [Sidenote: Fol. 173.] by one near Bādghīs, Ẕū'n-nūn _Arghūn_ met him face to face near Qarā-rabāṯ and, relying on that promise, stood up against him with 100 to 150 men. A mass of Aūzbegs came up, overcame them and hustled them off; he himself was taken and put to death.[1086] He was orthodox and no neglecter of the Prayers, indeed made the extra ones. He was mad for chess; he played it according to his own fancy and, if others play with one hand, he played with both.[1087] Avarice and stinginess ruled in his character.

Darwīsh-i-`alī Beg was another,[1088] the younger full-brother of `Alī-sher Beg. He had the Balkh Command for a time and there did good beg-like things, but he was a muddle-head and somewhat wanting in merit. He was dismissed from the Balkh Command because his muddle-headedness had hampered the Mīrzā in his first campaign against Qūndūz and Ḥiṣār. He came to my presence when I went to Qūndūz in 916 AH. (1510 AD.), brutalized and stupefied, far from capable begship and out-side peaceful home-life. Such favour as he had had, he appears to have had for `Alī-sher Beg's sake.

Mughūl Beg was another. He was Governor of Herī for a time, later on was given Astarābād, and from there fled to Ya`qūb Beg in `Irāq. He was of amorous disposition[1089] and an incessant dicer.

Sayyid Badr (Full-moon) was another, a very strong man, [Sidenote: Fol. 173b.] graceful in his movements and singularly well-mannered. He danced wonderfully well, doing one dance quite unique and seeming to be his own invention.[1090] His whole service was with the Mīrzā whose comrade he was in wine and social pleasure.

Islīm _Barlās_ was another, a plain (_turk_) person who understood hawking well and did some things to perfection. Drawing a bow of 30 to 40 _bātmāns_ strength,[1091] he would make his shaft pass right through the target (_takhta_). In the gallop from the head of the _qabaq-maidān_,[1092] he would loosen his bow, string it again, and then hit the gourd (_qabaq_). He would tie his string-grip (_zih-gīr_) to the one end of a string from 1 to 1-1/2 yards long, fasten the other end to a tree, let his shaft fly, and shoot through the string-grip while it revolved.[1093] Many such remarkable feats he did. He served the Mīrzā continuously and was at every social gathering.

Sl. Junaid _Barlās_ was another;[1094] in his latter days he went to Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā's presence.[1095] He is the father of the Sl. Junaid _Barlās_ on whom at the present time[1096] the joint-government of Jaunpūr depends.

Shaikh Abū-sa`īd Khān _Dar-miyān_ (In-between) was another. It is not known whether he got the name of Dar-miyān because he took a horse to the Mīrzā _in the middle_ of a fight, or whether because he put himself _in between_ the Mīrzā and some-one designing on his life.[1097]

Bih-būd Beg was another. He had served in the pages' circle (_chuhra jīrgasī_) during the guerilla times and gave such [Sidenote: Fol. 174.] satisfaction by his service that the Mīrzā did him the favour of putting his name on the stamp (_tamghā_) and the coin (_sikka_).[1098]

Shaikhīm Beg was another.[1099] People used to call him Shaikhīm _Suhailī_ because Suhailī was his pen-name. He wrote all sorts of verse, bringing in terrifying words and mental images. Here is a couplet of his:—

In the anguish of my nights, the whirlpool of my sighs engulphs the firmament; Like a dragon, the torrent of my tears swallows the quarters of the world.

Well-known it is that when he once recited that couplet in Maulānā `Abdu'r-raḥmān _Jāmī's_ presence, the honoured Mullā asked him whether he was reciting verse or frightening people. He put a _dīwān_ together; _mas̤nawīs_ of his are also in existence.

Muḥammad-i-walī Beg was another, the son of the Walī Beg already mentioned. Latterly he became one of the Mīrzā's great begs but, great beg though he was, he never neglected his service and used to recline (_yāstānīb_) day and night in the Gate. Through doing this, his free meals and open table were always set just outside the Gate. Quite certainly a man who was so constantly in waiting, _would_ receive the favour he received! It is an evil noticeable today that effort must be made before the man, dubbed Beg because he has five or six of the bald and blind at his back, can be got into the Gate at all! Where this sort of service is, it must be to their own misfortune! Muḥammad-i-walī Beg's public table and free meals were good; he kept his servants neat and well-dressed and with his own hands gave [Sidenote: Fol. 174b.] ample portion to the poor and destitute, but he was foul-mouthed and evil-spoken. He and also Darwīsh-i-`alī the librarian were in my service when I took Samarkand in 917 AH. (Oct. 1511 AD.); he was palsied then; his talk lacked salt; his former claim to favour was gone. His assiduous waiting appears to have been the cause of his promotion.

Bābā `Alī the Lord of the Gate was another. First, `Alī-sher Beg showed him favour; next, because of his courage, the Mīrzā took him into service, made him Lord of the Gate, and promoted him to be a beg. One of his sons is serving me now (_circa_ 934 AH.), that Yūnas of `Alī who is a beg, a confidant, and of my household. He will often be mentioned.[1100]

Badru'd-dīn (Full-moon of the Faith) was another. He had been in the service of Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā's Chief Justice Mīrak `Abdu'r-raḥīm; it is said he was very nimble and sure-footed, a man who could leap over seven horses at once. He and Bābā `Alī were close companions.

Ḥasan of `Alī _Jalāīr_ was another. His original name was Ḥusain _Jalāīr_ but he came to be called `Alī's Ḥasan.[1101] His father `Alī _Jalāīr_ must have been favoured and made a beg by Bābur Mīrzā; no man was greater later on when Yādgār-i-muḥammad M. took Herī. Ḥasan-i-`alī was Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā's _Qūsh-begī_.[1102] He made T̤ufailī (Uninvited-guest) his pen-name; wrote good odes and was the Master of this art in his day. He wrote odes on my name when he came to my presence at the time I took Samarkand in 917 AH. (1511 AD.). Impudent (_bī bāk_) and [Sidenote: Fol. 175.] prodigal he was, a keeper of catamites, a constant dicer and draught-player.

Khwāja `Abdu'l-lāh _Marwārīd_ (Pearl)[1103] was another; he was at first Chief Justice but later on became one of the Mīrzā's favourite household-begs. He was full of accomplishments; on the dulcimer he had no equal, and he invented the shake on the dulcimer; he wrote in several scripts, most beautifully in the _ta`līq_; he composed admirable letters, wrote good verse, with Bayānī for his pen-name, and was a pleasant companion. Compared with his other accomplishments, his verse ranks low, but he knew what was poetry. Vicious and shameless, he became the captive of a sinful disease through his vicious excesses, outlived his hands and feet, tasted the agonies of varied torture for several years, and departed from the world under that affliction.[1104]

Sayyid Muḥammad-i-aūrūs was another; he was the son of that Aūrūs (Russian?) _Arghūn_ who, when Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā took the throne, was his beg in chief authority. At that time there were excellent archer-braves; one of the most distinguished was Sayyid Muḥammad-i-aūrūs. His bow strong, his shaft long, he must have been a bold (_yūrak_) shot and a good one. He was Commandant in Andikhūd for some time.

Mir (Qaṃbar-i-)`alī the Master of the Horse was another. He it was who, by sending a man to Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā, brought him down on the defenceless Yādgār-i-muḥammad Mīrzā.

Sayyid Ḥasan _Aūghlāqchī_ was another, a son of Sayyid _Aūghlāqchī_ and a younger brother of Sayyid Yūsuf Beg.[1105] He was the father of a capable and accomplished son, named Mīrzā Farrukh. He had come to my presence before I took Samarkand [Sidenote: Fol. 175b.] in 917 AH. (1511 AD.). Though he had written little verse, he wrote fairly; he understood the astrolabe and astronomy well, was excellent company, his talk good too, but he was rather a bad drinker (_bad shrāb_). He died in the fight at Ghaj-dawān.[1106]

Tīngrī-bīrdī the storekeeper (_sāmānchī_) was another; he was a plain (_turk_), bold, sword-slashing brave. As has been said, he charged out of the Gate of Balkh on Khusrau Shāh's great retainer Naẕar Bahādur and overcame him (903 AH.).

There were a few Turkmān braves also who were received with great favour when they came to the Mīrzā's presence. One of the first to come was `Alī Khān _Bāyandar_.[1107] Asad Beg and Taham-tan (Strong-bodied) Beg were others, an elder and younger brother these; Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā took Taham-tan Beg's daughter and by her had Muḥammad-i-zamān Mīrzā. Mīr `Umar Beg was another; later on he was in Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā's service; he was a brave, plain, excellent person. His son, Abū'l-fatḥ by name, came from `Irāq to my presence, a very soft, unsteady and feeble person; such a son from such a father!

Of those who came into Khurāsān after Shāh Ismā`īl took `Irāq and Aẕarbāījān (_circa_ 906 AH.-1500 AD.), one was `Abdu'l-bāqī Mīrzā of Tīmūr Beg's line. He was a Mīrān-shāhī[1108] whose ancestors will have gone long before into those parts, put thought [Sidenote: Fol. 176.] of sovereignty out of their heads, served those ruling there, and from them have received favour. That Tīmūr `Us̤mān who was the great, trusted beg of Ya`qūb Beg (_White-sheep Turkmān_) and who had once even thought of sending against Khurāsān the mass of men he had gathered to himself, must have been this `Abdu'l-bāqī Mīrzā's paternal-uncle. Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā took `Abdu'l-bāqī Mīrzā at once into favour, making him a son-in-law by giving him Sulṯānīm Begīm, the mother of Muḥammad Sl. Mīrzā.[1109] Another late-comer was Murād Beg _Bāyandarī_.

(_h. His Chief Justices_ (_ṣadūr_).)

One was Mīr Sar-i-barahna (Bare-head)[1110]; he was from a village in Andijān and appears to have made claim to be a sayyid (_mutasayyid_). He was a very agreeable companion, pleasant of temper and speech. His were the judgment and rulings that carried weight amongst men of letters and poets of Khurāsān. He wasted his time by composing, in imitation of the story of Amīr Ḥamza,[1111] a work which is one long, far-fetched lie, opposed to sense and nature.

Kamālu'd-dīn Ḥusain _Gāzur-gāhī_[1112] was another. Though not a Ṣūfī, he was mystical.[1113] Such mystics as he will have gathered in `Alī-sher Beg's presence and there have gone into their raptures and ecstacies. Kamālu'd-dīn will have been better-born than most of them; his promotion will have been due to his good birth, since he had no other merit to speak of.[1114] A production of his exists, under the name _Majālisu'l-`ushshāq_ (Assemblies of lovers), the authorship of which he ascribes (in its preface) to Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā.[1115] It is mostly a lie and a tasteless lie. He has written such irreverent things in it that some [Sidenote: Fol. 176b.] of them cast doubt upon his orthodoxy; for example, he represents the Prophets,—Peace be on them,—and Saints as subject to earthly passion, and gives to each a minion and a mistress. Another and singularly absurd thing is that, although in his preface he says, "This is Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā's own written word and literary composition," he, never-the-less, enters, in the body of the book, "All by the sub-signed author", at the head of odes and verses well-known to be his own. It was his flattery gave Ẕū'n-nūn _Arghūn_ the title Lion of God.

(_i. His wazīrs._)

One was Majdu'd-dīn Muḥammad, son of Khwāja Pīr Aḥmad of Khwāf, the one man (_yak-qalam_) of Shāhrukh Mīrzā's Finance-office.[1116] In Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā's Finance-office there was not at first proper order or method; waste and extravagance resulted; the peasant did not prosper, and the soldier was not satisfied. Once while Majdu'd-dīn Muḥammad was still _parwānchī_[1117] and styled Mīrak (Little Mīr), it became a matter of importance to the Mīrzā to have some money; when he asked the Finance-officials for it, they said none had been collected and that there was none. Majdu'd-dīn Muḥammad must have heard this and have smiled, for the Mīrzā asked him why he smiled; privacy was made and he told Mīrzā what was in his mind. Said he, "If the honoured Mīrzā will pledge himself to strengthen [Sidenote: Fol. 177.] my hands by not opposing my orders, it shall so be before long that the country shall prosper, the peasant be content, the soldier well-off, and the Treasury full." The Mīrzā for his part gave the pledge desired, put Majdu'd-dīn Muḥammad in authority throughout Khurāsān, and entrusted all public business to him. He in his turn by using all possible diligence and effort, before long had made soldier and peasant grateful and content, filled the Treasury to abundance, and made the districts habitable and cultivated. He did all this however in face of opposition from the begs and men high in place, all being led by `Alī-sher Beg, all out of temper with what Majdu'd-dīn Muḥammad had effected. By their effort and evil suggestion he was arrested and dismissed.[1118] In succession to him Niẕāmu'l-mulk of Khwāf was made Dīwān but in a short time they got him arrested also, and him they got put to death.[1119] They then brought Khwāja Afẓal out of `Irāq and made him Dīwān; he had just been made a beg when I came to Kābul (910 AH.), and he also impressed the Seal in Dīwān.

Khwāja `Atā[1120] was another; although, unlike those already mentioned, he was not in high office or Finance-minister (_dīwān_), nothing was settled without his concurrence the whole Khura-sānāt over. He was a pious, praying, upright (_mutadaiyin_) person; he must have been diligent in business also.

(_j. Others of the Court._)

Those enumerated were Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā's retainers and followers.[1121] His was a wonderful Age; in it Khurāsān, and [Sidenote: Fol. 177b.] Herī above all, was full of learned and matchless men. Whatever the work a man took up, he aimed and aspired at bringing that work to perfection. One such man was Maulānā `Abdu'r-raḥmān _Jāmī_, who was unrivalled in his day for esoteric and exoteric knowledge. Famous indeed are his poems! The Mullā's dignity it is out of my power to describe; it has occurred to me merely to mention his honoured name and one atom of his excellence, as a benediction and good omen for this part of my humble book.

Shaikhu'l-islām Saifu'd-dīn Aḥmad was another. He was of the line of that Mullā Sa`du'd-dīn (Mas`ūd) _Taftazānī_[1122] whose descendants from his time downwards have given the Shaikhu'l-islām to Khurāsān. He was a very learned man, admirably versed in the Arabian sciences[1123] and the Traditions, most God-fearing and orthodox. Himself a Shafi`ī,[1124] he was tolerant of all the sects. People say he never once in 70 years omitted the Congregational Prayer. He was martyred when Shāh Ismā`īl took Herī (916 AH.); there now remains no man of his honoured line.[1125]

Maulānā Shaikh Ḥusain was another; he is mentioned here, although his first appearance and his promotion were under Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā, because he was living still under Sl. Ḥusain [Sidenote: Fol. 178.] Mīrzā. Being well-versed in the sciences of philosophy, logic and rhetoric, he was able to find much meaning in a few words and to bring it out opportunely in conversation. Being very intimate and influential with Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā, he took part in all momentous affairs of the Mīrzā's dominions; there was no better _muḥtasib_[1126]; this will have been why he was so much trusted. Because he had been an intimate of that Mīrzā, the incomparable man was treated with insult in Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā's time.

Mullā-zāda Mullā `Us̤mān was another. He was a native of Chīrkh, in the Luhūgur _tūmān_ of the _tūmān_ of Kābul[1127] and was called the Born Mullā (_Mullā-zāda_) because in Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā's time he used to give lessons when 14 years old. He went to Herī on his way from Samarkand to make the circuit of the _ka`ba_, was there stopped, and made to remain by Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā. He was very learned, the most so of his time. People say he was nearing the rank of Ijtihād[1128] but he did not reach it. It is said of him that he once asked, "How should a person forget a thing heard?" A strong memory he must have had!

Mīr Jamālu'd-dīn the Traditionalist[1129] was another. He had no equal in Khurāsān for knowledge of the Muḥammadan Traditions. He was advanced in years and is still alive (934 to 937 AH.).

Mīr Murtāẓ was another. He was well-versed in the sciences [Sidenote: Fol. 178b.] of philosophy and metaphysics; he was called _murtāẓ_ (ascetic) because he fasted a great deal. He was madly fond of chess, so much so that if he had met two players, he would hold one by the skirt while he played his game out with the other, as much as to say, "Don't go!"

Mīr Mas`ūd of Sherwān was another.[1130]

Mīr `Abdu'l-ghafūr of Lār was another. Disciple and pupil both of Maulānā `Abdu'r-raḥmān _Jāmī_, he had read aloud most of the Mullā's poems (_mas̤nawī_) in his presence, and wrote a plain exposition of the _Nafaḥāt_.[1131] He had good acquaintance with the exoteric sciences, and in the esoteric ones also was very successful. He was a curiously casual and unceremonious person; no person styled Mullā by any-one soever was debarred from submitting a (Qorān) chapter to him for exposition; moreover whatever the place in which he heard there was a darwīsh, he had no rest till he had reached that darwīsh's presence. He was ill when I was in Khurāsān (912 AH.); I went to enquire for him where he lay in the Mullā's College,[1132] after I had made the circuit of the Mullā's tomb. He died a few days later, of that same illness.

Mīr `Atā'u'l-lāh of Mashhad was another.[1133] He knew the Arabian sciences well and also wrote a Persian treatise on rhyme. That treatise is well-done but it has the defect that he brings into it, as his examples, couplets of his own and, assuming them [Sidenote: Fol. 179.] to be correct, prefixes to each, "As must be observed in the following couplet by your slave" (_banda_). Several rivals of his find deserved comment in this treatise. He wrote another on the curiosities of verse, entitled _Badāi`u's-sanāi_; a very well-written treatise. He may have swerved from the Faith.

Qāẓī Ikhtiyār was another. He was an excellent Qāẓī and wrote a treatise in Persian on Jurisprudence, an admirable treatise; he also, in order to give elucidation (_iqtibās_), made a collection of homonymous verses from the Qorān. He came with Muḥammad-i-yūsuf to see me at the time I met the Mīrzās on the Murgh-āb (912 AH.). Talk turning on the Bāburī script,[1134] he asked me about it, letter by letter; I wrote it out, letter by letter; he went through it, letter by letter, and having learned its plan, wrote something in it there and then.

Mīr Muḥammad-i-yūsuf was another; he was a pupil of the Shaikhu'l-islām[1135] and afterwards was advanced to his place. In some assemblies he, in others, Qāẓī Ikhtiyār took the higher place. Towards the end of his life he was so infatuated with soldiering and military command, that except of those two tasks, what could be learned from his conversation? what known from his pen? Though he failed in both, those two ambitions ended by giving to the winds his goods and his life, his house and his home. He may have been a Shī`a.

(_k. The Poets._)

[Sidenote: Fol. 179b.] The all-surpassing head of the poet-band was Maulānā `Abdu'r-raḥmān _Jāmī_. Others were Shaikhīm Suhailī and Ḥasan of `Alī _Jalāīr_[1136] whose names have been mentioned already as in the circle of the Mīrzā's begs and household.

Āṣafī was another,[1137] he taking Āṣafī for his pen-name because he was a wazīr's son. His verse does not want for grace or sentiment, but has no merit through passion and ecstacy. He himself made the claim, "I have never packed up (_būlmādī_) my odes to make the oasis (_wādī_) of a collection."[1138] This was affectation, his younger brothers and his intimates having collected his odes. He wrote little else but odes. He waited on me when I went into Khurāsān (912 AH.).

Banā'i was another; he was a native of Herī and took such a pen-name (Banā'i) on account of his father Ustād Muḥammad _Sabz-banā_.[1139] His odes have grace and ecstacy. One poem (_mas̤nawī_) of his on the topic of fruits, is in the _mutaqārib_ measure;[1140] it is random and not worked up. Another short poem is in the _khafīf_ measure, so also is a longer one finished towards the end of his life. He will have known nothing of music in his young days and `Alī-sher Beg seems to have taunted him about it, so one winter when the Mīrzā, taking `Alī-sher Beg with him, went to winter in Merv, Banā'i stayed behind in Herī and so applied himself to study music that before the heats he had composed several works. These he played and sang, airs with variations, when the Mīrzā came back to Herī in the heats. [Sidenote: Fol. 180.] All amazed, `Alī-sher Beg praised him. His musical compositions are perfect; one was an air known as _Nuh-rang_ (Nine modulations), and having both the theme (_tūkānash_) and the variation (_yīla_) on the note called _rāst_(?). Banā'i was `Alī-sher Beg's rival; it will have been on this account he was so much ill-treated. When at last he could bear it no longer, he went into Aẕarbāījān and `Irāq to the presence of Ya'qūb Beg; he did not remain however in those parts after Ya`qūb Beg's death (896 AH.-1491 AD.) but went back to Herī, just the same with his jokes and retorts. Here is one of them:—`Alī-sher at a chess-party in stretching his leg touched Banā'i on the hinder-parts and said jestingly, "It is the sad nuisance of Herī that a man can't stretch his leg without its touching a poet's backside." "Nor draw it up again," retorted Banā'i.[1141] In the end the upshot of his jesting was that he had to leave Herī again; he went then to Samarkand.[1142] A great many good new things used to be made for `Alī-sher Beg, so whenever any-one produced a novelty, he called it `Alī-sher's in order to give it credit and vogue.[1143] Some things were called after him in compliment _e.g._ because when he had ear-ache, he wrapped his head up in one of the blue triangular kerchiefs women tie over their heads in winter, that kerchief was called `Alī-sher's comforter. Then again, Banā'i when he had decided to leave Herī, ordered a quite new kind of pad for his ass and [Sidenote: Fol. 180b.] dubbed it `Alī-sher's.

Maulānā Saifī of Bukhārā was another;[1144] he was a Mullā complete[1145] who in proof of his mullā-ship used to give a list of the books he had read. He put two _dīwāns_ together, one being for the use of tradesmen (_ḥarfa-kar_), and he also wrote many fables. That he wrote no _mas̤nawī_ is shewn by the following quatrain:—

Though the _mas̤nawī_ be the orthodox verse, _I_ know the ode has Divine command; Five couplets that charm the heart _I_ know to outmatch the Two Quintets.[1146]

A Persian prosody he wrote is at once brief and prolix, brief in the sense of omitting things that should be included, and prolix in the sense that plain and simple matters are detailed down to the diacritical points, down even to their Arabic points.[1147] He is said to have been a great drinker, a bad drinker, and a mightily strong-fisted man.

`Abdu'l-lāh the _mas̤nawī_-writer was another.[1148] He was from Jām and was the Mullā's sister's son. Hātifī was his pen-name. He wrote poems (_mas̤nawī_) in emulation of the Two Quintets,[1149] and called them _Haft-manẕar_ (Seven-faces) in imitation of the _Haft-paikar_ (Seven-faces). In emulation of the _Sikandar-nāma_ he composed the _Tīmūr-nāma_. His most renowned _mas̤nawī_ is _Laila and Majnūn_, but its reputation is greater than its charm.

Mīr Ḥusain the Enigmatist[1150] was another. He seems to have had no equal in making riddles, to have given his whole time to it, and to have been a curiously humble, disconsolate (_nā-murād_) [Sidenote: Fol. 181.] and harmless (_bī-bad_) person.

Mīr Muḥammad _Badakhshī_ of Ishkīmīsh was another. As Ishkīmīsh is not in Badakhshān, it is odd he should have made it his pen-name. His verse does not rank with that of the poets previously mentioned,[1151] and though he wrote a treatise on riddles, his riddles are not first-rate. He was a very pleasant companion; he waited on me in Samarkand (917 AH.).

Yūsuf the wonderful (_badī_)[1152] was another. He was from the Farghāna country; his odes are said not to be bad.

Āhī was another, a good ode-writer, latterly in Ibn-i-ḥusain Mīrzā's service, and _ṣāḥib-i-dīwān_.[1153]

Muḥammad _Ṣāliḥ_ was another.[1154] His odes are tasty but better-flavoured than correct. There is Turkī verse of his also, not badly written. He went to Shaibāq Khān later on and found complete favour. He wrote a Turkī poem (_mas̤nawī_), named from Shaibāq Khān, in the _raml masaddas majnūn_ measure, that is to say the metre of the _Subḥat_.[1155] It is feeble and flat; Muḥammad _Ṣāliḥ_'s reader soon ceases to believe in him.[1156] Here is one of his good couplets:—

A fat man (Taṃbal) has gained the land of Farghāna, Making Farghāna the house of the fat-man (Taṃbal-khāna).

Farghāna is known also as Taṃbal-khāna.[1157] I do not know whether the above couplet is found in the _mas̤nawī_ mentioned.

Muḥammad _Ṣāliḥ_ was a very wicked, tyrannical and heartless person.[1158]

Maulānā Shāh Ḥusain _Kāmī_[1159] was another. There are not-bad verses of his; he wrote odes, and also seems to have put a _dīwān_ together.

Hilālī (New-moon) was another; he is still alive.[1160] Correct and graceful though his odes are, they make little impression. There is a _dīwān_ of his;[1161] and there is also the poem (_mas̤nawī_) in the [Sidenote: Fol. 181b.] _khafīf_ measure, entitled _Shāh and Darwīsh_ of which, fair though many couplets are, the basis and purport are hollow and bad. Ancient poets when writing of love and the lover, have represented the lover as a man and the beloved as a woman; but Hilālī has made the lover a darwīsh, the beloved a king, with the result that the couplets containing the king's acts and words, set him forth as shameless and abominable. It is an extreme effrontery in Hilālī that for a poem's sake he should describe a young man and that young man a king, as resembling the shameless and immoral.[1162] It is heard-said that Hilālī had a very retentive memory, and that he had by heart 30 or 40,000 couplets, and the greater part of the Two Quintets,—all most useful for the minutiae of prosody and the art of verse.

Ahlī[1163] was another; he was of the common people (_`āmī_), wrote verse not bad, even produced a _dīwān_.

(_l. Artists._)

Of fine pen-men there were many; the one standing-out in _nakhsh ta`līq_ was Sl. `Alī of Mashhad[1164] who copied many books for the Mīrzā and for `Alī-sher Beg, writing daily 30 couplets for the first, 20 for the second.

Of the painters, one was Bih-zād.[1165] His work was very dainty but he did not draw beardless faces well; he used greatly to lengthen the double chin (_ghab-ghab_); bearded faces he drew admirably.

Shāh Muz̤affar was another; he painted dainty portraits, [Sidenote: Fol. 182.] representing the hair very daintily.[1166] Short life was granted him; he left the world when on his upward way to fame.

Of musicians, as has been said, no-one played the dulcimer so well as Khwāja `Abdu'l-lāh _Marwārīd_.

Qul-i-muḥammad the lutanist (_`aūdī_) was another; he also played the guitar (_ghichak_) beautifully and added three strings to it. For many and good preludes (_peshrau_) he had not his equal amongst composers or performers, but this is only true of his preludes.

Shaikhī the flautist (_nāyī_) was another; it is said he played also the lute and the guitar, and that he had played the flute from his 12th or 13th year. He once produced a wonderful air on the flute, at one of Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā's assemblies; Qul-i-muḥammad could not reproduce it on the guitar, so declared this a worthless instrument; Shaikhī _Nāyī_ at once took the guitar from Qul-i-muḥammad's hands and played the air on it, well and in perfect tune. They say he was so expert in music that having once heard an air, he was able to say, "This or that is the tune of so-and-so's or so-and-so's flute."[1167] He composed few works; one or two airs are heard of.

Shāh Qulī the guitar-player was another; he was of `Irāq, came into Khurāsān, practised playing, and succeeded. He composed many airs, preludes and works (_nakhsh, peshrau u aīshlār_).

Ḥusain the lutanist was another; he composed and played with taste; he would twist the strings of his lute into one and play on that. His fault was affectation about playing. He [Sidenote: Fol. 182b.] made a fuss once when Shaibāq Khān ordered him to play, and not only played badly but on a worthless instrument he had brought in place of his own. The Khān saw through him at once and ordered him to be well beaten on the neck, there and then. This was the one good action Shaibāq Khān did in the world; it was well-done truly! a worse chastisement is the due of such affected mannikins!

Ghulām-i-shādī (Slave of Festivity), the son of Shādī the reciter, was another of the musicians. Though he performed, he did it less well than those of the circle just described. There are excellent themes (_ṣūt_) and beautiful airs (_nakhsh_) of his; no-one in his day composed such airs and themes. In the end Shaibāq Khān sent him to the Qāzān Khān, Muḥammad Amīn; no further news has been heard of him.

Mīr Azū was another composer, not a performer; he produced few works but those few were in good taste.

Banā'i was also a musical composer; there are excellent airs and themes of his.

An unrivalled man was the wrestler Muḥammad Bū-sa`īd; he was foremost amongst the wrestlers, wrote verse too, composed themes and airs, one excellent air of his being in _chār-gāh_ (four-time),—and he was pleasant company. It is extraordinary that such accomplishments as his should be combined with wrestling.[1168]

HISTORICAL NARRATIVE RESUMED.

(_a. Burial of Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā._)

At the time Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā took his departure from the world, there were present of the Mīrzās only Badī'u'z-zamān Mīrzā and Muz̤affar-i-ḥusain Mīrzā. The latter had been his father's favourite son; his leading beg was Muḥammad Barandūq _Barlās_; his mother Khadīja Begīm had been the Mīrzā's most influential wife; and to him the Mīrzā's people had gathered. [Sidenote: Fol. 183.] For these reasons Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā had anxieties and thought of not coming,[1169] but Muz̤affar-i-ḥusain Mīrzā and Muḥammad Barandūq Beg themselves rode out, dispelled his fears and brought him in.

Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā was carried into Herī and there buried in his own College with royal rites and ceremonies.

(_b. A dual succession._)

At this crisis Ẕū'n-nūn Beg was also present. He, Muḥ. Barandūq Beg, the late Mīrzā's begs and those of the two (young) Mīrzās having assembled, decided to make the two Mīrzās joint-rulers in Herī. Ẕū'n-nūn Beg was to have control in Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā's Gate, Muḥ. Barandūq Beg, in Muz̤affar-i-ḥusain Mīrzā's. Shaikh `Alī T̤aghāī was to be _dārogha_ in Herī for the first, Yūsuf-i-`alī for the second. Theirs was a strange plan! Partnership in rule is a thing unheard of; against it stand Shaikh Sa'dī's words in the Gulistān:—"Ten darwishes sleep under a blanket (_gilīm_); two kings find no room in a clime" (_aqlīm_).[1170]

912 AH.-MAY 24TH 1506 TO MAY 13TH 1507 AD.[1171]

(_a. Bābur starts to join Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā._)

In the month of Muḥarram we set out by way of Ghūr-bund [Sidenote: Fol. 183b.] and Shibr-tū to oppose the Aūzbeg.

As Jahāngīr Mīrzā had gone out of the country in some sort of displeasure, we said, "There might come much mischief and trouble if he drew the clans (_aīmāq_) to himself;" and "What trouble might come of it!" and, "First let's get the clans in hand!" So said, we hurried forward, riding light and leaving the baggage (_aūrūq_) at Ushtur-shahr in charge of Walī the treasurer and Daulat-qadam of the scouts. That day we reached Fort [Z.]aḥāq; from there we crossed the pass of the Little-dome (Guṃbazak-kūtal), trampled through Sāīghān, went over the Dandān-shikan pass and dismounted in the meadow of Kāhmard. From Kāhmard we sent Sayyid Afẓal the Seer-of-dreams (_Khwāb-bīn_) and Sl. Muḥammad _Dūldāī_ to Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā with a letter giving the particulars of our start from Kābul.[1172]

Jahāngīr Mīrzā must have lagged on the road, for when he got opposite Bāmīān and went with 20 or 30 persons to visit it, he saw near it the tents of our people left with the baggage. Thinking we were there, he and his party hurried back to their camp and, without an eye to anything, without regard for their own people marching in the rear, made off for Yaka-aūlāng.[1173]

(_b. Action of Shaibāq Khān._)

When Shaibāq Khān had laid siege to Balkh, in which was Sl. Qul-i-nachāq,[1174] he sent two or three sulṯāns with 3 or 4000 men to overrun Badakhshān. At the time Mubārak Shāh and Zubair had again joined Nāṣir Mīrzā, spite of former resentments and bickerings, and they all were lying at Shakdān, below Kishm [Sidenote: Fol. 184.] and east of the Kishm-water. Moving through the night, one body of Aūzbegs crossed that water at the top of the morning and advanced on the Mīrzā; he at once drew off to rising-ground, mustered his force, sounded trumpets, met and overcame them. Behind the Aūzbegs was the Kishm-water in flood, many were drowned in it, a mass of them died by arrow and sword, more were made prisoner. Another body of Aūzbegs, sent against Mubārak Shāh and Zubair where they lay, higher up the water and nearer Kishm, made them retire to the rising-ground. Of this the Mīrzā heard; when he had beaten off his own assailants, he moved against theirs. So did the Kohistān begs, gathered with horse and foot, still higher up the river. Unable to make stand against this attack, the Aūzbegs fled, but of this body also a mass died by sword, arrow, and water. In all some 1000 to 1500 may have died. This was Nāṣir Mīrzā's one good success; a man of his brought us news about it while we were in the dale of Kāhmard.

(_c. Bābur moves on into Khurāsān._)

While we were in Kāhmard, our army fetched corn from Ghūrī and Dahāna. There too we had letters from Sayyid [Sidenote: Fol. 184b.] Afẓal and Sl. Muḥammad _Dūldāī_ whom we had sent into Khurāsān; their news was of Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā's death.

This news notwithstanding, we set forward for Khurāsān; though there were other grounds for doing this, what decided us was anxious thought for the reputation of this (Tīmūrid) dynasty. We went up the trough (_aīchī_) of the Ājar-valley, on over Tūp and Mandaghān, crossed the Balkh-water and came out on Ṣāf-hill. Hearing there that Aūzbegs were overrunning Sān and Chār-yak,[1175] we sent a force under Qāsim Beg against them; he got up with them, beat them well, cut many heads off, and returned.

We lay a few days in the meadow of Ṣāf-hill, waiting for news of Jahāngīr Mīrzā and the clans (_aīmāq_) to whom persons had been sent. We hunted once, those hills being very full of wild sheep and goats (_kiyīk_). All the clans came in and waited on me within a few days; it was to me they came; they had not gone to Jahāngīr Mīrzā though he had sent men often enough to them, once sending even `Imādu'd-dīn Mas`ūd. He himself was forced to come at last; he saw me at the foot of the valley when I came down off Ṣāf-hill. Being anxious about Khurāsān, we neither paid him attention nor took thought for the clans, but went right on through Gurzwān, Almār, Qaiṣār, Chīchīk-tū, and Fakhru'd-dīn's-death (_aūlūm_) into the Bām-valley, [Sidenote: Fol. 185.] one of the dependencies of Bādghīs.

The world being full of divisions,[1176] things were being taken from country and people with the long arm; we ourselves began to take something, by laying an impost on the Turks and clans of those parts, in two or three months taking perhaps 300 _tūmāns_ of _kipkī_.[1177]

(_d. Coalition of the Khurāsān Mīrzās._)

A few days before our arrival (in Bām-valley?) some of the Khurāsān light troops and of Ẕū'n-nūn Beg's men had well beaten Aūzbeg raiders in Pand-dih (Panj-dih?) and Marūchāq, killing a mass of men.[1178]

Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā and Muz̤affar-i-ḥusain Mīrzā with Muḥammad Barandūq _Barlās_, Ẕū'n-nūn _Arghūn_ and his son Shāh Beg resolved to move on Shaibāq Khān, then besieging Sl. Qul-i-nachāq (?) in Balkh. Accordingly they summoned all Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā's sons, and got out of Herī to effect their purpose. At Chihil-dukhtarān Abū'l-muḥsin M. joined them from Marv; Ibn-i-ḥusain M. followed, coming up from Tūn and Qāīn. Kūpuk (Kīpik) M. was in Mashhad; often though they sent to him, he behaved unmanly, spoke senseless words, and did not come. Between him and Muz̤affar Mīrzā, there was jealousy; when Muz̤affar M. was made (joint-)ruler, he said, "How should _I_ go to _his_ presence?" Through this disgusting jealousy he did not come now, even at this crisis when all his brethren, older and younger, were assembling in concord, resolute against such a foe [Sidenote: Fol. 185b.] as Shaibāq Khān. Kūpuk M. laid his own absence to rivalry, but everybody else laid it to his cowardice. One word! In this world acts such as his outlive the man; if a man have any share of intelligence, why try to be ill-spoken of after death? if he be ambitious, why not try so to act that, he gone, men will praise him? In the honourable mention of their names, wise men find a second life!

Envoys from the Mīrzās came to me also, Mūh. Barandūq _Barlās_ himself following them. As for me, what was to hinder my going? It was for that very purpose I had travelled one or two hundred _yīghāch_ (500-600 miles)! I at once started with Muḥ. Barandūq Beg for Murgh-āb[1179] where the Mīrzās were lying.

(_e. Bābur meets the Mīrzās._)

The meeting with the Mīrzās was on Monday the 8th of the latter Jumāda (Oct. 26th 1506 AH.). Abū'l-muḥsin Mīrzā came out a mile to meet me; we approached one another; on my side, I dismounted, on his side, he; we advanced, saw one another and remounted. Near the camp Muz̤affar Mīrzā and Ibn-i-ḥusain Mīrzā met us; they, being younger than Abū'l-muḥsin Mīrzā ought to have come out further than he to meet me.[1180] Their dilatoriness may not have been due to pride, but to heaviness [Sidenote: Fol. 186.] after wine; their negligence may have been no slight on me, but due to their own social pleasures. On this Muz̤affar Mīrzā laid stress;[1181] we two saw one another without dismounting, so did Ibn-i-ḥusain Mīrzā and I. We rode on together and, in an amazing crowd and press, dismounted at Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā's Gate. Such was the throng that some were lifted off the ground for three or four steps together, while others, wishing for some reason to get out, were carried, willy-nilly, four or five steps the other way.

We reached Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā's Audience-tent. It had been agreed that I, on entering, should bend the knee (_yūkūnghāī_) once, that the Mīrzā should rise and advance to the edge of the estrade,[1182] and that we should see one another there. I went in, bent the knee once, and was going right forward; the Mīrzā rose rather languidly and advanced rather slowly; Qāsim Beg, as he was my well-wisher and held my reputation as his own, gave my girdle a tug; I understood, moved more slowly, and so the meeting was on the appointed spot.

Four divans (_tūshuk_) had been placed in the tent. Always in the Mīrzā's tents one side was like a gate-way[1183] and at the edge of this gate-way he always sat. A divan was set there now [Sidenote: Fol. 186b.] on which he and Muz̤affar Mīrzā sat together. Abū'l-muḥsin, Mīrzā and I sat on another, set in the right-hand place of honour (_tūr_). On another, to Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā's left, sat Ibn-i-ḥusain Mīrzā with Qāsim Sl. _Aūzbeg_, a son-in-law of the late Mīrzā and father of Qāsim-i-ḥusain Sulṯān. To my right and below my divan was one on which sat Jahāngīr Mīrzā and `Abdu'r-razzāq Mīrzā. To the left of Qāsim Sl. and Ibn-i-ḥusain Mīrzā, but a good deal lower, were Muḥ. Barandūq Beg, Ẕū'n-nūn Beg and Qāsim Beg.

Although this was not a social gathering, cooked viands were brought in, drinkables[1184] were set with the food, and near them gold and silver cups. Our forefathers through a long space of time, had respected the Chīngīz-tūrā (ordinance), doing nothing opposed to it, whether in assembly or Court, in sittings-down or risings-up. Though it has not Divine authority so that a man obeys it of necessity, still good rules of conduct must be obeyed by whom-soever they are left; just in the same way that, if a forefather have done ill, his ill must be changed for good.

After the meal I rode from the Mīrzā's camp some 2 miles to [Sidenote: Fol. 187.] our own dismounting-place.

(_f. Bābur claims due respect._)

At my second visit Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā shewed me less respect than at my first. I therefore had it said to Muḥ. Barandūq Beg and to Ẕū'n-nūn Beg that, small though my age was (_aet._ 24), my place of honour was large; that I had seated myself twice on the throne of our forefathers in Samarkand by blow straight-dealt; and that to be laggard in shewing me respect was unreasonable, since it was for this (Tīmūrid) dynasty's sake I had thus fought and striven with that alien foe. This said, and as it was reasonable, they admitted their mistake at once and shewed the respect claimed.

(_g. Bābur's temperance._)

There was a wine-party (_chāghīr-majlisī_) once when I went after the Mid-day Prayer to Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā's presence. At that time I drank no wine. The party was altogether elegant; every sort of relish to wine (_gazak_) was set out on the napery, with brochettes of fowl and goose, and all sorts of viands. The Mīrzā's entertainments were much renowned; truly was this one free from the pang of thirst (_bī ghall_), reposeful and tranquil. I was at two or three of his wine-parties while we were on the bank of the Murgh-āb; once it was known I did not drink, no pressure to do so was put on me.

I went to one wine-party of Muz̤affar Mīrzā's. Ḥusain of `Alī _Jalāīr_ and Mīr Badr were both there, they being in his service. When Mīr Badr had had enough (_kaifīyat_), he danced, [Sidenote: Fol. 187b.] and danced well what seemed to be his own invention.

(_h. Comments on the Mīrzās._)

Three months it took the Mīrzās to get out of Herī, agree amongst themselves, collect troops, and reach Murgh-āb. Meantime Sl. Qul-i-nachāq (?), reduced to extremity, had surrendered Balkh to the Aūzbeg but that Aūzbeg, hearing of our alliance against him, had hurried back to Samarkand. The Mīrzās were good enough as company and in social matters, in conversation and parties, but they were strangers to war, strategy, equipment, bold fight and encounter.

(_i. Winter plans._)

While we were on the Murgh-āb, news came that Ḥaq-naẕīr _Chapā_ (var. Ḥiān) was over-running the neighbourhood of Chīchīk-tū with 4 or 500 men. All the Mīrzās there present, do what they would, could not manage to send a light troop against those raiders! It is 10 _yīghāch_ (50-55 m.) from Murgh-āb to Chīchīk-tū. I asked the work; they, with a thought for their own reputation, would not give it to me.

The year being almost at an end when Shaibāq Khān retired, the Mīrzās decided to winter where it was convenient and to reassemble next summer in order to repel their foe.

They pressed me to winter in Khurāsān, but this not one of my well-wishers saw it good for me to do because, while Kābul and Ghaznī were full of a turbulent and ill-conducted medley of [Sidenote: Fol. 188.] people and hordes, Turks, Mughūls, clans and nomads (_aīmāq u aḥsham_), Afghāns and Hazāra, the roads between us and that not yet desirably subjected country of Kābul were, one, the mountain-road, a month's journey even without delay through snow or other cause,—the other, the low-country road, a journey of 40 or 50 days.

Consequently we excused ourselves to the Mīrzās, but they would accept no excuse and, for all our pleas, only urged the more. In the end Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā, Abū'l-muḥsin Mīrzā and Muz̤affar Mīrzā themselves rode to my tent and urged me to stay the winter. It was impossible to refuse men of such ruling position, come in person to press us to stay on. Besides this, the whole habitable world has not such a town as Herī had become under Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā, whose orders and efforts had increased its splendour and beauty as ten to one, rather, as twenty to one. As I greatly wished to stay, I consented to do so.

Abū'l-muḥsin M. went to Marv, his own district; Ibn-i-ḥusain M. went to his, Tūn and Qāīn; Badī`u'z-zamān M. and Muz̤affar M. set off for Herī; I followed them a few days later, taking the road by Chihil-dukhtarān and Tāsh-rabāṯ.[1185]

(_j. Bābur visits the Begīms in Herī._)

All the Begīms, _i.e._ my paternal-aunt Pāyanda-sulṯān Begīm, Khadīja Begīm, Apāq Begīm, and my other paternal-aunt Begīms, daughters of Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā,[1186] were gathered together, at the time I went to see them, in Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā's College at his [Sidenote: Fol. 188b.] Mausoleum. Having bent the knee with (_yūkūnūb bīla_) Pāyanda-sulṯān Begīm first of all, I had an interview with her; next, not bending the knee,[1187] I had an interview with Apāq Begīm; next, having bent the knee with Khadīja Begīm, I had an interview with her. After sitting there for some time during recitation of the Qorān,[1188] we went to the South College where Khadīja Begīm's tents had been set up and where food was placed before us. After partaking of this, we went to Pāyanda-sulṯān Begīm's tents and there spent the night.

The New-year's Garden was given us first for a camping-ground; there our camp was arranged; and there I spent the night of the day following my visit to the Begīms, but as I did not find it a convenient place, `Alī-sher Beg's residence was assigned to me, where I was as long as I stayed in Herī, every few days shewing myself in Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā's presence in the World-adorning Garden.

(_k. The Mīrzās entertain Bābur in Herī._)

A few days after Muz̤affar Mīrzā had settled down in the White-garden, he invited me to his quarters; Khadīja Begīm was also there, and with me went Jahāngīr Mīrzā. When we had eaten a meal in the Begīm's presence,[1189] Muz̤affar Mīrzā took me to where there was a wine-party, in the T̤arab-khāna (Joy-house) built by Bābur Mīrzā, a sweet little abode, a smallish, two-storeyed house in the middle of a smallish garden. Great pains have been taken with its upper storey; this has a retreat (_ḥujra_) in each of its four corners, the space between each two retreats being like a _shāh-nīshīn_[1190]; in between these retreats and [Sidenote: Fol. 189.] _shāh-nīshīns_ is one large room on all sides of which are pictures which, although Bābur Mīrzā built the house, were commanded by Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā and depict his own wars and encounters.

Two divans had been set in the north _shāh-nīshīn_, facing each other, and with their sides turned to the north. On one Muz̤affar Mīrzā and I sat, on the other Sl. Mas`ūd Mīrzā[1191] and Jahāngīr Mīrzā. We being guests, Muz̤affar Mīrzā gave me place above himself. The social cups were filled, the cup-bearers ordered to carry them to the guests; the guests drank down the mere wine as if it were water-of-life; when it mounted to their heads, the party waxed warm.

They thought to make me also drink and to draw me into their own circle. Though up till then I had not committed the sin of wine-drinking[1192] and known the cheering sensation of comfortable drunkenness, I was inclined to drink wine and my heart was drawn to cross that stream (_wāda_). I had had no inclination for wine in my childhood; I knew nothing of its cheer and pleasure. If, as sometimes, my father pressed wine on me, I excused myself; I did not commit the sin. After he [Sidenote: Fol. 189b.] died, Khwāja Qāẓī's right guidance kept me guiltless; as at that time I abstained from forbidden viands, what room was there for the sin of wine? Later on when, with the young man's lusts and at the prompting of sensual passion, desire for wine arose, there was no-one to press it on me, no-one indeed aware of my leaning towards it; so that, inclined for it though my heart was, it was difficult of myself to do such a thing, one thitherto undone. It crossed my mind now, when the Mīrzās were so pressing and when too we were in a town so refined as Herī, "Where should I drink if not here? here where all the chattels and utensils of luxury and comfort are gathered and in use." So saying to myself, I resolved to drink wine; I determined to cross that stream; but it occurred to me that as I had not taken wine in Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā's house or from his hand, who was to me as an elder brother, things might find way into his mind if I took wine in his younger brother's house and from his hand. Having so said to myself, I mentioned my doubt and difficulty. Said they, "Both the excuse and the obstacle are reasonable," pressed me no more to drink then but settled that when I was in company with both Mīrzās, I should drink under the insistance of both.

Amongst the musicians present at this party were Ḥāfiẓ Ḥājī, [Sidenote: Fol. 190.] Jalālu'd-dīn Maḥmūd the flautist, and Ghulām _shādī_'s younger brother, Ghulām _bacha_ the Jews'-harpist. Ḥāfiẓ Ḥājī sang well, as Herī people sing, quietly, delicately, and in tune. With Jahāngīr Mīrzā was a Samarkandī singer Mīr Jān whose singing was always loud, harsh and out-of-tune. The Mīrzā, having had enough, ordered him to sing; he did so, loudly, harshly and without taste. Khurāsānīs have quite refined manners; if, under this singing, one did stop his ears, the face of another put question, not one could stop the singer, out of consideration for the Mīrzā.

After the Evening Prayer we left the T̤arab-khāna for a new house in Muz̤affar Mīrzā's winter-quarters. There Yūsuf-i-`alī danced in the drunken time, and being, as he was, a master in music, danced well. The party waxed very warm there. Muz̤affar Mīrzā gave me a sword-belt, a lambskin surtout, and a grey _tīpūchāq_ (horse). Jānak recited in Turkī. Two slaves of the Mīrzā's, known as Big-moon and Little-moon, did offensive, drunken tricks in the drunken time. The party was warm till night when those assembled scattered, I, however, staying the night in that house.

Qāsim Beg getting to hear that I had been pressed to drink wine, sent some-one to Ẕū'n-nūn Beg with advice for him and for Muz̤affar Mīrzā, given in very plain words; the result was [Sidenote: Fol. 190b.] that the Mīrzās entirely ceased to press wine upon me.

Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā, hearing that Muz̤affar M. had entertained me, asked me to a party arranged in the Maqauwī-khāna of the World-adorning Garden. He asked also some of my close circle[1193] and some of our braves. Those about me could never drink (openly) on my own account; if they ever did drink, they did it perhaps once in 40 days, with doorstrap fast and under a hundred fears. Such as these were now invited; here too they drank with a hundred precautions, sometimes calling off my attention, sometimes making a screen of their hands, notwithstanding that I had given them permission to follow common custom, because this party was given by one standing to me as a father or elder brother. People brought in weeping-willows....[1194]

At this party they set a roast goose before me but as I was no carver or disjointer of birds, I left it alone. "Do you not like it?" inquired the Mīrzā. Said I, "I am a poor carver." On this he at once disjointed the bird and set it again before [Sidenote: Fol. 191.] me. In such matters he had no match. At the end of the party he gave me an enamelled waist-dagger, a _chār-qāb_,[1195] and a _tīpūchāq_.

(_l. Bābur sees the sights of Herī._)

Every day of the time I was in Herī I rode out to see a new sight; my guide in these excursions was Yūsuf-i-`alī Kūkūldāsh; wherever we dismounted, he set food before me. Except Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā's Almshouse, not one famous spot, maybe, was left unseen in those 40 days.

I saw the Gāzur-gāh,[1196] `Alī-sher's Bāghcha (Little-garden), the Paper-mortars,[1197] Takht-astāna (Royal-residence), Pul-i-gāh, Kahad-stān,[1198] Naẕar-gāh-garden, Ni`matābād (Pleasure-place), Gāzur-gāh Avenue, Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā's Ḥaẕirat,[1199] Takht-i-safar,[1200] Takht-i-nawā'ī, Takht-i-barkar, Takht-i-Ḥājī Beg, Takht-i-Bahā'u'd-dīn `Umar, Takht-i-Shaikh Zainu'd-dīn, Maulānā `Abdu'r-raḥmān _Jāmī_'s honoured shrine and tomb,[1201] Namāz-gāh-i-mukhtār,[1202] the Fish-pond,[1203] Sāq-i-sulaimān,[1204] Bulūrī (Crystal) which originally may have been Abū'l-walīd,[1205] Imām Fakhr,[1206] Avenue-garden, Mīrzā's Colleges and tomb, Guhār-shād Begīm's College, tomb,[1207] and Congregational Mosque, the Ravens'-garden, New-garden, Zubaida-garden,[1208] Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā's White-house [Sidenote: Fol. 191b.] outside the `Iraq-gate, Pūrān,[1209] the Archer's-seat, Chargh (hawk)-meadow, Amīr Wāḥid,[1210] Mālān-bridge,[1211] Khwāja-tāq,[1212] White-garden, T̤arab-khāna, Bāgh-i-jahān-ārā, Kūshk,[1213] Maqauwī-khāna, Lily-house, Twelve-towers, the great tank to the north of Jahān-ārā and the four dwellings on its four sides, the five Fort-gates, _viz._ the Malik, `Irāq, Fīrūzābād, Khūsh[1214] and Qībchāq Gates, Chārsū, Shaikhu'l-islām's College, Maliks' Congregational Mosque, Town-garden, Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā's College on the bank of the Anjīl-canal, `Alī-sher Beg's dwellings where we resided and which people call Unsīya (Ease), his tomb and mosque which they call Qudsīya (Holy), his College and Almshouse which they call Khalāṣīya and Akhlāṣīya (Freedom and Sincerity), his Hot-bath and Hospital which they call Ṣafā'īya and Shafā'īya. All these I visited in that space of time.

(_m. Bābur engages Ma`ṣūma-sulṯān in marriage._)

It must have been before those throneless times[1215] that Ḥabība-sulṯān Begīm, the mother of Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā's youngest daughter Ma`ṣūma-sulṯān Begīm, brought her daughter into Herī. One day when I was visiting my Ākā, Ma`ṣūma-sulṯān Begīm came there with her mother and at once felt arise in her a great inclination towards me. Private messengers having been sent, my Ākā and my Yīnkā, as I used to call Pāyanda-sulṯān Begīm [Sidenote: Fol. 192.] and Habība-sulṯān Begīm, settled between them that the latter should bring her daughter after me to Kābul.[1216]

(_n. Bābur leaves Khurāsān._)

Very pressingly had Muḥ Barandūq Beg and Ẕū'n-nūn _Arghūn_ said, "Winter here!" but they had given me no winter-quarters nor had they made any winter-arrangements for me. Winter came on; snow fell on the mountains between us and Kābul; anxiety grew about Kābul; no winter-quarters were offered, no arrangements made! As we could not speak out, of necessity we left Herī!

On the pretext of finding winter-quarters, we got out of the town on the 7th day of the month of Sha`bān (Dec. 24th 1506 AD.), and went to near Bādghīs. Such were our slowness and our tarryings that the Ramẓān-moon was seen a few marches only beyond the Langar of Mir Ghiyāṣ.[1217] Of our braves who were absent on various affairs, some joined us, some followed us into Kābul 20 days or a month later, some stayed in Herī and took service with the Mīrzās. One of these last was Sayyidīm `Alī the gate-ward, who became Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā's retainer. To no servant of Khusrau Shāh had I shewn so much favour as to him; he had been given Ghaznī when Jahāngīr Mīrzā abandoned it, and in it when he came away with the army, had left his younger brother Dost-i-anjū (?) Shaikh. There were in truth [Sidenote: Fol. 192b.] no better men amongst Khusrau Shāh's retainers than this man Sayyidīm `Alī the gate-ward and Muḥibb-i-`alī the armourer. Sayyidīm was of excellent nature and manners, a bold swordsman, a singularly competent and methodical man. His house was never without company and assembly; he was greatly generous, had wit and charm, a variety of talk and story, and was a sweet-natured, good-humoured, ingenious, fun-loving person. His fault was that he practised vice and pederasty. He may have swerved from the Faith; may also have been a hypocrite in his dealings; some of what seemed double-dealing people attributed to his jokes, but, still, there must have been a something![1218] When Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā had let Shaibāq Khān take Herī and had gone to Shāh Beg (_Arghūn_), he had Sayyidīm `Alī thrown into the Harmand because of his double-dealing words spoken between the Mīrzā and Shāh Beg. Muḥibb-i-`alī's story will come into the narrative of events hereafter to be written.

(_o. A perilous mountain-journey._)

From the Langar of Mīr Ghiyās̤ we had ourselves guided past the border-villages of Gharjistān to Chach-charān.[1219] From the almshouse to Gharjistān was an unbroken sheet of snow; it was deeper further on; near Chach-charān itself it was above the horses' knees. Chach-charān depended on Ẕū'n-nūn _Arghūn_; his retainer Mīr Jān-aīrdī was in it now; from him we took, on payment, the whole of Ẕū'n-nūn Beg's store of provisions. A march or two further on, the snow was very deep, being above [Sidenote: Fol. 193.] the stirrup, indeed in many places the horses' feet did not touch the ground.

We had consulted at the Langar of Mīr Ghiyās̤ which road to take for return to Kābul; most of us agreed in saying, "It is winter, the mountain-road is difficult and dangerous; the Qandahār road, though a little longer, is safe and easy." Qāsim Beg said, "That road is long; you will go by this one." As he made much dispute, we took the mountain-road.

Our guide was a Pashāī named Pīr Sulṯān (Old sultan?). Whether it was through old age, whether from want of heart, whether because of the deep snow, he lost the road and could not guide us. As we were on this route under the insistance of Qāsim Beg, he and his sons, for his name's sake, dismounted, trampled the snow down, found the road again and took the lead. One day the snow was so deep and the way so uncertain that we could not go on; there being no help for it, back we turned, dismounted where there was fuel, picked out 60 or 70 good men and sent them down the valley in our tracks to fetch any one soever of the Hazāra, wintering in the valley-bottom, who might shew us the road. That place could not be left till our men returned three or four days later. They brought no [Sidenote: Fol. 193b.] guide; once more we sent Sulṯān _Pashāī_ ahead and, putting our trust in God, again took the road by which we had come back from where it was lost. Much misery and hardship were endured in those few days, more than at any time of my life. In that stress I composed the following opening couplet:—

Is there one cruel turn of Fortune's wheel unseen of me? Is there a pang, a grief my wounded heart has missed?

We went on for nearly a week, trampling down the snow and not getting forward more than two or three miles a day. I was one of the snow-stampers, with 10 or 15 of my household, Qāsim Beg, his sons Tīngrī-bīrdī and Qaṃbar-i-`alī and two or three of their retainers. These mentioned used to go forward for 7 or 8 yards, stamping the snow down and at each step sinking to the waist or the breast. After a few steps the leading man would stand still, exhausted by the labour, and another would go forward. By the time 10, 15, 20, men on foot had stamped the snow down, it became so that a horse might be led over it. A horse would be led, would sink to the stirrups, could do no more than 10 or 12 steps, and would be drawn aside to let another go on. After we, 10, 15, 20, men had stamped down the snow and had led horses forward in this fashion, very serviceable [Sidenote: Fol. 194.] braves and men of renowned name would enter the beaten track, hanging their heads. It was not a time to urge or compel! the man with will and hardihood for such tasks does them by his own request! Stamping the snow down in this way, we got out of that afflicting place (_ānjūkān yīr_) in three or four days to a cave known as the Khawāl-i-qūtī (Blessed-cave), below the Zirrīn-pass.

That night the snow fell in such an amazing blizzard of cutting wind that every man feared for his life. The storm had become extremely violent by the time we reached the _khawāl_, as people in those parts call a mountain-cave (_ghar_) or hollow (_khāwāk_). We dismounted at its mouth. Deep snow! a one-man road! and even on that stamped-down and trampled road, pitfalls for horses! the days at their shortest! The first arrivals reached the cave by daylight; others kept coming in from the Evening Prayer till the Bed-time one; later than that people dismounted wherever they happened to be; dawn shot with many still in the saddle.

The cave seeming to be rather small, I took a shovel and shovelled out a place near its mouth, the size of a sitting-mat [Sidenote: Fol. 194b.] (_takiya-namad_), digging it out breast-high but even then not reaching the ground. This made me a little shelter from the wind when I sat right down in it. I did not go into the cave though people kept saying, "Come inside," because this was in my mind, "Some of my men in snow and storm, I in the comfort of a warm house! the whole horde (_aūlūs_) outside in misery and pain, I inside sleeping at ease! That would be far from a man's act, quite another matter than comradeship! Whatever hardship and wretchedness there is, I will face; what strong men stand, I will stand; for, as the Persian proverb says, to die with friends is a nuptial." Till the Bed-time Prayer I sat through that blizzard of snow and wind in the dug-out, the snow-fall being such that my head, back, and ears were overlaid four hands thick. The cold of that night affected my ears. At the Bed-time Prayer some-one, looking more carefully at the cave, shouted out, "It is a very roomy cave with place for every-body." On hearing this I shook off my roofing of snow and, asking the braves near to come also, went inside. There was room for 50 or 60! People brought out their rations, cold meat, parched grain, whatever they had. From such cold and tumult to a place so warm, cosy and quiet![1220]

Next day the snow and wind having ceased, we made an early start and we got to the pass by again stamping down [Sidenote: Fol. 195.] a road in the snow. The proper road seems to make a détour up the flank of the mountain and to go over higher up, by what is understood to be called the Zirrīn-pass. Instead of taking that road, we went straight up the valley-bottom (_qūl_).[1221] It was night before we reached the further side of the (Bakkak-)pass; we spent the night there in the mouth of the valley, a night of mighty cold, got through with great distress and suffering. Many a man had his hands and feet frost-bitten; that night's cold took both Kīpa's feet, both Sīūndūk _Turkmān_'s hands, both Āhī's feet. Early next morning we moved down the valley; putting our trust in God, we went straight down, by bad slopes and sudden falls, knowing and seeing it could not be the right way. It was the Evening Prayer when we got out of that valley. No long-memoried old man knew that any-one had been heard of as crossing that pass with the snow so deep, or indeed that it had ever entered the heart of man to cross it at that time of year. Though for a few days we had suffered greatly through the depth of the snow, yet its depth, in the end, enabled us to reach our destination. For why? How otherwise should we have traversed those pathless slopes and sudden falls? [Sidenote: Fol. 195b.]

All ill, all good in the count, is gain if looked at aright!

The Yaka-aūlāng people at once heard of our arrival and our dismounting; followed, warm houses, fat sheep, grass and horse-corn, water without stint, ample wood and dried dung for fires! To escape from such snow and cold to such a village, to such warm dwellings, was comfort those will understand who have had our trials, relief known to those who have felt our hardships. We tarried one day in Yaka-aūlāng, happy-of-heart and easy-of-mind; marched 2 _yīghāch_ (10-12 m.) next day and dismounted. The day following was the Ramẓān Feast[1222]; we went on through Bāmīān, crossed by Shibr-tū and dismounted before reaching Janglīk.

(_p. Second raid on the Turkmān Hazāras._)

The Turkmān Hazāras with their wives and little children must have made their winter-quarters just upon our road[1223]; they had no word about us; when we got in amongst their cattle-pens and tents (_alāchūq_) two or three groups of these went to ruin and plunder, the people themselves drawing off with their little children and abandoning houses and goods. News was [Sidenote: Fol. 196.] brought from ahead that, at a place where there were narrows, a body of Hazāras was shooting arrows, holding up part of the army, and letting no-one pass. We, hurrying on, arrived to find no narrows at all; a few Hazāras were shooting from a naze, standing in a body on the hill[1224] like very good soldiers.[1225]

They saw the blackness of the foe; Stood idle-handed and amazed; I arriving, went swift that way, Pressed on with shout, "Move on! move on!" I wanted to hurry my men on, To make them stand up to the foe. With a "Hurry up!" to my men, I went on to the front. Not a man gave ear to my words. I had no armour nor horse-mail nor arms, I had but my arrows and quiver. I went, the rest, maybe all of them, stood, Stood still as if slain by the foe! Your servant you take that you may have use Of his arms, of his life, the whole time; Not that the servant stand still While the beg makes advance to the front; Not that the servant take rest While his beg is making the rounds. From no such a servant will come Speed, or use in your Gate, or zest for your food. At last I charged forward myself, [Sidenote: Fol. 196b.] Herding the foe up the hill; Seeing me go, my men also moved, Leaving their terrors behind. With me they swift spread over the slope, Moving on without heed to the shaft; Sometimes on foot, mounted sometimes, Boldly we ever moved on, Still from the hill poured the shafts. Our strength seen, the foe took to flight. We got out on the hill; we drove the Hazāras, Drove them like deer by valley and ridge; We shot those wretches like deer; We shared out the booty in goods and in sheep; The Turkmān Hazāras' kinsfolk we took; We made captive their people of sorts (_qarā_); We laid hands on their men of renown; Their wives and their children we took.

I myself collected a few of the Hazāras' sheep, gave them into Yārak T̤aghāī's charge, and went to the front. By ridge and valley, driving horses and sheep before us, we went to Tīmūr Beg's Langar and there dismounted. Fourteen or fifteen Hazāra thieves had fallen into our hands; I had thought of having them put to death when we next dismounted, with various torture, as a warning to all highwaymen and robbers, but Qāsim Beg came across them on the road and, with mistimed [Sidenote: Fol. 197.] compassion, set them free.

To do good to the bad is one and the same As the doing of ill to the good; On brackish soil no spikenard grows, Waste no seed of toil upon it.[1226]

Out of compassion the rest of the prisoners were released also.

(_j. Disloyalty in Kābul._)

News came while we were raiding the Turkmān Hazāras, that Muḥammad Ḥusain Mīrzā _Dūghlāt_ and Sl. Sanjar _Barlās_ had drawn over to themselves the Mughūls left in Kābul, declared Mīrzā Khān (Wais) supreme (_pādshāh_), laid siege to the fort and spread a _report_ that Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā and Muz̤affar Mīrzā had sent me, a prisoner, to Fort Ikhtiyāru'd-dīn, now known as Ālā-qūrghān.

In command of the Kābul-fort there had been left Mullā Bābā of Pashāghar, Khalīfa, Muḥibb-i-`alī the armourer, Aḥmad-i-yūsuf and Aḥmad-i-qāsim. They did well, made the fort fast, strengthened it, and kept watch.

(_k. Bābur's advance to Kābul._)

From Tīmūr Beg's Langar we sent Qāsim Beg's servant, Muḥ. of Andijān, a _Tūqbāī_, to the Kābul begs, with written details of our arrival and of the following arrangements:—"When we are out of the Ghūr-bund narrows,[1227] we will fall on them suddenly; let our signal to you be the fire we will light directly we have passed Minār-hill; do you in reply light one in the citadel, on [Sidenote: Fol. 197b.] the old Kūshk (kiosk)," now the Treasury, "so that we may be sure you know of our coming. We will come up from our side; you come out from yours; neglect nothing your hands can find to do!" This having been put into writing, Muḥammad _Andijānī_ was sent off.

Riding next dawn from the Langar, we dismounted over against Ushtur-shahr. Early next morning we passed the Ghūr-bund narrows, dismounted at Bridge-head, there watered and rested our horses, and at the Mid-day Prayer set forward again. Till we reached the _tūtqāwal_,[1228] there was no snow, beyond that, the further we went the deeper the snow. The cold between Ẕamma-yakhshī and Minār was such as we had rarely felt in our lives.

We sent on Aḥmad the messenger (_yāsāwal_) and Qarā Aḥmad _yūrūnchī_[1229] to say to the begs, "Here we are at the time promised; be ready! be bold! "After crossing Minār-hill[1230] and dismounting on its skirt, helpless with cold, we lit fires to warm ourselves. It was not time to light the signal-fire; we just lit these because we were helpless in that mighty cold. Near shoot of dawn we rode on from Minār-hill; between it and Kābul the snow was up to the horses' knees and had hardened, so off the road to move was difficult. Riding single-file the whole way, we got to Kābul [Sidenote: Fol. 198.] in good time undiscovered.[1231] Before we were at Bībī Māh-rūī (Lady Moon-face), the blaze of fire on the citadel let us know that the begs were looking out.

(_l. Attack made on the rebels._)

On reaching Sayyid Qāsim's bridge, Sherīm T̤aghāī and the men of the right were sent towards Mullā Bābā's bridge, while we of the left and centre took the Bābā Lūlī road. Where Khalīfa's garden now is, there was then a smallish garden made by Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā for a Langar (almshouse); none of its trees or shrubs were left but its enclosing wall was there. In this garden Mīrzā Khān was seated, Muḥ. Ḥusain Mīrzā being in Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā's great Bāgh-i-bihisht. I had gone as far along the lane of Mullā Bābā's garden as the burial-ground when four men met us who had hurried forward into Mīrzā Khān's quarters, been beaten, and forced to turn back. One of the four was Sayyid Qāsim Lord of the Gate, another was Qāsim Beg's son Qaṃbar-i-`alī, another was Sher-qulī the scout, another was Sl. Aḥmad _Mughūl_ one of Sher-qulī's band. These four, without a "God forbid!" (_taḥāshī_) had gone right into Mīrzā Khān's quarters; thereupon he, hearing an uproar, had mounted and got away. Abū'l-ḥasan the armourer's younger brother even, Muḥ. Ḥusain by name, had taken service with Mīrzā Khān; he had slashed at Sher-qulī, [Sidenote: Fol. 198b.] one of those four, thrown him down, and was just striking his head off, when Sher-qulī freed himself. Those four, tasters of the sword, tasters of the arrow, wounded one and all, came pelting back on us to the place mentioned.

Our horsemen, jammed in the narrow lane, were standing still, unable to move forward or back. Said I to the braves near, "Get off and force a road". Off got Nāṣir's Dost, Khwāja Muḥammad `Alī the librarian, Bābā Sher-zād (Tiger-whelp), Shāh Maḥmūd and others, pushed forward and at once cleared the way. The enemy took to flight.

We had looked for the begs to come out from the Fort but they could not come in time for the work; they only dropped in, by ones and twos, after we had made the enemy scurry off. Aḥmad-i-yūsuf had come from them before I went into the Chār-bāgh where Mīrzā Khān had been; he went in with me, but we both turned back when we saw the Mīrzā had gone off. Coming in at the garden-gate was Dost of Sar-i-pul, a foot-soldier I had promoted for his boldness to be Kotwāl and had left in Kābul; he made straight for me, sword in hand. I had my cuirass on but had not fastened the _gharīcha_[1232] nor had I put on [Sidenote: Fol. 199.] my helm. Whether he did not recognize me because of change wrought by cold and snow, or whether because of the flurry of the fight, though I shouted "Hāī Dost! hāī Dost!" and though Aḥmad-i-yūsuf also shouted, he, without a "God forbid!" brought down his sword on my unprotected arm. Only by God's grace can it have been that not a hairbreadth of harm was done to me.

If a sword shook the Earth from her place, Not a vein would it cut till God wills.

It was through the virtue of a prayer I had repeated that the Great God averted this danger and turned this evil aside. That prayer was as follows:—

"O my God! Thou art my Creator; except Thee there is no God. On Thee do I repose my trust; Thou art the Lord of the mighty throne. What God wills comes to pass; and what he does not will comes not to pass; and there is no power or strength but through the high and exalted God; and, of a truth, in all things God is almighty; and verily He comprehends all things by his knowledge, and has taken account of everything. O my Creator! as I sincerely trust in Thee, do Thou seize by the forelock all evil proceeding from within myself, and all evil coming from without, and all evil proceeding from every man who can be the occasion of evil, and all such evil as can proceed from any living thing, and remove them far from me; since, of a truth, Thou art the Lord of the exalted throne!"[1233]

On leaving that garden we went to Muḥ. Ḥusain Mīrzā's quarters in the Bāgh-i-bihisht, but he had fled and gone off to hide himself. Seven or eight men stood in a breach of the [Sidenote: Fol. 199b.] garden-wall; I spurred at them; they could not stand; they fled; I got up with them and cut at one with my sword; he rolled over in such a way that I fancied his head was off, passed on and went away; it seems he was Mīrzā Khān's foster-brother, Tūlik Kūkūldāsh and that my sword fell on his shoulder.

At the gate of Muḥ. Ḥusain Mīrzā's quarters, a Mughūl I recognized for one of my own servants, drew his bow and aimed at my face from a place on the roof as near me as a gate-ward stands to a Gate. People on all sides shouted, "Hāi! hāi! it is the Pādshāh." He changed his aim, shot off his arrow and ran away. The affair was beyond the shooting of arrows! His Mīrzā, his leaders, had run away or been taken; why was he shooting?

There they brought Sl. Sanjar _Barlās_, led in by a rope round his neck; he even, to whom I had given the Nīngnahār _tūmān_, had had his part in the mutiny! Greatly agitated, he kept crying out, "Hāi! what fault is in me?" Said I, "Can there be one clearer than that you are higher than the purpose and counsels of this crew?"[1234] But as he was the sister's son of my Khān _dādā's_ mother, Shāh Begīm, I gave the order, "Do not lead him with such dishonour; it is not death."

On leaving that place, I sent Aḥmad-i-qasim _Kohbur_, one of the begs of the Fort, with a few braves, in pursuit of [Sidenote: Fol. 200.] Mīrzā Khān.

(_m. Bābur's dealings with disloyal women._)

When I left the Bāgh-i-bihisht, I went to visit Shāh Begīm and (Mihr-nigār) Khānīm who had settled themselves in tents by the side of the garden.

As townspeople and black-bludgeoners had raised a riot, and were putting hands out to pillage property and to catch persons in corners and outside places, I sent men, to beat the rabble off, and had it herded right away.[1235]

Shāh Begīm and Khānīm were seated in one tent. I dismounted at the usual distance, approached with my former deference and courtesy, and had an interview with them. They were extremely agitated, upset, and ashamed; could neither excuse themselves reasonably[1236] nor make the enquiries of affection. I had not expected this (disloyalty) of them; it was not as though that party, evil as was the position it had taken up, consisted of persons who would not give ear to the words of Shāh Begīm and Khānīm; Mīrzā Khān was the begīm's grandson, in her presence night and day; if she had not fallen in with the affair, she could have kept him with her.

Twice over when fickle Fortune and discordant Fate had parted [Sidenote: Fol. 200b.] me from throne and country, retainer and following, I, and my mother with me, had taken refuge with them and had had no kindness soever from them. At that time my younger brother (_i.e._ cousin) Mīrzā Khān and his mother Sulṯān-nigār Khānīm held valuable cultivated districts; yet my mother and I,—to leave all question of a district aside,—were not made possessors of a single village or a few yoke of plough-oxen.[1237] Was my mother not Yūnas Khān's daughter? was I not his grandson?

In my days of plenty I have given from my hand what matched the blood-relationship and the position of whatsoever member of that (Chaghatāī) dynasty chanced down upon me. For example, when the honoured Shāh Begīm came to me, I gave her Pamghān, one of the best places in Kābul, and failed in no sort of filial duty and service towards her. Again, when Sl. Sa`īd Khān, Khān in Kāshghar, came [914 _AH._] with five or six naked followers on foot, I looked upon him as an honoured guest and gave him Mandrāwar of the Lamghān _tūmāns_. Beyond this also, when Shāh Ismā`īl had killed Shaibāq Khān in Marv and I crossed over to Qūndūz (916 _AH._-1511 _AD._), the Andijānīs, some driving their (Aūzbeg) _dāroghas_ out, some making their places fast, turned their eyes to me and sent me a man; at that time I trusted those old family servants to that same Sl. Sa`īd Khān, gave him a force, made him Khān and sped him forth. Again, down to the present time (_circa_ 934 _AH._) I have not looked upon any member of that family who has come to me, in any other light than as a blood-relation. For example, there [Sidenote: Fol. 201.] are now in my service Chīn-tīmūr Sulṯān; Aīsān-tīmūr Sulṯān, Tūkhtā-būghā Sulṯān, and Bābā Sulṯān;[1238] on one and all of these I have looked with more favour than on blood-relations of my own.

I do not write this in order to make complaint; I have written the plain truth. I do not set these matters down in order to make known my own deserts; I have set down exactly what has happened. In this History I have held firmly to it that the truth should be reached in every matter, and that every act should be recorded precisely as it occurred. From this it follows of necessity that I have set down of good and bad whatever is known, concerning father and elder brother, kinsman and stranger; of them all I have set down carefully the known virtues and defects. Let the reader accept my excuse; let the reader pass on from the place of severity!

(_n. Letters of victory._)

Rising from that place and going to the Chār-bāgh where Mīrzā Khān had been, we sent letters of victory to all the countries, clans, and retainers. This done, I rode to the citadel.

(_o. Arrest of rebel leaders._)

Muḥammad Ḥusain Mīrzā in his terror having run away into Khānīm's bedding-room and got himself fastened up in a bundle of bedding, we appointed Mīrīm _Dīwān_ with other begs of the fort, to take control in those dwellings, capture, and bring him in. Mīrīm _Dīwān_ said some plain rough words at Khānīm's [Sidenote: Fol. 201b.] gate, by some means or other found the Mīrzā, and brought him before me in the citadel. I rose at once to receive the Mīrzā with my usual deference, not even shewing too harsh a face. If I had had that Muḥ. Ḥusain M. cut in pieces, there was the ground for it that he had had part in base and shameful action, started and spurred on mutiny and treason. Death he deserved with one after another of varied pain and torture, but because there had come to be various connexion between us, his very sons and daughters being by my own mother's sister Khūb-nigār Khānīm, I kept this just claim in mind, let him go free, and permitted him to set out towards Khurāsān. The cowardly ingrate then forgot altogether the good I did him by the gift of his life; he blamed and slandered me to Shaibāq Khān. Little time passed, however, before the Khān gave him his deserts by death.

Leave thou to Fate the man who does thee wrong, For Fate is an avenging servitor.[1239]

Aḥmad-i-qāsim _Kohbur_ and the party of braves sent in pursuit of Mīrzā Khān, overtook him in the low hills of Qargha-yīlāq, not able even to run away, without heart or force to stir a finger! [Sidenote: Fol. 202.] They took him, and brought him to where I sat in the northeast porch of the old Court-house. Said I to him, "Come! let's have a look at one another" (_kūrūshālīng_), but twice before he could bend the knee and come forward, he fell down through agitation. When we had looked at one another, I placed him by my side to give him heart, and I drank first of the sherbet brought in, in order to remove his fears.[1240]

As those who had joined him, soldiers, peasants, Mughūls and Chaghatāīs,[1241] were in suspense, we simply ordered him to remain for a few days in his elder sister's house; but a few days later he was allowed to set out for Khurāsān[1242] because those mentioned above were somewhat uncertain and it did not seem well for him to stay in Kābul.

(_p. Excursion to Koh-dāman._)

After letting those two go, we made an excursion to Bārān, Chāsh-tūpa, and the skirt of Gul-i-bahār.[1243] More beautiful in Spring than any part even of Kābul are the open-lands of Bārān, the plain of Chāsh-tūpa, and the skirt of Gul-i-bahār. Many sorts of tulip bloom there; when I had them counted once, it came out at 34 different kinds as [has been said].[1244] This couplet has been written in praise of these places,—

Kābul in Spring is an Eden of verdure and blossom; Matchless in Kābul the Spring of Gul-i-bahār and Bārān.

On this excursion I finished the ode,—

_My heart, like the bud of the red, red rose, Lies fold within fold aflame; [Sidenote: Fol. 202b.] Would the breath of even a myriad Springs Blow my heart's bud to a rose?_

In truth, few places are quite equal to these for spring-excursions, for hawking (_qūsh sālmāq_) or bird-shooting (_qūsh ātmāq_), as has been briefly mentioned in the praise and description of the Kābul and Ghaznī country.

(_q. Nāṣir Mīrzā expelled from Badakhshān._)

This year the begs of Badakhshān _i.e._ Muḥammad the armourer, Mubārak Shāh, Zubair and Jahāngīr, grew angry and mutinous because of the misconduct of Nāṣir Mīrzā and some of those he cherished. Coming to an agreement together, they drew out an army of horse and foot, arrayed it on the level lands by the Kūkcha-water, and moved towards Yaftal and Rāgh, to near Khamchān, by way of the lower hills. The Mīrzā and his inexperienced begs, in their thoughtless and unobservant fashion, came out to fight them just in those lower hills. The battle-field was uneven ground; the Badakhshīs had a dense mass of men on foot who stood firm under repeated charges by the Mīrzā's horse, and returned such attack that the horsemen fled, unable to keep their ground. Having beaten the Mīrzā, the Badakhshīs plundered his dependants and connexions.

Beaten and stripped bare, he and his close circle took the road through Ishkīmīsh and Nārīn to Kīlā-gāhī, from there followed the Qīzīl-sū up, got out on the Āb-dara road, crossed at Shibr-tū, and so came to Kābul, he with 70 or 80 followers, worn-out, naked and famished.

That was a marvellous sign of the Divine might! Two or three years earlier the Mīrzā had left the Kābul country like a [Sidenote: Fol. 203.] foe, driving tribes and hordes like sheep before him, reached Badakhshān and made fast its forts and valley-strongholds. With what fancy in his mind had he marched out?[1245] Now he was back, hanging the head of shame for those earlier misdeeds, humbled and distraught about that breach with me!

My face shewed him no sort of displeasure; I made kind enquiry about himself, and brought him out of his confusion.

913 AH.-MAY 13TH 1507 TO MAY 2ND 1508 AD.[1246]

(_a. Raid on the Ghiljī Afghāns._)

We had ridden out of Kābul with the intention of over-running the Ghiljī;[1247] when we dismounted at Sar-i-dih news was brought that a mass of Mahmands (Afghāns) was lying in Masht and Sih-kāna one _yīghāch_ (_circa_ 5 m.) away from us.[1248] Our begs and braves agreed in saying, "The Mahmands must be over-run", but I said, "Would it be right to turn aside and raid our own peasants instead of doing what we set out to do? It cannot be."

Riding at night from Sar-i-dih, we crossed the plain of Kattawāz in the dark, a quite black night, one level stretch of land, no mountain or rising-ground in sight, no known road or track, not a man able to lead us! In the end I took the lead. I had been in those parts several times before; drawing inferences from those times, I took the Pole-star on my right shoulder-blade[1249] and, with some anxiety, moved on. God brought it right! We went straight to the Qīāq-tū and the Aūlābā-tū torrent, that is to say, straight for Khwāja Ismā`īl _Sirītī_ where the Ghiljīs were lying, the road to which crosses the torrent named. Dismounting near the torrent, we let ourselves and our horses sleep a little, [Sidenote: Fol. 203b.] took breath, and bestirred ourselves at shoot of dawn. The Sun was up before we got out of those low hills and valley-bottoms to the plain on which the Ghiljī lay with a good _yīghāch_[1250] of road between them and us; once out on the plain we could see their blackness, either their own or from the smoke of their fires.

Whether bitten by their own whim,[1251] or whether wanting to hurry, the whole army streamed off at the gallop (_chāpqūn qūīdīlār_); off galloped I after them and, by shooting an arrow now at a man, now at a horse, checked them after a _kuroh_ or two (3 m.?). It is very difficult indeed to check 5 or 6000 braves galloping loose-rein! God brought it right! They were checked! When we had gone about one _shar`ī_ (2 m.) further, always with the Afghān blackness in sight, the raid[1252] was allowed. Masses of sheep fell to us, more than in any other raid.

After we had dismounted and made the spoils turn back,[1253] one body of Afghāns after another came down into the plain, provoking a fight. Some of the begs and of the household went against one body and killed every man; Nāṣir Mīrzā did the same with another, and a pillar of Afghān heads was set up. An arrow pierced the foot of that foot-soldier Dost the Kotwāl who has been mentioned already;[1254] when we reached Kābul, he died.

Marching from Khwāja Ismā`īl, we dismounted once more at Aūlābā-tū. Some of the begs and of my own household were ordered to go forward and carefully separate off the Fifth (_Khums_) of the enemy's spoils. By way of favour, we did not [Sidenote: Fol. 204.] take the Fifth from Qāsim Beg and some others.[1255] From what was written down,[1256] the Fifth came out at 16,000, that is to say, this 16,000 was the fifth of 80,000 sheep; no question however but that with those lost and those not asked for, a _lak_ (100,000) of sheep had been taken.

(_b. A hunting-circle._)

Next day when we had ridden from that camp, a hunting-circle was formed on the plain of Kattawāz where deer (_kiyīk_)[1257] and wild-ass are always plentiful and always fat. Masses went into the ring; masses were killed. During the hunt I galloped after a wild-ass, on getting near shot one arrow, shot another, but did not bring it down, it only running more slowly for the two wounds. Spurring forwards and getting into position[1258] quite close to it, I chopped at the nape of its neck behind the ears, and cut through the wind-pipe; it stopped, turned over and died. My sword cut well! The wild-ass was surprisingly fat. Its rib may have been a little under one yard in length. Sherīm T̤aghāī and other observers of _kiyīk_ in Mughūlistān said with surprise, "Even in Mughūlistān we have seen few _kiyīk_ so fat!" I shot another wild-ass; most of the wild-asses and deer brought down in that hunt were fat, but not one of them was so fat as the one I first killed.

Turning back from that raid, we went to Kābul and there dismounted.

(_c. Shaibāq Khān moves against Khurāsān._)

Shaibāq Khān had got an army to horse at the end of last year, meaning to go from Samarkand against Khurāsān, his [Sidenote: Fol. 204b.] march out being somewhat hastened by the coming to him of a servant of that vile traitor to his salt, Shāh Manṣūr the Paymaster, then in Andikhūd. When the Khān was approaching Andikhūd, that vile wretch said, "I have sent a man to the Aūzbeg," relied on this, adorned himself, stuck up an aigrette on his head, and went out, bearing gift and tribute. On this the leaderless[1259] Aūzbegs poured down on him from all sides, and turned upside down (_tart-part_) the blockhead, his offering and his people of all sorts.

(_d. Irresolution of the Khurāsān Mīrzās._)

Badī`u´z-zamān Mīrzā, Muz̤affar Mīrzā, Muḥ. Barandūq _Barlās_ and Ẕū´n-nūn _Arghūn_ were all lying with their army in Bābā Khākī,[1260] not decided to fight, not settled to make (Herī) fort fast, there they sat, confounded, vague, uncertain what to do. Muḥammad Barandūq _Barlās_ was a knowledgeable man; he kept saying, "You let Muz̤affar Mīrzā and me make the fort fast; let Badī`u´z-zamān Mīrzā and Ẕū´n-nūn Beg go into the mountains near Herī and gather in Sl. `Alī _Arghūn_ from Sīstān and Zamīn-dāwar, Shāh Beg and Muqīm from Qandahār with all their armies, and let them collect also what there is of Nikdīrī and Hazāra force; this done, let them make a swift and telling move. The enemy would find it difficult to go into the mountains, and could not come against the (Herī) fort because [Sidenote: Fol. 205.] he would be afraid of the army outside." He said well, his plan was practical.

Brave though Ẕū´n-nūn _Arghūn_ was, he was mean, a lover-of-goods, far from businesslike or judicious, rather shallow-pated, and a bit of a fool. As has been mentioned,[1261] when that elder and that younger brother became joint-rulers in Herī, he had chief authority in Badī`u´z-zamān Mīrzā's presence. He was not willing now for Muḥ. Barandūq Beg to remain inside Herī town; being the lover-of-goods he was, he wanted to be there himself. But he could not make this seem one and the same thing![1262] Is there a better sign of his shallow-pate and craze than that he degraded himself and became contemptible by accepting the lies and flattery of rogues and sycophants? Here are the particulars[1263]:—While he was so dominant and trusted in Herī, certain Shaikhs and Mullās went to him and said, "The Spheres are holding commerce with us; you are styled _Hizabru´l-lāh_ (Lion of God); you will overcome the Aūzbeg." Believing these words, he put his bathing-cloth round his neck and gave thanks. It was through this he did not accept Muḥammad Barandūq Beg's sensible counsel, did not strengthen the works (_aīsh_) of the fort, get ready fighting equipment, set scout or rearward to warn of the foe's approach, or plan out such method of array that, should the foe appear, his men would fight with ready heart.

(_e. Shaibāq Khān takes Herī._)

Shaibāq Khān passed through Murgh-āb to near Sīr-kāī[1264] in [Sidenote: Fol. 205b.] the month of Muḥarram (913 AH. May-June 1507 AD.). When the Mīrzās heard of it, they were altogether upset, could not act, collect troops, array those they had. Dreamers, they moved through a dream![1265] Ẕū'n-nūn _Arghūn_, made glorious by that flattery, went out to Qarā-rabāṯ, with 100 to 150 men, to face 40,000 to 50,000 Aūzbegs: a mass of these coming up, hustled his off, took him, killed him and cut off his head.[1266]

In Fort Ikhtiyāru'd-dīn, it is known as Ālā-qūrghān,[1267] were the Mīrzās' mothers, elder and younger sisters, wives and treasure. The Mīrzās reached the town at night, let their horses rest till midnight, slept, and at dawn flung forth again. They could not think about strengthening the fort; in the respite and crack of time there was, they just ran away,[1268] leaving mother, sister, wife and little child to Aūzbeg captivity.

What there was of Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā's _ḥaram_, Pāyanda-sulṯān Begīm and Khadīja Begīm at the head of it, was inside Ālā-qūrghān; there too were the _ḥarams_ of Badī`u'z-zamān Mīrzā[1269] and Muz̤affar Mīrzā with their little children, treasure, and households (_biyutāt_). What was desirable for making the fort fast had not been done; even braves to reinforce it had not arrived. `Āshiq-i-muḥammad _Arghūn_, the younger brother of Mazīd Beg, had fled from the army on foot and gone into it; [Sidenote: Fol. 206.] in it was also Amīr `Umar Beg's son `Alī Khān (_Turkmān_); Shaikh `Abdu'l-lāh the taster was there; Mīrzā Beg _Kāī-khusraūī_ was there; and Mīrak _Gūr_ (or _Kūr_) the Dīwān was there.

When Shaibāq Khān arrived two or three days later; the Shaikhu'l-islām and notables went out to him with the keys of the outer-fort. That same `Āshiq-i-muḥammad held Ālā-qūrghān for 16 or 17 days; then a mine, run from the horse-market outside, was fired and brought a tower down; the garrison lost heart, could hold out no longer, so let the fort be taken.

(_f. Shaibāq Khān in Herī._)

Shaibāq Khān, after taking Herī,[1270] behaved badly not only to the wives and children of its rulers but to every person soever. For the sake of this five-days' fleeting world, he earned himself a bad name. His first improper act and deed in Herī was that, for the sake of this rotten world (_chirk dunyā_), he caused Khadīja Begīm various miseries, through letting the vile wretch Pay-master Shāh Manṣūr get hold of her to loot. Then he let `Abdu'l-wahhāb _Mughūl_ take to loot a person so saintly and so revered as Shaikh Pūrān, and each one of Shaikh Pūrān's children be taken by a separate person. He let the band of poets be seized by Mullā Banā'ī, a matter about which this verse is well-known in Khurāsān:—

Except `Abdu'l-lāh the stupid fool (_kīr-khar_), Not a poet to-day sees the colour of gold; From the poets' band Banā'ī would get gold, All he will get is _kīr-khar_.[1271] [Sidenote: Fol. 206b.]

Directly he had possession of Herī, Shaibāq Khān married and took Muz̤affar Mīrzā's wife, Khān-zāda Khānīm, without regard to the running-out of the legal term.[1272] His own illiteracy not forbidding, he instructed in the exposition of the Qoran, Qāẓī Ikhtiyār and Muḥammad Mīr Yūsuf, two of the celebrated and highly-skilled mullās of Herī; he took a pen and corrected the hand-writing of Mullā Sl. `Alī of Mashhad and the drawing of Bih-zād; and every few days, when he had composed some tasteless couplet, he would have it read from the pulpit, hung in the Chār-sū [Square], and for it accept the offerings of the towns-people![1273] Spite of his early-rising, his not neglecting the Five Prayers, and his fair knowledge of the art of reciting the Qorān, there issued from him many an act and deed as absurd, as impudent, and as heathenish as those just named.

(_g. Death of two Mīrzās._)

Ten or fifteen days after he had possession of Herī, Shaibāq Khān came from Kahd-stān[1274] to Pul-i-sālār. From that place he sent Tīmūr Sl. and `Ubaid Sl. with the army there present, against Abū'l-muḥsin Mīrzā and Kūpuk (Kīpik) Mīrzā then seated carelessly in Mashhad. The two Mīrzās had thought at one time of making Qalāt[1275] fast; at another, this after they had had news of the approach of the Aūzbeg, they were for moving on Shaibāq Khān himself, by forced marches and along a different road,[1276]—which might have turned out an amazingly good idea! But while they sit still there in Mashhad with nothing decided, the Sulṯāns arrive by forced marches. The Mīrzās for their part [Sidenote: Fol. 207.] array and go out; Abū'l-muḥsin Mīrzā is quickly overcome and routed; Kūpuk Mīrzā charges his brother's assailants with somewhat few men; him too they carry off; both brothers are dismounted and seated in one place; after an embrace (_qūchūsh_), they kiss farewell; Abū'l-muḥsin shews some want of courage; in Kūpuk Mirza it all makes no change at all. The heads of both are sent to Shaibāq Khān in Pul-i-sālār.

(_h. Bābur marches for Qandahār._)

In those days Shāh Beg and his younger brother Muḥammad Muqīm, being afraid of Shaibāq Khān, sent one envoy after another to me with dutiful letters (_`arz-dāsht_), giving sign of amity and good-wishes. Muqīm, in a letter of his own, explicitly invited me. For us to look on at the Aūzbeg over-running the whole country, was not seemly; and as by letters and envoys, Shāh Beg and Muqīm had given me invitation, there remained little doubt they would wait upon me.[1277] When all begs and counsellors had been consulted, the matter was left at this:—We were to get an army to horse, join the Arghūn begs and decide in accord and agreement with them, whether to move into Khurāsān or elsewhere as might seem good.

(_i. In Ghasnī and Qalāt-i-ghilzāī._)

Ḥabība-sulṯān Begīm, my aunt (_yīnkā_) as I used to call her, met us in Ghaznī, having come from Herī, according to arrangement, in order to bring her daughter Maṣ`ūma-sulṯān Begīm. [Sidenote: Fol. 207b.] With the honoured Begīm came Khusrau Kūkūldāsh, Sl. Qulī _Chūnāq_ (One-eared) and Gadāī _Balāl_ who had returned to me after flight from Herī, first to Ibn-i-ḥusain Mīrzā then to Abū'l-muḥsin Mīrzā,[1278] with neither of whom they could remain.

In Qalāt the army came upon a mass of Hindūstān traders, come there to traffic and, as it seemed, unable to go on. The general opinion about them was that people who, at a time of such hostilities, are coming into an enemy's country[1279] must be plundered. With this however I did not agree; said I, "What is the traders' offence? If we, looking to God's pleasure, leave such scrapings of gain aside, the Most High God will apportion our reward. It is now just as it was a short time back when we rode out to raid the Ghiljī; many of you then were of one mind to raid the Mahmand Afghāns, their sheep and goods, their wives and families, just because they were within five miles of you! Then as now I did not agree with you. On the very next day the Most High God apportioned you more sheep belonging to Afghān enemies, than had ever before fallen to the share of the army." Something by way of _peshkash_ (offering) was taken from each trader when we dismounted on the other side of Qalāt.

(_j. Further march south._)

Beyond Qalāt two Mīrzās joined us, fleeing from Qandahār. One was Mīrzā Khān (Wais) who had been allowed to go into Khurāsān after his defeat at Kābul. The other was `Abdu'r-razzāq [Sidenote: Fol. 208.] Mīrzā who had stayed on in Khurāsān when I left. With them came and waited on me the mother of Jahāngīr Mīrzā's son Pīr-i-muḥammad, a grandson of Pahār Mīrzā.[1280]

(_k. Behaviour of the Arghūn chiefs._)

When we sent persons and letters to Shāh Beg and Muqīm, saying, "Here we are at your word; a stranger-foe like the Aūzbeg has taken Khurāsān; come! let us settle, in concert and amity, what will be for the general good," they returned a rude and ill-mannered answer, going back from the dutiful letters they had written and from the invitations they had given. One of their incivilities was that Shāh Beg stamped his letter to me in the middle of its reverse, where begs seal if writing to begs, where indeed a great beg seals if writing to one of the lower circle.[1281] But for such ill-manners and his rude answers, his affair would never have gone so far as it did, for, as they say,—

A strife-stirring word will accomplish the downfall of an ancient line.

By these their headstrong acts they gave to the winds house, family, and the hoards of 30 to 40 years.

One day while we were near Shahr-i-ṣafā[1282] a false alarm being given in the very heart of the camp, the whole army was made to arm and mount. At the time I was occupied with a bath [Sidenote: Fol. 208b.] and purification; the begs were much flurried; I mounted when I was ready; as the alarm was false, it died away after a time.

March by march we moved on to Guzar.[1283] There we tried again to discuss with the Arghūns but, paying no attention to us, they maintained the same obstinate and perverse attitude. Certain well-wishers who knew the local land and water, represented to me, that the head of the torrents (_rūdlār_) which come down to Qandahār, being towards Bābā Ḥasan Abdāl and Khalishak,[1284] a move ought to be made in that direction, in order to cut off (_yīqmāq_) all those torrents.[1285] Leaving the matter there, we next day made our men put on their mail, arrayed in right and left, and marched for Qandahār.

(_l. Battle of Qandahār._)

Shāh Beg and Muqīm had seated themselves under an awning which was set in front of the naze of the Qandahār-hill where I am now having a rock-residence cut out.[1286] Muqīm's men pushed forward amongst the trees to rather near us. T̤ūfān _Arghūn_ had fled to us when we were near Shahr-i-ṣafā; he now betook himself alone close up to the Arghūn array to where one named `Ashaqu'l-lāh was advancing rather fast leading 7 or 8 men. Alone, T̤ūfān _Arghūn_ faced him, slashed swords with him, unhorsed him, cut off his head and brought it to me as we were passing Sang-i-lakhshak;[1287] an omen we accepted! Not thinking it well to fight where we were, amongst suburbs and trees, we went on along the skirt of the hill. Just as we had settled on ground for the camp, in a meadow on the Qandahār side of the [Sidenote: Fol. 209.] torrent,[1288] opposite Khalishak, and were dismounting, Sher Qulī the scout hurried up and represented that the enemy was arrayed to fight and on the move towards us.

As on our march from Qalāt the army had suffered much from hunger and thirst, most of the soldiers on getting near Khalishak scattered up and down for sheep and cattle, grain and eatables. Without looking to collect them, we galloped off. Our force may have been 2000 in all, but perhaps not over 1000 were in the battle because those mentioned as scattering up and down could not rejoin in time to fight.

Though our men were few I had them organized and posted on a first-rate plan and method; I had never arrayed them before by such a good one. For my immediate command (_khāṣa tābīn_) I had selected braves from whose hands comes work[1289] and had inscribed them by tens and fifties, each ten and each fifty under a leader who knew the post in the right or left of the centre for his ten or his fifty, knew the work of each in the battle, and was there on the observant watch; so that, after mounting, the right and left, right and left hands, right and left sides, charged right and left without the trouble of arraying them or the need of a _tawāchī_.[1290]

(_Author's note on his terminology._) [Sidenote: Fol. 209b.] Although _barānghār_, _aūng qūl_, _aūng yān_ and _aūng_ (right wing, right hand, right side and right) all have the same meaning, I have applied them in different senses in order to vary terms and mark distinctions. As, in the battle-array, the (Ar.) _maimana_ and _maisara_ _i.e._ what people call (Turkī) _barānghār_ and _jawānghār_ (r. and l. wings) are not included in the (Ar.) _qalb_, _i.e._ what people call (T.) _ghūl_ (centre), so it is in arraying the centre itself. Taking the array of the centre only, its (Ar.) _yamīn_ and _yasār_ (r. and l.) are called (by me) _aūng qūl_ and _sūl qūl_ (r. and l. hands). Again,—the (Ar.) _khāṣa tābīn_ (royal troop) in the centre has its _yamīn_ and _yasār_ which are called (by me) _aūng yān_ and _sūl yān_ (r. and l. sides, T. _yān_). Again,—in the _khāṣa tābīn_ there is the (T.) _būī_ (_nīng_) _tīkīnī_ (close circle); its _yamīn_ and _yasār_ are called _sūng_ and _sūl_. In the Turkī tongue they call one single thing a _būī_,[1291] but that is not the _būī_ meant here; what is meant here is close (_yāqīn_).

The right wing (_barānghār_) was Mīrzā Khān (Wais), Sherīm T̤aghāī, Yārak T̤aghāī with his elder and younger brethren, Chilma _Mughūl_, Ayūb Beg, Muḥammad Beg, Ibrāhīm Beg, `Alī Sayyid _Mughūl_ with his Mughūls, Sl. Qulī _chuhra_, Khudā-bakhsh and Abū'l-ḥasan with his elder and younger brethren.

The left (_jawānghār_) was `Abdu'r-razzāq Mīrzā, Qāsim Beg, Tīngrī-bīrdī, Qaṃbar-i-`alī, Aḥmad _Aīlchī-būghā_, Ghūrī _Barlās_, Sayyid Ḥusain Akbar, and Mīr Shāh _Qūchin_.

The advance (_aīrāwal_) was Nāṣir Mīrzā, Sayyid Qāsim Lord of the Gate, Muḥibb-i-`alī the armourer, Pāpā Aūghulī (Pāpā's son?), Allāh-wairan _Turkmān_, Sher Qulī _Mughūl_ the scout with his elder and younger brethren, and Muḥammad `Alī.

In the centre (_ghūl_), on my right hand, were Qāsim Kūkūldāsh, Khusrau Kūkūldāsh, Sl. Muḥammad _Dūldāī_, Shāh Maḥmūd the secretary, Qūl-i-bāyazīd the taster, and Kamāl the sherbet-server [Sidenote: Fol. 210.] server; on my left were Khwāja Muḥammad `Alī, Nāṣir's Dost, Nāṣir's Mīrīm, Bābā Sher-zād, Khān-qulī, Walī the treasurer, Qūtlūq-qadam the scout, Maqsūd the water-bearer (_sū-chī_), and Bābā Shaikh. Those in the centre were all of my household; there were no great begs; not one of those enumerated had reached the rank of beg. Those inscribed in this _būī_[1292] were Sher Beg, Ḥātim the Armoury-master, Kūpuk, Qulī Bābā, Abū'l-ḥasan the armourer;—of the Mughūls, Aūrūs (Russian) `Alī Sayyid,[1293] Darwīsh-i-`alī Sayyid, Khūsh-kīldī, Chilma, Dost-kīldī, Chilma _Tāghchī_, Dāmāchī, Mindī;—of the Turkmāns, Manṣūr, Rustam-i-`alī with his elder and younger brother, and Shāh Nāẕir and Sīūndūk.

The enemy was in two divisions, one under Shāh Shujā' _Arghūn_, known as Shāh Beg and hereafter to be written of simply as Shāh Beg, the other under his younger brother Muqīm.

Some estimated the dark mass of Arghūns[1294] at 6 or 7000 men; no question whatever but that Shāh Beg's own men in mail were 4 or 5000. He faced our right, Muqīm with a force smaller may-be than his brother's, faced our left. Muqīm made a mightily strong attack on our left, that is on Qāsim Beg from whom two or three persons came before fighting began, to ask for reinforcement; we however could not detach a man because in front of us also the enemy was very strong. We made our onset without any delay; the enemy fell suddenly on our van, [Sidenote: Fol. 210b.] turned it back and rammed it on our centre. When we, after a discharge of arrows, advanced, they, who also had been shooting for a time, seemed likely to make a stand (_tūkhtaghāndīk_). Some-one, shouting to his men, came forward towards me, dismounted and was for adjusting his arrow, but he could do nothing because we moved on without stay. He remounted and rode off; it may have been Shāh Beg himself. During the fight Pīrī Beg _Turkmān_ and 4 or 5 of his brethren turned their faces from the foe and, turban in hand,[1295] came over to us.

(_Author's note on Pīrī Beg._) This Pīrī Beg was one of those Turkmāns who came [into Herī] with the Turkmān Begs led by `Abdu'l-bāqī Mīrzā and Murād Beg, after Shāh Ismā`īl vanquished the Bāyandar sulṯāns and seized the `Irāq countries.[1296]

Our right was the first to overcome the foe; it made him hurry off. Its extreme point had gone pricking (_sānjīlīb_)[1297] as far as where I have now laid out a garden. Our left extended as far as the great tree-tangled[1298] irrigation-channels, a good way below Bābā Ḥasan Abdāl. Muqīm was opposite it, its numbers very small compared with his. God brought it right! Between it and Muqīm were three or four of the tree-tangled water-channels going on to Qandahār;[1299] it held the crossing-place and allowed no passage; small body though it was, it made splendid stand [Sidenote: Fol. 211.] and kept its ground. Ḥalwāchī Tarkhān[1300] slashed away in the water with Tīngrī-bīrdī and Qaṃbar-i-`alī. Qaṃbar-i-`alī was wounded; an arrow stuck in Qāsim Beg's forehead; another struck Ghūrī _Barlās_ above the eyebrow and came out above his cheek.[1301]

We meantime, after putting our adversary to flight, had crossed those same channels towards the naze of Murghān-koh (Birds'-hill). Some-one on a grey _tīpūchāq_ was going backwards and forwards irresolutely along the hill-skirt, while we were getting across; I likened him to Shāh Beg; seemingly it was he.

Our men having beaten their opponents, all went off to pursue and unhorse them. Remained with me eleven to count, `Abdu'l-lāh the librarian being one. Muqīm was still keeping his ground and fighting. Without a glance at the fewness of our men, we had the nagarets sounded and, putting our trust in God, moved with face set for Muqīm.

(Turkī) For few or for many God is full strength; No man has might in His Court.

(Arabic) How often, God willing it, a small force has vanquished a large one!

Learning from the nagarets that we were approaching, Muqīm forgot his fixed plan and took the road of flight. God brought it right!

After putting our foe to flight, we moved for Qandahār and dismounted in Farrukh-zād Beg's Chār-bāgh, of which at this time not a trace remains!

(_m. Bābur enters Qandahār._) [Sidenote: Fol. 211b.]

Shāh Beg and Muqīm could not get into Qandahār when they took to flight; Shāh Beg went towards Shāl and Mastūng (Quetta), Muqīm towards Zamīn-dāwar. They left no-one able to make the fort fast. Aḥmad `Alī Tarkhān was in it together with other elder and younger brethren of Qulī Beg _Arghūn_ whose attachment and good-feeling for me were known. After parley they asked protection for the families of their elder and younger brethren; their request was granted and all mentioned were encompassed with favour. They then opened the Māshūr-gate of the town; with leaderless men in mind, no other was opened. At that gate were posted Sherīm T̤aghāī and Yārīm Beg. I went in with a few of the household, charged the leaderless men and had two or three put to death by way of example.[1302]

(_n. The spoils of Qandahār._)

I got to Muqīm's treasury first, that being in the outer-fort; `Abdu'r-razzāq Mīrzā must have been quicker than I, for he was just dismounting there when I arrived; I gave him a few things from it. I put Dost-i-nāṣir Beg, Qul-i-bāyazīd the taster and, of pay-masters, Muḥammad _bakhshī_ in charge of it, then passed on into the citadel and posted Khwāja Muḥammad `Alī, Shāh Maḥmūd and, of the pay-masters, T̤aghāī Shāh _bakhshī_ in charge of Shāh Beg's treasury.

Nāṣir's Mīrīm and Maqṣūd the sherbet-server were sent to keep the house of Ẕū'n-nūn's _Dīwān_ Mīr Jān for Nāṣir Mīrzā; for Mīrzā Khān was kept Shaikh Abū-sa`īd _Tarkhānī's_; for `Abdu'r-razzāq Mīrzā ... 's.[1303]

[Sidenote: Fol. 212.] Such masses of white money had never been seen in those countries; no-one indeed was to be heard of who had seen so much. That night, when we ourselves stayed in the citadel, Shāh Beg's slave Saṃbhal was captured and brought in. Though he was then Shāh Beg's intimate, he had not yet received his later favour.[1304] I had him given into someone's charge but as good watch was not kept, he was allowed to escape. Next day I went back to my camp in Farrukh-zād Beg's Chār-bāgh.

I gave the Qandahār country to Nāṣir Mīrzā. After the treasure had been got into order, loaded up and started off, he took the loads of white _tankas_ off a string of camels (_i.e._ _7_ beasts) at the citadel-treasury, and kept them. I did not demand them back; I just gave them to him.

On leaving Qandahār, we dismounted in the Qūsh-khāna meadow. After setting the army forward, I had gone for an excursion, so I got into camp rather late. It was another camp! not to be recognized! Excellent _tīpūchāqs_, strings and strings of he-camels, she-camels, and mules, bearing saddle-bags (_khurzīn_) of silken stuffs and cloth,—tents of scarlet (cloth) and velvet, all sorts of awnings, every kind of work-shop, ass-load after ass-load of chests! The goods of the elder and younger (Arghūn) brethren had been kept in separate treasuries; out of each had come chest upon chest, bale upon bale of stuffs and clothes-in-wear (_artmāq artmāq_), sack upon sack of white _tankas_. In _aūtāgh_ and _chādar_ (lattice-tent and pole-tent) was much spoil for every man soever; many sheep also had been taken but sheep were less cared about!

I made over to Qāsim Beg Muqīm's retainers in Qalāt, under [Sidenote: Fol. 212b.] Qūj _Arghūn_ and Tāju'd-dīn Maḥmūd, with their goods and effects. Qāsim Beg was a knowing person; he saw it unadvisable for us to stay long near Qandahār, so, by talking and talking, worrying and worrying, he got us to march off. As has been said, I had bestowed Qandahār on Nāṣir Mīrzā; he was given leave to go there; we started for Kābul.

There had been no chance of portioning out the spoils while we were near Qandahār; it was done at Qarā-bāgh where we delayed two or three days. To count the coins being difficult, they were apportioned by weighing them in scales. Begs of all ranks, retainers and household (_tābīn_) loaded up ass-load after ass-load of sacks full of white _tankas_, and took them away for their own subsistence and the pay of their soldiers.

We went back to Kābul with masses of goods and treasure, great honour and reputation.

(_o. Bābur's marriage with Ma`ṣūma-sulṯān._)

After this return to Kābul I concluded alliance (_`aqd qīldīm_) with Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā's daughter Ma`ṣūma-sulṯān Begīm whom I had asked in marriage at Khurāsān, and had had brought from there.

(_p. Shaibāq Khān before Qandahār._)

A few days later a servant of Nāṣir Mīrzā brought the news that Shaibāq Khān had come and laid siege to Qandahār. That Muqīm had fled to Zamīn-dāwar has been said already; from there he went on and saw Shaibāq Khān. From Shāh Beg also one person after another had gone to Shaibāq Khān. At the instigation and petition of these two, the Khān came [Sidenote: Fol. 213.] swiftly down on Qandahār by the mountain road,[1305] thinking to find me there. This was the very thing that experienced person Qāsim Beg had in his mind when he worried us into marching off from near Qandahār.

(Persian) What a mirror shews to the young man, A baked brick shews to the old one!

Shaibāq Khān arriving, besieged Nāṣir Mīrzā in Qandahār.

(_q. Alarm in Kābul._)

When this news came, the begs were summoned for counsel. The matters for discussion were these:—Strangers and ancient foes, such as are Shaibāq Khān and the Aūzbegs, are in possession of all the countries once held by Tīmūr Beg's descendants; even where Turks and Chaghatāīs[1306] survive in corners and border-lands, they have all joined the Aūzbeg, willingly or with aversion; one remains, I myself, in Kābul, the foe mightily strong, I very weak, with no means of making terms, no strength to oppose; that, in the presence of such power and potency, we had to think of some place for ourselves and, at this crisis and in the crack of time there was, to put a wider space between us and the strong foeman; that choice lay between Badakhshān and Hindūstān and that decision must now be made.

Qāsim Beg and Sherīm T̤aghāī were agreed for Badakhshān;

(_Author's note on Badakhshān._) Those holding their heads up in Badakhshān at this crisis were, of Badakhshīs, Mubārak Shāh and Zubair, Jahāngīr _Turkmān_ and Muḥammad the armourer. They had driven Nāṣir Mīrzā out but had not joined the Aūzbeg.

[Sidenote: Fol. 213b.] I and several household-begs preferred going towards Hindūstān and were for making a start to Lamghān.[1307]

(_r. Movements of some Mīrzās._)

After taking Qandahār, I had bestowed Qalāt and the Turnūk (Tarnak) country on `Abdu'r-razzāq Mīrzā and had left him in Qalāt, but with the Aūzbeg besieging Qandahār, he could not stay in Qalāt, so left it and came to Kābul. He arriving just as we were marching out, was there left in charge.[1308]

There being in Badakhshān no ruler or ruler's son, Mīrzā Khān inclined to go in that direction, both because of his relationship to Shāh Begīm[1309] and with her approval. He was allowed to go and the honoured Begīm herself started off with him. My honoured maternal-aunt Mihr-nigār Khānīm also wished to go to Badakhshān, notwithstanding that it was more seemly for her to be with me, a blood-relation; but whatever objection was made, she was not to be dissuaded; she also betook[1310] herself to Badakhshān.

(_s. Bābur's second start for Hindūstān._)

Under our plan of going to Hindūstān, we marched out of Kābul in the month of the first Jumāda (September 1507 AD.), taking the road through Little Kābul and going down by Sūrkh-rabāṯ to Qūrūq-sāī.

The Afghāns belonging between Kābul and Lamghān (Ningnahār) are thieves and abettors of thieves even in quiet times; for just such a happening as this they had prayed in vain. Said they, "He has abandoned Kābul", and multiplied their misdeeds by ten, changing their very merits for faults. To such [Sidenote: Fol. 214.] lengths did things go that on the morning we marched from Jagdālīk, the Afghāns located between it and Lamghān, such as the Khiẓr-khail, Shimū-khail, Khirilchī and Khūgīanī, thought of blocking the pass, arrayed on the mountain to the north, and advancing with sound of tambour and flourish of sword, began to shew themselves off. On our mounting I ordered our men to move along the mountain-side, each man from where he had dismounted;[1311] off they set at the gallop up every ridge and every valley of the saddle.[1312] The Afghāns stood awhile, but could not let even one arrow fly,[1313] and betook themselves to flight. While I was on the mountain during the pursuit, I shot one in the hand as he was running back below me. That arrow-stricken man and a few others were brought in; some were put to death by impalement, as an example.

We dismounted over against the Adīnapūr-fort in the Nīngnahār _tūmān_.

(_t. A raid for winter stores._)

Up till then we had taken no thought where to camp, where to go, where to stay; we had just marched up and down, camping in fresh places, while waiting for news.[1314] It was late in the autumn; most lowlanders had carried in their rice. People knowing the local land and water represented that the Mīl Kāfirs up the water of the `Alīshang _tūmān_ grow great quantities of rice, so that we might be able to collect winter supplies from them for the army. Accordingly we rode out of the Nīngnahār dale (_julga_), crossed (the Bārān-water) at Sāīkal, and went swiftly as far as the Pūr-amīn (easeful) valley. [Sidenote: Fol. 214b.] There the soldiers took a mass of rice. The rice-fields were all at the bottom of the hills. The people fled but some Kāfirs went to their death. A few of our braves had been sent to a look-out (_sar-kūb_)[1315] on a naze of the Pūr-anīm valley; when they were returning to us, the Kāfirs rushed from the hill above, shooting at them. They overtook Qāsim Beg's son-in-law Pūrān, chopped at him with an axe, and were just taking him when some of the braves went back, brought strength to bear, drove them off and got Pūrān away. After one night spent in the Kāfirs' rice-fields, we returned to camp with a mass of provisions collected.

(_u. Marriage of Muqīm's daughter._)

While we were near Mandrāwar in those days, an alliance was concluded between Muqīm's daughter Māh-chūchūk, now married to Shāh Ḥasan _Arghūn_, and Qāsim Kūkūldāsh.[1316]

(_v. Abandonment of the Hindūstān project._)

As it was not found desirable to go on into Hindūstān, I sent Mullā Bābā of Pashāghar back to Kābul with a few braves. Meantime I marched from near Mandrāwar to Atar and Shīwa and lay there for a few days. From Atar I visited Kūnār and Nūr-gal; from Kūnār I went back to camp on a raft; it was the first time I had sat on one; it pleased me much, and the raft came into common use thereafter.

(_w. Shaibāq Khān retires from Qandahār._)

In those same days Mullā Bābā of Farkat came from Nāṣir Mīrzā with news in detail that Shaibāq Khān, after taking the outer-fort of Qandahār, had not been able to take the citadel but had retired; also that the Mīrzā, on various accounts, had left Qandahār and gone to Ghaznī.

Shaibāq Khān's arrival before Qandahār, within a few days [Sidenote: Fol. 215.] of our own departure, had taken the garrison by surprise, and they had not been able to make fast the outer-fort. He ran mines several times round about the citadel and made several assaults. The place was about to be lost. At that anxious time Khwāja Muḥ. Amīn, Khwāja Dost Khāwand, Muḥ. `Alī, a foot-soldier, and Shāmī (Syrian?) let themselves down from the walls and got away. Just as those in the citadel were about to surrender in despair, Shaibāq Khān interposed words of peace and uprose from before the place. Why he rose was this:—It appears that before he went there, he had sent his _ḥaram_ to Nīrah-tū,[1317] and that in Nīrah-tū some-one lifted up his head and got command in the fort; the Khān therefore made a sort of peace and retired from Qandahār.

(_x. Bābur returns to Kābul._)

Mid-winter though it was we went back to Kābul by the Bād-i-pīch road. I ordered the date of that transit and that crossing of the pass to be cut on a stone above Bād-i-pīch;[1318] Ḥāfiẓ Mīrak wrote the inscription, Ustād Shāh Muḥammad did the cutting, not well though, through haste.

I bestowed Ghaznī on Nāṣir Mīrzā and gave `Abdu'r-razzāq Mīrzā the Nīngnahār _tūmān_ with Mandrāwar, Nūr-valley, Kūnār and Nūr-gal.[1319]

(_y. Bābur styles himself Pādshāh._)

Up to that date people had styled Tīmūr Beg's descendants _Mīrzā_, even when they were ruling; now I ordered that people should style me _Pādshāh_.[1320]

(_z. Birth of Bābur's first son._)

At the end of this year, on Tuesday the 4th day of the month of Ẕū'l-qa`da (March 6th 1506 AD.), the Sun being in Pisces [Sidenote: Fol. 215b.] (_Ḥūt_), Humāyūn was born in the citadel of Kābul. The date of his birth was found by the poet Maulānā Masnadī in the words _Sulṯān Humāyūn Khān_,[1321] and a minor poet of Kābul found it in _Shāh-i-fīrūs-qadr_ (Shāh of victorious might). A few days later he received the name Humāyūn; when he was five or six days old, I went out to the Chār-bāgh where was had the feast of his nativity. All the begs, small and great, brought gifts; such a mass of white _tankas_ was heaped up as had never been seen before. It was a first-rate feast!

914 AH.—MAY 2ND 1508 TO APRIL 21ST 1509 AD.[1322]

This spring a body of Mahmand Afghāns was over-run near Muqur.[1323]

(_a. A Mughūl rebellion._)

A few days after our return from that raid, Qūj Beg, Faqīr-i-`alī, Karīm-dād and Bābā _chuhra_ were thinking about deserting, but their design becoming known, people were sent who took them below Astar-ghach. As good-for-nothing words of theirs had been reported to me, even during Jahāngīr M.'s life-time,[1324] I ordered that they should be put to death at the top of the _bāzār_. They had been taken to the place; the ropes had been fixed; and they were about to be hanged when Qāsim Beg sent Khalīfa to me with an urgent entreaty that I would pardon their offences. To please him I gave them their lives, but I ordered them kept in custody.

What there was of Khusrau Shāh's retainers from Ḥiṣār and Qūndūz, together with the head-men of the Mughūls, Chilma, [Sidenote: Fol. 216.] `Alī Sayyid,[1325] Sakma (?), Sher-qulī and Aīkū-sālam (?), and also Khusrau Shāh's favourite Chaghatāī retainers under Sl. `Alī _chuhra_ and Khudabakhsh, with also 2 or 3000 serviceable Turkmān braves led by Sīūndūk and Shāh Naẕar,[1326] the whole of these, after consultation, took up a bad position towards me. They were all seated in front of Khwāja Riwāj, from the Sūng-qūrghān meadow to the Chālāk; `Abdu'r-razzāq Mīrzā, come in from Nīng-nahār, being in Dih-i-afghān.[1327]

Earlier on Muḥibb-i-`alī the armourer had told Khalīfa and Mullā Bābā once or twice of their assemblies, and both had given me a hint, but the thing seeming incredible, it had had no attention. One night, towards the Bed-time Prayer, when I was sitting in the Audience-hall of the Chār-bāgh, Mūsa Khwāja, coming swiftly up with another man, said in my ear, "The Mughūls are really rebelling! We do not know for certain whether they have got `Abdu'r-razzāq M. to join them. They have not settled to rise to-night." I feigned disregard and a little later went towards the _ḥarams_ which at the time were in the Yūrūnchqa-garden[1328] and the Bāgh-i-khilwat, but after page, servitor and messenger (_yasāwal_) had turned back on getting [Sidenote: Fol. 216b.] near them, I went with the chief-slave towards the town, and on along the ditch. I had gone as far as the Iron-gate when Khwāja Muḥ. `Alī[1329] met me, he coming by the _bāzār_ road from the opposite direction. He joined me ... of the porch of the Hot-bath (_ḥammām_)....[1330]

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE ON 914 TO 925 AH.—1508 TO 1519 AD.

From several references made in the _Bābur-nāma_ and from a passage in Gul-badan's _Humāyūn-nāma_ (f. 15), it is inferrible that Bābur was composing the annals of 914 AH. not long before his last illness and death.[1331]

Before the diary of 925 AH. (1519 AD.) takes up the broken thread of his autobiography, there is a _lacuna_ of narrative extending over nearly eleven years. The break was not intended, several references in the _Bābur-nāma_ shewing Bābur's purpose to describe events of the unchronicled years.[1332] Mr. Erskine, in the Leyden and Erskine _Memoirs_, carried Bābur's biography through the major _lacunæ_, but without firsthand help from the best sources, the _Habību's-siyar_ and _Tārīkh-i-rashīdī_. He had not the help of the first even in his _History of India_. M. de Courteille working as a translator only, made no attempt to fill the gaps.

Bābur's biography has yet to be completed; much time is demanded by the task, not only in order to exhaust known sources and seek others further afield, but to weigh and balance the contradictory statements of writers deep-sundered in sympathy and outlook. To strike such a balance is essential when dealing with the events of 914 to 920 AH. because in those years Bābur had part in an embittered conflict between Sunni and Shī`a. What I offer below, as a stop-gap, is a mere summary of events, mainly based on material not used by Mr. Erskine, with a few comments prompted by acquaintance with Bāburiana.

_USEFUL SOURCES_

Compared with what Bābur could have told of this most interesting period of his life, the yield of the sources is scant, a natural sequel from the fact that no one of them had his biography for its main theme, still less had his own action in crises of enforced ambiguity.

Of all known sources the best are Khwānd-amīr's _Ḥabību's-siyar_ and Ḥaidar Mīrzā _Dūghlāt's Tārīkh-i-rashīdī_. The first was finished nominally in 930 AH. (1524-5 AD.), seven years therefore before Bābur's death, but it received much addition of matter concerning Bābur after its author went to Hindūstān in 934 AH. (f. 339). Its fourth part, a life of Shāh Ismā`īl _Ṣafawī_ is especially valuable for the years of this _lacuna_. Ḥaidar's book was finished under Humāyūn in 953 AH. (1547 AD.), when its author had reigned five years in Kashmīr. It is the most valuable of all the sources for those interested in Bābur himself, both because of Ḥaidar's excellence as a biographer, and through his close acquaintance with Bābur's family. From his eleventh to his thirteenth year he lived under Bābur's protection, followed this by 19 years service under Sa`īd Khān, the cousin of both, in Kāshghar, and after that Khān's death, went to Bābur's sons Kāmrān and Humāyūn in Hindūstān.

A work issuing from a Sunnī Aūzbeg centre, Faẓl bin Ruzbahān _Isfahānī's Sūlūku'l-mulūk_, has a Preface of special value, as shewing one view of what it writes of as the spread of heresy in Māwarā'u'n-nahr through Bābur's invasions. The book itself is a Treatise on Musalmān Law, and was prepared by order of `Ubaidu'l-lāh Khān _Aūzbeg_ for his help in fulfilling a vow he had made, before attacking Bābur in 918 AH., at the shrine of Khwāja Aḥmad _Yasawī_ [in Haẓrat Turkistān], that, if he were victorious, he would conform exactly with the divine Law and uphold it in Māwarā'u'n-nahr (Rieu's Pers. Cat. ii, 448).

The _Tārīkh-i Ḥājī Muḥammad `Ārif Qandahārī_ appears, from the frequent use Firishta made of it, to be a useful source, both because its author was a native of Qandahār, a place much occupying Bābur's activities, and because he was a servant of Bairām Khān-i-khānān, whose assassination under Akbar he witnessed.[1333] Unfortunately, though his life of Akbar survives no copy is now known of the section of his General History which deals with Bābur's.

An early source is Yahya _Kazwīnī's Lubbu't-tawārīkh_, written in 948 AH. (1541 AD.), but brief only in the Bābur period. It issued from a Shī`a source, being commanded by Shāh Ismā`īl _Ṣafawī_'s son Bahrām.

Another work issuing also from a _Ṣafawī_ centre is Mīr Sikandar's _Tārīkh-i-`ālam-arāī_, a history of Shāh `Abbas I, with an introduction treating of his predecessors which was completed in 1025 AH. (1616 AD.). Its interest lies in its outlook on Bābur's dealings with Shāh Ismā`īl.

A later source, brief only, is Firishta's _Tārīkh-i-firishta_, finished under Jahāngīr in the first quarter of the 17th century.

Mr. Erskine makes frequent reference to Kh(w)āfī Khān's _Tārīkh_, a secondary authority however, written under Aurangzīb, mainly based on Firishta's work, and merely summarizing Bābur's period. References to detached incidents of the period are found in Shaikh `Abdu'l-qādir's _Tārīkh-i-badāyūnī_ and Mīr Ma`ṣūm's _Tārīkh-i-sind_.

_EVENTS OF THE UNCHRONICLED YEARS_

914 AH.-MAY 2ND 1508 TO APRIL 21ST 1509 AD.

The mutiny, of which an account begins in the text, was crushed by the victory of 500 loyalists over 3,000 rebels, one factor of success being Bābur's defeat in single combat of five champions of his adversaries.[1334] The disturbance was not of long duration; Kābul was tranquil in Sha`bān (November) when Sl. Sa`īd Khān _Chaghatāī_, then 21, arrived there seeking his cousin's protection, after defeat by his brother Manṣūr at Almātū, escape from death, commanded by Shaibānī, in Farghāna, a winter journey through Qarā-tīgīn to Mīrzā Khān in Qilā'-i-ẓafar, refusal of an offer to put him in that feeble Mīrzā's place, and so on to Kābul, where he came a destitute fugitive and enjoyed a freedom from care never known by him before (f. 200_b_; T.R. p. 226). The year was fatal to his family and to Ḥaidar's; in it Shaibānī murdered Sl. Maḥmūd Khān and his six sons, Muḥammad Ḥusain Mīrzā and other Dūghlāt sulṯāns.

915 AH.-APRIL 21ST 1509 TO APRIL 11TH 1510 AD.

In this year hostilities began between Shāh Ismā`īl _Ṣafawī_ and Muḥ. Shaibānī Khān _Aūzbeg_, news of which must have excited keen interest in Kābul.

In it occurred also what was in itself a minor matter of a child's safety, but became of historical importance, namely, the beginning of personal acquaintance between Bābur and his sympathetic biographer Ḥaidar Mīrzā _Dūghlāt_. Ḥaidar, like Sa`īd, came a fugitive to the protection of a kinsman; he was then eleven, had been saved by servants from the death commanded by Shaibānī, conveyed to Mīrzā Khān in Badakhshān, thence sent for by Bābur to the greater security of Kābul (f. 11; Index _s.n._; T.R. p. 227).

916 AH.-APRIL 11TH 1510 TO MARCH 31ST 1510 AD.

_a. News of the battle of Merv._

Over half of this year passed quietly in Kābul; Ramẓān (December) brought from Mīrzā Khān (Wāis) the stirring news that Ismā`īl had defeated Shaibānī near Merv.[1335] "It is not known," wrote the Mīrzā, "whether Shāhī Beg Khān has been killed or not. All the Aūzbegs have crossed the Amū. Amīr Aūrūs, who was in Qūndūz, has fled. About 20,000 Mughūls, who left the Aūzbeg at Merv, have come to Qūndūz. I have come there." He then invited Bābur to join him and with him to try for the recovery of their ancestral territories (T.R. p. 237).

_b. Bābur's campaign in Transoxiana begun._

The Mīrzā's letter was brought over passes blocked by snow; Bābur, with all possible speed, took the one winter-route through Āb-dara, kept the Ramẓān Feast in Bāmīān, and reached Qūndūz in Shawwāl (Jan. 1511 AD.). Ḥaidar's detail about the Feast seems likely to have been recorded because he had read Bābur's own remark, made in Ramẓān 933 AH. (June 1527) that up to that date, when he kept it in Sīkrī, he had not since his eleventh year kept it twice in the same place (f. 330).

_c. Mughūl affairs._

Outside Qūndūz lay the Mughūls mentioned by Mīrzā Khān as come from Merv and so mentioned, presumably, as a possible reinforcement. They had been servants of Bābur's uncles Maḥmūd and Aḥmad, and when Shaibānī defeated those Khāns at Akhsī in 908 AH., had been compelled by him to migrate into Khurāsān to places remote from Mughūlistān. Many of them had served in Kāshghar; none had served a Tīmūrid Mīrzā. Set free by Shaibānī's death, they had come east, a Khān-less 20,000 of armed and fully equipped men and they were there, as Ḥaidar says, in their strength while of Chaghatāīs there were not more than 5,000. They now, and with them the Mughūls from Kābul, used the opportunity offering for return to a more congenial location and leadership, by the presence in Qūndūz of a legitimate Khāqān and the clearance in Andijān, a threshold of Mughūlistān, of its Aūzbeg governors (f. 200_b_). The chiefs of both bodies of Mughūls, Sherīm Taghāī at the head of one, Ayūb _Begchīk_ of the other, proffered the Mughūl Khānship to Sa`īd with offer to set Bābur aside, perhaps to kill him. It is improbable that in making their offer they contemplated locating themselves in the confined country of Kābul; what they seem to have wished was what Bābur gave, Sa`īd for their Khāqān and permission to go north with him.

Sa`īd, in words worth reading, rejected their offer to injure Bābur, doing so on the grounds of right and gratitude, but, the two men agreeing that it was now expedient for them to part, asked to be sent to act for Bābur where their friendship could be maintained for their common welfare. The matter was settled by Bābur's sending him into Andijān in response to an urgent petition for help there just arrived from Ḥaidar's uncle. He "was made Khān" and started forth in the following year, on Ṣafar 14th 917 AH. (May 13th 1511 AD.); with him went most of the Mughūls but not all, since even of those from Merv, Ayūb _Begchīk_ and others are found mentioned on several later occasions as being with Bābur.

Bābur's phrase "I made him Khān" (f. 200_b_) recalls his earlier mention of what seems to be the same appointment (f. 10_b_), made by Abū-sa`īd of Yūnas as Khān of the Mughūls; in each case the meaning seems to be that the Tīmūrid Mīrzā made the Chaghatāī Khān Khāqān of the Mughūls.

_d. First attempt on Ḥiṣār._

After spending a short time in Qūndūz, Bābur moved for Ḥiṣār in which were the Aūzbeg sulṯāns Mahdī and Ḥamza. They came out into Wakhsh to meet him but, owing to an imbroglio, there was no encounter and each side retired (T.R. p. 238).

_e. Intercourse between Bābur and Ismā`īl Ṣafawī._

While Bābur was now in Qūndūz his sister Khān-zāda arrived there, safe-returned under escort of the Shāh's troops, after the death in the battle of Merv of her successive husbands Shaibānī and Sayyid Hādī, and with her came an envoy from Ismā`īl proffering friendship, civilities calculated to arouse a hope of Persian help in Bābur. To acknowledge his courtesies, Bābur sent Mīrzā Khān with thanks and gifts; Ḥaidar says that the Mīrzā also conveyed protestations of good faith and a request for military assistance. He was well received and his request for help was granted; that it was granted under hard conditions then stated later occurrences shew.

917 AH.-MARCH 31ST 1511 TO MARCH 19TH 1512 AD.

_a. Second attempt on Ḥiṣār._

In this year Bābur moved again on Ḥiṣār. He took post, where once his forbear Tīmūr had wrought out success against great odds, at the Pul-i-sangīn (Stone-bridge) on the Sūrkh-āb, and lay there a month awaiting reinforcement. The Aūzbeg sulṯāns faced him on the other side of the river, they too, presumably, awaiting reinforcement. They moved when they felt themselves strong enough to attack, whether by addition to their own numbers, whether by learning that Bābur had not largely increased his own. Concerning the second alternative it is open to surmise that he hoped for larger reinforcement than he obtained; he appears to have left Qūndūz before the return of Mīrzā Khān from his embassy to Ismā`īl, to have expected Persian reinforcement with the Mīrzā, and at Pul-i-sangīn, where the Mīrzā joined him in time to fight, to have been strengthened by the Mīrzā's own following, and few, if any, foreign auxiliaries. These surmises are supported by what Khwānd-amīr relates of the conditions [specified later] on which the Shāh's main contingent was despatched and by his shewing that it did not start until after the Shāh had had news of the battle at Pul-i-sangīn.

At the end of the month of waiting, the Aūzbegs one morning swam the Sūrkh-āb below the bridge; in the afternoon of the same day, Bābur retired to better ground amongst the mountain fastnesses of a local Āb-dara. In the desperate encounter which followed the Aūzbegs were utterly routed with great loss in men; they were pursued to Darband-i-ahanīn (Iron-gate) on the Ḥiṣār border, on their way to join a great force assembled at Qarshī under Kūchūm Khān, Shaibānī's successor as Aūzbeg Khāqān. The battle is admirably described by Ḥaidar, who was then a boy of 12 with keen eye watching his own first fight, and that fight with foes who had made him the last male survivor of his line. In the evening of the victory Mahdī, Ḥamza and Ḥamza's son Mamak were brought before Bābur who, says Ḥaidar, did to them what they had done to the Mughūl Khāqāns and Chaghatāī Sulṯāns, that is, he retaliated in blood for the blood of many kinsmen.

_b. Persian reinforcement._

After the battle Bābur went to near Ḥiṣār, was there joined by many local tribesmen, and, some time later, by a large body of Ismā`īl's troops under Aḥmad Beg _Ṣafawī_, `Alī Khān _Istiljū_ and Shāhrukh Sl. _Afshār_, Ismā`īl's seal-keeper. The following particulars, given by Khwānd-amīr, about the despatch of this contingent help to fix the order of occurrences, and throw light on the price paid by Bābur for his auxiliaries. He announced his victory over Mahdī and Ḥamza to the Shāh, and at the same time promised that if he reconquered the rest of Transoxiana by the Shāh's help, he would read his name in the _khuṯba_, stamp it on coins together with those of the Twelve Imāms, and work to destroy the power of the Aūzbegs. These undertakings look like a response to a demand; such conditions cannot have been proffered; their acceptance must have been compelled. Khwānd-amīr says that when Ismā`īl fully understood the purport of Bābur's letter, [by which would seem to be meant, when he knew that his conditions of help were accepted,] he despatched the troops under the three Commanders named above.

The Persian chiefs advised a move direct on Bukhārā and Samarkand; and with this Bābur's councillors concurred, they saying, according to Ḥaidar, that Bukhārā was then empty of troops and full of fools. `Ubaid Khān had thrown himself into Qarshī; it was settled not to attack him but to pass on and encamp a stage beyond the town. This was done; then scout followed scout, bringing news that he had come out of Qarshī and was hurrying to Bukhārā, his own fief. Instant and swift pursuit followed him up the 100 miles of caravan-road, into Bukhārā, and on beyond, sweeping him and his garrison, plundered as they fled, into the open land of Turkistān. Many sulṯāns had collected in Samarkand, some no doubt being, like Tīmūr its governor, fugitives escaped from Pul-i-sangīn. Dismayed by Bābur's second success, they scattered into Turkistān, thus leaving him an open road.

_c. Samarkand re-occupied and relations with Ismā`īl Ṣafawī._

He must now have hoped to be able to dispense with his dangerous colleagues, for he dismissed them when he reached Bukhārā, with gifts and thanks for their services. It is Ḥaidar, himself present, who fixes Bukhārā as the place of the dismissal (T.R. p. 246).

From Bukhārā Bābur went to Samarkand. It was mid-Rajab 917 AH. (October 1511 AD.), some ten months after leaving Kābul, and after 9 years of absence, that he re-entered the town, itself gay with decoration for his welcome, amidst the acclaim of its people.[1336]

Eight months were to prove his impotence to keep it against the forces ranged against him,—Aūzbeg strength in arms compacted by Sunnī zeal, Sunnī hatred of a Shī`a's suzerainty intensified by dread lest that potent Shī`a should resolve to perpetuate his dominance. Both as a Sunnī and as one who had not owned a suzerain, the position was unpleasant for Bābur. That his alliance with Ismā`īl was dangerous he will have known, as also that his risks grew as Transoxiana was over-spread by news of Ismā`īl's fanatical barbarism to pious and learned Sunnīs, notably in Herī. He manifested desire for release both now and later,—now when he not only dismissed his Persian helpers but so behaved to the Shāh's envoy Muḥammad Jān,—he was Najm S̤ānī's Lord of the Gate,—that the envoy felt neglect and made report of Bābur as arrogant, in opposition, and unwilling to fulfil his compact,—later when he eagerly attempted success unaided against `Ubaid Khān, and was then worsted. It illustrates the Shāh's view of his suzerain relation to Bābur that on hearing Muḥammad Jān's report, he ordered Najm S̤ānī to bring the offender to order.

Meantime the Shāh's conditions seem to have been carried out in Samarkand and Bābur's subservience clearly shewn.[1337] Of this there are the indications,—that Bābur had promised and was a man of his word; that Sunnī irritation against him waxed and did not wane as it might have done without food to nourish it; that Bābur knew himself impotent against the Aūzbegs unless he had foreign aid, expected attack, knew it was preparing; that he would hear of Muḥammad Jān's report and of Najm S̤ānī's commission against himself. Honesty, policy and necessity combined to enforce the fulfilment of his agreement. What were the precise terms of that agreement beyond the two as to the _khuṯba_ and the coins, it needs close study of the wording of the sources to decide, lest metaphor be taken for fact. Great passions,—ambition, religious fervour, sectarian bigotry and fear confronted him. His problem was greater than that of Henry of Navarre and of Napoleon in Egypt; they had but to seem what secured their acceptance; he had to put on a guise that brought him hate.

Khān-zāda was not the only member of Bābur's family who now rejoined him after marriage with an Aūzbeg. His half-sister Yādgār-sulṯān had fallen to the share of Ḥamza Sulṯān's son `Abdu'l-laṯīf in 908 AH. when Shaibānī defeated the Khāns near Akhsī. Now that her half-brother had defeated her husband's family, she returned to her own people (f. 9).

918 AH.-MARCH 19TH 1512 TO MARCH 9TH 1513 AD.

_a. Return of the Aūzbegs._

Emboldened by the departure of the Persian troops, the Aūzbegs, in the spring of the year, came out of Turkistān, their main attack being directed on Tāshkīnt, then held for Bābur.[1338] `Ubaid Khān moved for Bukhārā. He had prefaced his march by vowing that, if successful, he would thenceforth strictly observe Musalmān Law. The vow was made in Ḥaẓrat Turkistān at the shrine of Khwāja Aḥmad _Yasawī_, a saint revered in Central Asia through many centuries; he had died about 1120 AD.; Tīmūr had made pilgrimage to his tomb, in 1397 AD., and then had founded the mosque still dominating the town, still the pilgrim's land-mark.[1339] `Ubaid's vow, like Bābur's of 933 AH., was one of return to obedience. Both men took oath in the Ghāzī's mood, Bābur's set against the Hindū whom he saw as a heathen, `Ubaid's set against Bābur whom he saw as a heretic.

_b. Bābur's defeat at Kul-i-malik._

In Ṣafar (April-May) `Ubaid moved swiftly down and attacked the Bukhārā neighbourhood. Bābur went from Samarkand to meet him. Several details of what followed, not given by Ḥaidar and, in one particular, contradicting him, are given by Khwānd-amīr. The statement in which the two historians contradict one another is Ḥaidar's that `Ubaid had 3000 men only, Bābur 40,000. Several considerations give to Khwānd-amīr's opposed statement that Bābur's force was small, the semblance of being nearer the fact. Ḥaidar, it may be said, did not go out on this campaign; he was ill in Samarkand and continued ill there for some time; Khwānd-amīr's details have the well-informed air of things learned at first-hand, perhaps from some-one in Hindūstān after 934 AH.

Matters which make against Bābur's having a large effective force at Kul-i-malik, and favour Khwānd-amīr's statement about the affair are these:—`Ubaid must have formed some estimate of what he had to meet, and he brought 3000 men. Where could Bābur have obtained 40,000 men worth reckoning in a fight? In several times of crisis his own immediate and ever-faithful troop is put at 500; as his cause was now unpopular, local accretions may have been few. Some Mughūls from Merv and from Kābul were near Samarkand (T.R. pp. 263, 265); most were with Sa`īd in Andijān; but however many Mughūls may have been in his neighbourhood, none could be counted on as resolute for his success. If too, he had had more than a small effective force, would he not have tried to hold Samarkand with the remnant of defeat until Persian help arrived? All things considered, there is ground for accepting Khwānd-amīr's statement that Bābur met `Ubaid with a small force.

Following his account therefore:—Bābur in his excess of daring, marched to put the Aūzbeg down with a small force only, against the advice of the prudent, of whom Muḥammad Mazīd Tarkhān was one, who all said it was wrong to go out unprepared and without reinforcement. Paying them no attention, Bābur marched for Bukhārā, was rendered still more daring by news had when he neared it, that the enemy had retired some stages, and followed him up almost to his camp. `Ubaid was in great force; many Aūzbegs perished but, in the end, they were victors and Bābur was compelled to take refuge in Bukhārā. The encounter took place near Kul-i-malik (King's-lake) in Ṣafar 918 AH. (April-May 1512 AD.).

_c. Bābur leaves Samarkand._

It was not possible to maintain a footing in Samarkand; Bābur therefore collected his family and train[1340] and betook himself to Ḥiṣār. There went with him on this expedition Māhīm and her children Humāyūn, Mihr-jahān and Bārbūl,—the motherless Ma`ṣūma,—Gul-rukh with her son Kāmrān (Gulbadan f. 7). I have not found any account of his route; Ḥaidar gives no details about the journey; he did not travel with Bābur, being still invalided in Samarkand. Perhaps the absence of information is a sign that the Aūzbegs had not yet appeared on the direct road for Ḥiṣār. A local tradition however would make Bābur go round through Farghāna. He certainly might have gone into Farghāna hoping to co-operate with Sa`īd Khān; Tāshkīnt was still holding out under Aḥmad-i-qāsim _Kohbur_ and it is clear that all activity in Bābur's force had not been quenched because during the Tāshkīnt siege, Dost Beg broke through the enemy's ranks and made his way into the town. Sairām held out longer than Tāshkīnt. Of any such move by Bābur into Andijān the only hint received is given by what may be a mere legend.[1341]

_d. Bābur in Ḥiṣār._

After experiencing such gains and such losses, Bābur was still under 30 years of age.

The Aūzbegs, after his departure, re-occupied Bukhārā and Samarkand without harm done to the towns-people, and a few weeks later, in Jumāda I (July-August) followed him to Ḥiṣār. Meantime he with Mīrzā Khān's help, had so closed the streets of the town by massive earth-works that the sulṯāns were convinced its defenders were ready to spend the last drop of their blood in holding it, and therefore retired without attack.[1342] Some sources give as their reason for retirement that Bābur had been reinforced from Balkh; Bairām Beg, it is true, had sent a force but one of 300 men only; so few cannot have alarmed except as the harbinger of more. Greater precision as to dates would shew whether they can have heard of Najm S̤ānī's army advancing by way of Balkh.

_e. Qarshī and Ghaj-davān._

Meantime Najm S̤ānī, having with him some 11,000 men, had started on his corrective mission against Bābur. When he reached the Khurāsān frontier, he heard of the defeat at Kul-i-malik and the flight to Ḥiṣār, gathered other troops from Harāt and elsewhere, and advanced to Balkh. He stayed there for 20 days with Bairām Beg, perhaps occupied, in part, by communications with the Shāh and Bābur. From the latter repeated request for help is said to have come; help was given, some sources say without the Shāh's permission. A rendezvous was fixed, Najm S̤ānī marched to Tīrmīẕ, there crossed the Amū and in Rajab (Sep.-Oct.) encamped near the Darband-i-ahanīn. On Bābur's approach through the Chak-chaq pass, he paid him the civility of going several miles out from his camp to give him honouring reception.

Advancing thence for Bukhārā, the combined armies took Khuzār and moved on to Qarshī. This town Bābur wished to pass by, as it had been passed by on his previous march for Bukhārā; each time perhaps he wished to spare its people, formerly his subjects, whom he desired to rule again, and who are reputed to have been mostly his fellow Turks. Najm S̤ānī refused to pass on; he said Qarshī must be taken because it was `Ubaidu'l-lāh Khān's nest; in it was `Ubaid's uncle Shaikhīm Mīrzā; it was captured; the Aūzbeg garrison was put to the sword and, spite of Bābur's earnest entreaties, all the towns-people, 15,000 persons it is said, down to the "suckling and decrepit", were massacred. Amongst the victims was Banā'ī who happened to be within it. This action roused the utmost anger against Najm S̤ānī; it disgusted Bābur, not only through its merciless slaughter but because it made clear the disregard in which he was held by his magnificent fellow-general.

From murdered Qarshī Najm S̤ānī advanced for Bukhārā. On getting within a few miles of it, he heard that an Aūzbeg force was approaching under Tīmūr and Abū-sa`īd, presumably from Samarkand therefore. He sent Bairām Beg to attack them; they drew off to the north and threw themselves into Ghaj-davān, the combined armies following them. This move placed Najm S̤ānī across the Zar-afshān, on the border of the desert with which the Aūzbegs were familiar, and with `Ubaid on his flank in Bukhārā.

As to what followed the sources vary; they are brief; they differ less in statement of the same occurrence than in their choice of details to record; as Mr. Erskine observes their varying stories are not incompatible. Their widest difference is a statement of time but the two periods named, one a few days, the other four months, may not be meant to apply to the same event. Four months the siege is said to have lasted; this could not have been said if it had been a few days only. The siege seems to have been of some duration.

At first there were minor engagements, ending with varying success; provisions and provender became scarce; Najm S̤ānī's officers urged retirement, so too did Bābur. He would listen to none of them. At length `Ubaid Khān rode out from Bukhārā at the head of excellent troops; he joined the Ghaj-davān garrison and the united Aūzbegs posted themselves in the suburbs where walled lanes and gardens narrowed the field and lessened Najm S̤ānī's advantage in numbers. On Tuesday Ramẓān 3rd (Nov. 12th)[1343] a battle was fought in which his army was routed and he himself slain.

_f. Bābur and Yār-i-aḥmad Najm Sānī._

Some writers say that Najm S̤ānī's men did not fight well; it must be remembered that they may have been weakened by privation and that they had wished to retire. Of Bābur it is said that he, who was the reserve, did not fight at all; it is difficult to see good cause why, under all the circumstances, he should risk the loss of his men. It seems likely that Ḥaidar's strong language about this defeat would suit Bābur's temper also. "The victorious breezes of Islām overturned the banners of the schismatics.... Most of them perished on the field; the rents made by the sword at Qarshī were sewn up at Ghaj-davān by the arrow-stitches of vengeance. Najm S̤ānī and all the Turkmān amīrs were sent to hell."

The belief that Bābur had failed Najm S̤ānī persisted at the Persian Court, for his inaction was made a reproach to his son Humāyūn in 951 AH. (1544 AD.), when Humāyūn was a refugee with Ismā`īl's son T̤ahmāsp. Badāyūnī tells a story which, with great inaccuracy of name and place, represents the view taken at that time. The part of the anecdote pertinent here is that Bābur on the eve of the battle at Ghaj-davān, shot an arrow into the Aūzbeg camp which carried the following couplet, expressive of his ill-will to the Shāh and perhaps also of his rejection of the Shī`a guise he himself had worn.

I made the Shāh's Najm road-stuff for the Aūzbegs; If fault has been mine, I have now cleansed the road.[1344]

_g. The Mughūls attack Bābur._

On his second return to Ḥiṣār Bābur was subjected to great danger by a sudden attack made upon him by the Mughūls where he lay at night in his camp outside the town. Firishta says, but without particulars of their offence, that Bābur had reproached them for their misconduct; the absence of detail connecting the affair with the defeat just sustained, leads to the supposition that their misdeeds were a part of the tyranny over the country-people punished later by `Ubaidu'l-lāh Khān. Roused from his sleep by the noise of his guards' resistance to the Mughūl attack, Bābur escaped with difficulty and without a single attendant[1345] into the fort. The conspirators plundered his camp and withdrew to Qarā-tīgīn. He was in no position to oppose them, left a few men in Ḥiṣār and went to Mīrzā Khān in Qūndūz.

After he left, Ḥiṣār endured a desolating famine, a phenomenal snowfall and the ravages of the Mughūls. `Ubaid Khān avenged Bābur on the horde; hearing of their excesses, he encamped outside the position they had taken up in Wakhsh defended by river, hills and snow, waited till a road thawed, then fell upon them and avenged the year's misery they had inflicted on the Ḥiṣārīs. Ḥaidar says of them that it was their villainy lost Ḥiṣār to Bābur and gained it for the Aūzbeg.[1346]

These Mughūls had for chiefs men who when Sa`īd went to Andijān, elected to stay with Bābur. One of the three named by Ḥaidar was Ayūb _Begchīk_. He repented his disloyalty; when he lay dying some two years later (920 AH.) in Yāngī-ḥiṣār, he told Sa`īd Khān who visited him, that what was "lacerating his bowels and killing him with remorse", was his faithlessness to Bābur in Ḥiṣār, the oath he had broken at the instigation of those "hogs and bears", the Mughūl chiefs (T.R. p. 315).

In this year but before the Mughūl treachery to Bābur, Ḥaidar left him, starting in Rajab (Sep.-Oct.) to Sa`id in Andijān and thus making a beginning of his 19 years spell of service.

919 AH.-MARCH 9TH 1513 TO FEB. 26TH 1514 AD.

Bābur may have spent this year in Khishm (Ḥ.S. iii, 372). During two or three months of it, he had one of the Shāh's retainers in his service, Khwāja Kamālu'd-dīn Maḥmūd, who had fled from Ghaj-davān to Balkh, heard there that the Balkhīs favoured an Aūzbeg chief whose coming was announced, and therefore went to Bābur. In Jumāda 11 (August), hearing that the Aūzbeg sultan had left Balkh, he returned there but was not admitted because the Balkhīs feared reprisals for their welcome to the Aūzbeg, a fear which may indicate that he had taken some considerable reinforcement to Bābur. He went on into Khurāsān and was there killed; Balkh was recaptured for the Shāh by Deo Sulṯān, a removal from Aūzbeg possession which helps to explain how Bābur came to be there in 923 AH.

920 AH.—FEB. 26TH 1514 TO FEB. 15TH 1515 AD.

Ḥaidar writes of Bābur as though he were in Qūndūz this year (TR. p. 263), says that he suffered the greatest misery and want, bore it with his accustomed courtesy and patience but, at last, despairing of success in recovering Ḥiṣār, went back to Kābul. Now it seems to be that he made the stay in Khwāst to which he refers later (f. 241_b_) and during which his daughter Gul-rang was born, as Gul-badan's chronicle allows known.

It was at the end of the year, after the privation of winter therefore, that he reached Kābul. When he re-occupied Samarkand in 917 AH., he had given Kābul to his half-brother Nāṣir Mīrzā; the Mīrzā received him now with warm welcome and protestations of devotion and respect, spoke of having guarded Kābul for him and asked permission to return to his own old fief Ghaznī. His behaviour made a deep impression on Bābur; it would be felt as a humane touch on the sore of failure.

921 AH.—FEB. 15TH 1515 TO FEB. 5TH 1516 AD.

_a. Rebellion of chiefs in Ghaznī._

Nāṣir Mīrzā died shortly after (_dar hamān ayyām_) his return to Ghaznī. Disputes then arose amongst the various commanders who were in Ghaznī; Sherīm T̤aghāī was one of them and the main strength of the tumult was given by the Mughūls. Many others were however involved in it, even such an old servant as Bābā of Pashāghar taking part (f. 234_b_; T.R. p. 356). Ḥaidar did not know precisely the cause of the dispute, or shew why it should have turned against Bābur, since he attributes it to possession taken by Satan of the brains of the chiefs and a consequent access of vain-glory and wickedness. Possibly some question of succession to Nāṣir arose. Dost Beg distinguished himself in the regular battle which ensued; Qāsim Beg's son Qaṃbar-i-`alī hurried down from Qūndūz and also did his good part to win it for Bābur. Many of the rioters were killed, others fled to Kāshghar. Sherīm T̤aghāī was one of the latter; as Sa`īd Khān gave him no welcome, he could not stay there; he fell back on the much injured Bābur who, says Ḥaidar, showed him his usual benevolence, turned his eyes from his offences and looked only at his past services until he died shortly afterwards (T.R. p. 357).[1347]

922 AH.—FEB. 5TH 1516 TO JAN. 24TH 1517 AD.

This year may have been spent in and near Kābul in the quiet promoted by the dispersion of the Mughūls.

In this year was born Bābur's son Muḥammad known as _`Askarī_from his being born in camp. He was the son of Gulrukh _Begchīk_ and full-brother of Kāmrān.

923 AH.—JAN. 24TH 1517 TO JAN. 13TH 1518 AD.

_a. Bābur visits Balkh._

Khwānd-amīr is the authority for the little that is known of Bābur's action in this year (Ḥ.S. iii, 367 _et seq._). It is connected with the doings of Badī`u'z-zamān _Bāī-qarā's_ son Muḥammad-i-zamān. This Mīrzā had had great wanderings, during a part of which Khwānd-amīr was with him. In 920 AH. he was in Shāh Ismā`īl's service and in Balkh, but was not able to keep it. Bābur invited him to Kābul,—the date of invitation will have been later therefore than Bābur's return there at the end of 920 AH. The Mīrzā was on his way but was dissuaded from going into Kābul by Mahdī Khwāja and went instead into Ghurjistān. Bābur was angered by his non-arrival and pursued him in order to punish him but did not succeed in reaching Ghurjistān and went back to Kābul by way of Fīrūz-koh and Ghūr. The Mīrzā was captured eventually and sent to Kābul. Bābur treated him with kindness, after a few months gave him his daughter Ma`ṣūma in marriage, and sent him to Balkh. He appears to have been still in Balkh when Khwānd-amīr was writing of the above occurrences in 929 AH. The marriage took place either at the end of 923 or beginning of 924 AH. The Mīrzā was then 21, Ma`ṣūma 9; she almost certainly did not then go to Balkh. At some time in 923 AH. Bābur is said by Khwānd-amīr to have visited that town.[1348]

_b. Attempt on Qandahār._

In this year Bābur marched for Qandahār but the move ended peacefully, because a way was opened for gifts and terms by an illness which befell him when he was near the town.

The _Tārīkh-i-sind_ gives what purports to be Shāh Beg's explanation of Bābur's repeated attempts on Qandahār. He said these had been made and would be made because Bābur had not forgiven Muqīm for taking Kābul 14 years earlier from the Tīmūrid `Abdu'r-razzāq; that this had brought him to Qandahār in 913 AH., this had made him then take away Māhchuchak, Muqīm's daughter; that there were now (923 AH.) many unemployed Mīrzās in Kābul for whom posts could not be found in regions where the Persians and Aūzbegs were dominant; that an outlet for their ambitions and for Bābur's own would be sought against the weaker opponent he himself was.

Bābur's decision to attack in this year is said to have been taken while Shāh Beg was still a prisoner of Shāh Ismā`īl in the Harāt country; he must have been released meantime by the admirable patience of his slave Saṃbhal.

924 AH.—JAN. 13TH 1518 TO JAN. 3RD 1519 AD.

In this year Shāh Beg's son Shāh Ḥasan came to Bābur after quarrel with his father. He stayed some two years, and during that time was married to Khalīfa's daughter Gul-barg (Rose-leaf). His return to Qandahār will have taken place shortly before Bābur's campaign of 926 A.H. against it, a renewed effort which resulted in possession on Shawwāl 13th 928 AH. (Sep. 6th 1522 AD.).[1349]

In this year began the campaign in the north-east territories of Kābul, an account of which is carried on in the diary of 925 AH. It would seem that in the present year Chaghān-sarāī was captured, and also the fortress at the head of the valley of Bābā-qarā, belonging to Ḥaidar-i-`alī _Bajaurī_ (f. 216_b_).[1350]

925 AH.-JAN. 3RD TO DEC. 23RD 1519 AD.[1351]

(_a. Bābur takes the fort of Bajaur._)

(_Jan. 3rd_) On Monday[1352] the first day of the month of Muḥarram, there was a violent earthquake in the lower part of the dale (_julga_) of Chandāwal,[1353] which lasted nearly half an astronomical hour.

(_Jan. 4th_) Marching at dawn from that camp with the intention of attacking the fort of Bajaur,[1354] we dismounted near it and sent a trusty man of the Dilazāk[1355] Afghāns to advise its sulṯān[1356] and people to take up a position of service (_qullūq_) and surrender the fort. Not accepting this counsel, that stupid and ill-fated band sent back a wild answer, where-upon the army was ordered to make ready mantelets, ladders and other appliances for taking a fort. For this purpose a day's (_Jan. 5th_) halt was made on that same ground.

(_Jan. 6th_) On Thursday the 4th of Muḥarram, orders were given that the army should put on mail, arm and get to horse;[1357] that the left wing should move swiftly to the upper side of the fort, cross the water at the water-entry,[1358] and dismount on the [Sidenote: Fol. 217.] north side of the fort; that the centre, not taking the way across the water, should dismount in the rough, up-and-down land to the north-west of the fort; and that the right should dismount to the west of the lower gate. While the begs of the left under Dost Beg were dismounting, after crossing the water, a hundred to a hundred and fifty men on foot came out of the fort, shooting arrows. The begs, shooting in their turn, advanced till they had forced those men back to the foot of the ramparts, Mullā `Abdu'l-malūk of Khwāst, like a madman,[1359] going up right under them on his horse. There and then the fort would have been taken if the ladders and mantelets had been ready, and if it had not been so late in the day. Mullā Tirik-i-`alī[1360] and a servant of Tīngrī-bīrdī crossed swords with the enemy; each overcame his man, cut off and brought in his head; for this each was promised a reward.

As the Bajaurīs had never before seen matchlocks (_tufang_) they at first took no care about them, indeed they made fun when they heard the report and answered it by unseemly gestures. On that day[1361] Ustād `Alī-qulī shot at and brought down five men with his matchlock; Walī the Treasurer, for his part, brought down two; other matchlockmen were also very active in firing and did well, shooting through shield, through cuirass, through _kusarū_,[1362] and bringing down one man after another. Perhaps 7, 8, or 10 Bajaurīs had fallen to the matchlock-fire (_ẓarb_) before night. After that it so became that not a head could be put out because of the fire. The order [Sidenote: Fol. 217b.] was given, "It is night; let the army retire, and at dawn, if the appliances are ready, let them swarm up into the fort."

(_Jan. 7th_) At the first dawn of light (_farẓ waqt_) on Friday the 5th of Muḥarram, orders were given that, when the battle-nagarets had sounded, the army should advance, each man from his place to his appointed post (_yīrlīk yīrdīn_) and should swarm up. The left and centre advanced from their ground with mantelets in place all along their lines, fixed their ladders, and swarmed up them. The whole left hand of the centre, under Khalīfa, Shāh Ḥasan _Arghūn_ and Yūsuf's Aḥmad, was ordered to reinforce the left wing. Dost Beg's men went forward to the foot of the north-eastern tower of the fort, and busied themselves in undermining and bringing it down. Ustād `Alī-qulī was there also; he shot very well on that day with his matchlock, and he twice fired off the _firingī_.[1363] Walī the Treasurer also brought down a man with his matchlock. Malik `Alī _quṯnī_[1364] was first up a ladder of all the men from the left hand of the centre, and there was busy with fight and blow. At the post of the centre, Muḥ. `Alī _Jang-jang_[1365] and his younger brother Nau-roz got up, each by a different ladder, and made lance and sword to touch. Bābā the waiting man (_yasāwal_), getting up by another ladder, occupied himself in breaking down the fort-wall with his [Sidenote: Fol. 218.] axe. Most of our braves went well forward, shooting off dense flights of arrows and not letting the enemy put out a head; others made themselves desperately busy in breaching and pulling down the fort, caring naught for the enemy's fight and blow, giving no eye to his arrows and stones. By breakfast-time Dost Beg's men had undermined and breached the north-eastern tower, got in and put the foe to flight. The men of the centre got in up the ladders by the same time, but those (_aūl_) others were first (_awwal_?) in.[1366] By the favour and pleasure of the High God, this strong and mighty fort was taken in two or three astronomical hours! Matching the fort were the utter struggle and effort of our braves; distinguish themselves they did, and won the name and fame of heroes.

As the Bajaurīs were rebels and at enmity with the people of Islām, and as, by reason of the heathenish and hostile customs prevailing in their midst, the very name of Islām was rooted out from their tribe, they were put to general massacre and their wives and children were made captive. At a guess more than 3000 men went to their death; as the fight did not reach to the eastern side of the fort, a few got away there.

The fort taken, we entered and inspected it. On the walls, in houses, streets and alleys, the dead lay, in what numbers! Comers and goers to and fro were passing over the bodies. [Sidenote: Fol. 218b.] Returning from our inspection, we sat down in the Bajaur sulṯān's residence. The country of Bajaur we bestowed on Khwāja Kalān,[1367] assigning a large number of braves to reinforce him. At the Evening Prayer we went back to camp.

(_b. Movements in Bajaur._)

(_Jan. 8th_) Marching at dawn (Muḥ. 6th), we dismounted by the spring[1368] of Bābā Qarā in the dale of Bajaur. At Khwāja Kalān's request the prisoners remaining were pardoned their offences, reunited to their wives and children, and given leave to go, but several sulṯāns and of the most stubborn were made to reach their doom of death. Some heads of sulṯāns and of others were sent to Kābul with the news of success; some also to Badakhshān, Qūndūz and Balkh with the letters-of-victory.

Shāh Manṣūr _Yūsuf-zāī_,—he was with us as an envoy from his tribe,—[1369] was an eye-witness of the victory and general massacre. We allowed him to leave after putting a coat (_tūn_) on him and after writing orders with threats to the Yūsuf-zāī.

(_Jan. 11th_) With mind easy about the important affairs of the Bajaur fort, we marched, on Tuesday the 9th of Muḥarram, one _kuroh_ (2 m.) down the dale of Bajaur and ordered that a tower of heads should be set up on the rising-ground.

(_Jan. 12th_) On Wednesday the 10th of Muḥarram, we rode out to visit the Bajaur fort. There was a wine-party in Khwāja Kalān's house,[1370] several goat-skins of wine having been brought down by Kāfirs neighbouring on Bajaur. All wine and fruit [Sidenote: Fol. 219.] had in Bajaur comes from adjacent parts of Kāfiristān.

(_Jan. 13th_) We spent the night there and after inspecting the towers and ramparts of the fort early in the morning (Muḥ. 11th), I mounted and went back to camp.

(_Jan. 14th_) Marching at dawn (Muḥ. 12th), we dismounted on the bank of the Khwāja Khiẓr torrent.[1371]

(_Jan. 15th_) Marching thence, we dismounted (Muḥ. 13th) on the bank of the Chandāwal torrent. Here all those inscribed in the Bajaur reinforcement, were ordered to leave.

(_Jan. 16th_) On Sunday the 14th of Muḥarram, a standard was bestowed on Khwāja Kalān and leave given him for Bajaur. A few days after I had let him go, the following little verse having come into my head, it was written down and sent to him:—[1372]

Not such the pact and bargain betwixt my friend and me, At length the tooth of parting, unpacted grief for me! Against caprice of Fortune, what weapons (_chāra_) arm the man? At length by force of arms (_ba jaur_) my friend is snatched from me!

(_Jan. 19th_) On Wednesday the 17th of Muḥarram, Sl. `Alā'u'd-dīn of Sawād, the rival (_mu`āriẓ_) of Sl. Wais of Sawād,[1373] came and waited on me.

(_Jan. 20th_) On Thursday the 18th of the month, we hunted the hill between Bajaur and Chandāwal.[1374] There the _būghū-marāl_[1375] have become quite black, except for the tail which is of another colour; lower down, in Hindūstān, they seem to become black all over.[1376] Today a _sārīq-qūsh_[1377] was taken; that was black all over, its very eyes being black! Today an eagle (_būrkūt_)[1378] took a deer (_kīyīk_).

Corn being somewhat scarce in the army, we went into the Kahrāj-valley, and took some. [Sidenote: Fol. 219b.]

(_Jan. 21st_) On Friday (Muḥ. 19th) we marched for Sawād, with the intention of attacking the Yūsuf-zāī Afghāns, and dismounted in between[1379] the water of Panj-kūra and the united waters of Chandāwal and Bajaur. Shāh Manṣūr _Yūsuf-zāī_ had brought a few well-flavoured and quite intoxicating confections (_kamālī_); making one of them into three, I ate one portion, Gadāī T̤aghāī another, `Abdu'l-lāh the librarian another. It produced remarkable intoxication; so much so that at the Evening Prayer when the begs gathered for counsel, I was not able to go out. A strange thing it was! If in these days[1380] I ate the whole of such a confection, I doubt if it would produce half as much intoxication.

(_c. An impost laid on Kahrāj._)

(_Jan. 22nd_) Marching from that ground, (Muḥ. 20th), we dismounted over against Kahrāj, at the mouth of the valleys of Kahrāj and Peshgrām.[1381] Snow fell ankle-deep while we were on that ground; it would seem to be rare for snow to fall thereabouts, for people were much surprised. In agreement with Sl. Wais of Sawād there was laid on the Kahrāj people an impost of 4000 ass-loads of rice for the use of the army, and he himself was sent to collect it. Never before had those rude mountaineers borne such a burden; they could not give (all) the grain and were brought to ruin.

(_cc. Raid on Panj-kūra._)

(_Jan. 25th_) On Tuesday the 23rd of Muḥarram an army was [Sidenote: Fol. 220.] sent under Hindū Beg to raid Panj-kūra. Panj-kūra lies more than half-way up the mountain;[1382] to reach its villages a person must go for nearly a _kuroh_ (2 m.) through a pass. The people had fled and got away; our men brought a few beasts of sorts, and masses of corn from their houses.

(_Jan. 26th_) Next day (Muḥ. 24th) Qūj Beg was put at the head of a force and sent out to raid.

(_Jan. 27th_) On Thursday the 25th of the month, we dismounted at the village of Māndīsh, in the trough of the Kahrāj-valley, for the purpose of getting corn for the army.

(_d. Māhīm's adoption of Dil-dār's unborn child._)

(_Jan. 28th_) Several children born of Humāyūn's mother had not lived. Hind-āl was not yet born.[1383] While we were in those parts, came a letter from Māhīm in which she wrote, "Whether it be a boy, whether it be a girl, is my luck and chance; give it to me; I will declare it my child and will take charge of it." On Friday the 26th of the month, we being still on that ground, Yūsuf-i-`alī the stirrup-holder was sent off to Kābul with letters[1384] bestowing Hind-āl, not yet born, on Māhīm.

(_dd. Construction of a stone platform._)

While we were still on that same ground in the Māndīsh-country, I had a platform made with stones (_tāsh bīla_) on a height in the middle of the valley, so large that it held the tents of the advance-camp. All the household and soldiers carried the stones for it, one by one like ants.

(_e. Bābur's marriage with his Afghān wife, Bībī Mubāraka._)

In order to conciliate the Yūsuf-zāī horde, I had asked for a daughter of one of my well-wishers, Malik Sulaimān Shāh's son Malik Shāh Manṣūr, at the time he came to me as envoy [Sidenote: Fol. 220b.] from the Yūsuf-zāī Afghāns.[1385]

While we were on this ground news came that his daughter[1386] was on her way with the Yūsuf-zāī tribute. At the Evening Prayer there was a wine-party to which Sl. `Alā'u'd-dīn (of Sawād) was invited and at which he was given a seat and special dress of honour (_khilcat-i-khāṣa_).

(_Jan. 30th_) On Sunday the 28th, we marched from that valley. Shāh Manṣūr's younger brother T̤āūs (Handsome) Khān brought the above-mentioned daughter of his brother to our ground after we had dismounted.

(_f. Repopulation of the fort of Bajaur._)

For the convenience of having the Bī-sūt people in Bajaur-fort,[1387] Yūsuf'i-`alī the taster was sent from this camp to get them on the march and take them to that fort. Also, written orders were despatched to Kābul that the army there left should join us.

(_Feb. 4th_) On Friday the 3rd of the month of Ṣafar, we dismounted at the confluence of the waters of Bajaur and Panj-kūra.

(_Feb. 6th_) On Sunday the 5th of the month, we went from that ground to Bajaur where there was a drinking-party in Khwāja Kalān's house.

(_g. Expedition against the Afghān clans._)

(_Feb. 8th_) On Tuesday the 7th of the month the begs and the Dilazāk Afghān headmen were summoned, and, after consultation, matters were left at this:—"The year is at its end,[1388] only a few days of the Fish are left; the plainsmen have carried in all their corn; if we went now into Sawād, the army would [Sidenote: Fol. 221.] dwindle through getting no corn. The thing to do is to march along the Aṃbahar and Pānī-mānī road, cross the Sawād-water above Hash-nagar, and surprise the Yūsuf-zāī and Muḥammadī Afghāns who are located in the plain over against the Yūsuf-zāī _sangur_ of Māhūrā. Another year, coming earlier in the harvest-time, the Afghāns of this place must be our first thought." So the matter was left.

(_Feb. 9th_) Next day, Wednesday, we bestowed horses and robes on Sl. Wais and Sl. `Alā'u'u-dīn of Sawād, gave them leave to go, marched off ourselves and dismounted over against Bajaur.

(_Feb. 10th_) We marched next day, leaving Shāh Manṣūr's daughter in Bajaur-fort until the return of the army. We dismounted after passing Khwāja Khiẓr, and from that camp leave was given to Khwāja Kalān; and the heavy baggage, the worn-out horses and superfluous effects of the army were started off into Lamghān by the Kūnār road.

(_Feb. 11th_) Next morning Khwāja Mīr-i-mīrān was put in charge of the camel baggage-train and started off by the Qūrghā-tū and Darwāza road, through the Qarā-kūpa-pass. Riding light for the raid, we ourselves crossed the Ambahar-pass, and yet another great pass, and dismounted at Pānī-mālī nearer[1389] the Afternoon Prayer. Aūghān-bīrdī was sent forward with a few others to learn[1390] how things were.

(_Feb. 12th_) The distance between us and the Afghāns being short, we did not make an early start. Aūghān-bīrdī came back at breakfast-time.[1391] He had got the better of an Afghān and had cut his head off, but had dropped it on the road. He [Sidenote: Fol. 221b.] brought no news so sure as the heart asks (_kūnkūl-tīladīk_). Midday come, we marched on, crossed the Sawād-water, and dismounted nearer[1392] the Afternoon Prayer. At the Bed-time Prayer, we remounted and rode swiftly on.

(_Feb. 13th_) Rustam _Turkmān_ had been sent scouting; when the Sun was spear-high he brought word that the Afghāns had heard about us and were shifting about, one body of them making off by the mountain-road. On this we moved the faster, sending raiders on ahead who killed a few, cut off their heads and brought a band of prisoners, some cattle and flocks. The Dilazāk Afghāns also cut off and brought in a few heads. Turning back, we dismounted near Kātlāng and from there sent a guide to meet the baggage-train under Khwāja Mīr-i-mīrān and bring it to join us in Maqām.[1393]

(_Feb. 14th_) Marching on next day, we dismounted between Kātlāng and Maqām. A man of Shāh Manṣūr's arrived. Khusrau Kūkūldāsh and Aḥmadī the secretary were sent with a few more to meet the baggage-train.

(_Feb. 15th_) On Wednesday the 14th of the month, the baggage-train rejoined us while we were dismounting at Maqām.

It will have been within the previous 30 or 40 years that a heretic qalandar named Shahbāz perverted a body of Yūsuf-zāī and another of Dilazāk. His tomb was on a free and dominating height of the lower hill at the bill (_tūmshūq_) of the [Sidenote: Fol. 222.] Maqām mountain. Thought I, "What is there to recommend the tomb of a heretic qalandar for a place in air so free?" and ordered the tomb destroyed and levelled with the ground. The place was so charming and open that we elected to sit there some time and to eat a confection (_ma'jūn_).

(_h. Bābur crosses the Indus for the first time._)

We had turned off from Bajaur with Bhīra in our thoughts.[1394] Ever since we came into Kābul it had been in my mind to move on Hindūstān, but this had not been done for a variety of reasons. Nothing to count had fallen into the soldiers' hands during the three or four months we had been leading this army. Now that Bhīra, the borderland of Hindūstān, was so near, I thought a something might fall into our men's hands if, riding light, we went suddenly into it. To this thought I clung, but some of my well-wishers, after we had raided the Afghāns and dismounted at Maqām, set the matter in this way before me:—"If we are to go into Hindūstān, it should be on a proper basis; one part of the army stayed behind in Kābul; a body of effective braves was left behind in Bajaur; a good part of this army has gone into Lamghān because its horses were worn-out; and the horses of those who have come this far, are so poor that they have not a day's hard riding in them." Reasonable as these considerations were, yet, having made the start, we paid no [Sidenote: Fol. 222b.] attention to them but set off next day for the ford through the water of Sind.[1395] Mīr Muḥammad the raftsman and his elder and younger brethren were sent with a few braves to examine the Sind-river (_daryā_), above and below the ford.

(_Feb. 16th_) After starting off the camp for the river, I went to hunt rhinoceros on the Sawātī side which place people call also Karg-khāna (Rhino-home).[1396] A few were discovered but the jungle was dense and they did not come out of it. When one with a calf came into the open and betook itself to flight, many arrows were shot at it and it rushed into the near jungle; the jungle was fired but that same rhino was not had. Another calf was killed as it lay, scorched by the fire, writhing and palpitating. Each person took a share of the spoil. After leaving Sawātī, we wandered about a good deal; it was the Bed-time Prayer when we got to camp.

Those sent to examine the ford came back after doing it.

(_Feb. 17th_) Next day, Thursday the 16th,[1397] the horses and baggage-camels crossed through the ford and the camp-bazar and foot-soldiers were put over on rafts. Some Nīl-ābīs came and saw me at the ford-head (_guẕar-bāshī_), bringing a horse in mail and 300 _shāhrukhīs_ as an offering. At the Mid-day Prayer of this same day, when every-one had crossed the river, we marched on; we went on until one watch of the night had passed (_circa_ 9 p.m.) when we dismounted near the water of Kacha-kot.[1398]

(_Feb. 18th_) Marching on next day, we crossed the Kacha-kot-water; noon returning, went through the Sangdakī-pass and dismounted. While Sayyid Qāsim Lord of the Gate was [Sidenote: Fol. 223.] in charge of the rear (_chāghdāwal_) he overcame a few Gujūrs who had got up with the rear march, cut off and brought in 4 or 5 of their heads.

(_Feb. 19th_) Marching thence at dawn and crossing the Sūhān-water, we dismounted at the Mid-day Prayer. Those behind kept coming in till midnight; the march had been mightily long, and, as many horses were weak and out-of-condition, a great number were left on the road.

(_i. The Salt-range._)

Fourteen miles (_7 kos_) north of Bhīra lies the mountain-range written of in the _Z̤afar-nāma_ and other books as the Koh-i-jūd.[1399] I had not known why it was called this; I now knew. On it dwell two tribes, descendants from one parent-source, one is called Jūd, the other Janjūha. These two from of old have been the rulers and lawful commanders of the peoples and hordes (_aūlūs_) of the range and of the country between Bhīra and Nīl-āb. Their rule is friendly and brotherly however; they cannot take what their hearts might desire; the portion ancient custom has fixed is given and taken, no less and no more. The agreement is to give one _shāhrukhī_[1400] for each yoke of oxen and seven for headship in a household; there is also service in the army. The Jūd and Janjūha both are divided into several clans. The Koh-i-jūd runs for 14 miles along the Bhīra country, taking off from those Kashmīr mountains that are one with [Sidenote: Fol. 223b.] Hindū-kūsh, and it draws out to the south-west as far as the foot of Dīn-kot on the Sind-river.[1401] On one half of it are the Jūd, the Janjūha on the other. People call it Koh-i-jūd through connecting it with the Jūd tribe.[1402] The principal headman gets the title of Rāī; others, his younger brothers and sons, are styled Malik. The Janjūha headmen are maternal uncles of Langar Khan. The ruler of the people and horde near the Sūhān-water was named Malik Hast. The name originally was Asad but as Hindūstānīs sometimes drop a vowel _e.g._ they say _khabr_ for _khabar_ (news), they had said Asd for Asad, and this went on to Hast.

Langar Khān was sent off to Malik Hast at once when we dismounted. He galloped off, made Malik Hast hopeful of our favour and kindness, and at the Bed-time Prayer, returned with him. Malik Hast brought an offering of a horse in mail and waited on me. He may have been 22 or 23 years old.[1403]

The various flocks and herds belonging to the country-people were close round our camp. As it was always in my heart to possess Hindūstān, and as these several countries, Bhīra, Khūsh-āb, Chīn-āb and Chīnīūt[1404] had once been held by the Turk, I pictured them as my own and was resolved to get them into my hands, whether peacefully or by force. For these reasons it being imperative to treat these hillmen well, this following [Sidenote: Fol. 224.] order was given:—"Do no hurt or harm to the flocks and herds of these people, nor even to their cotton-ends and broken needles!"

(_j. The Kalda-kahār lake_.)

(_Feb. 20th_) Marching thence next day, we dismounted at the Mid-day Prayer amongst fields of densely-growing corn in Kalda-kahār.

Kalda-kahār is some 20 miles north of Bhīra, a level land shut in[1405] amongst the Jūd mountains. In the middle of it is a lake some six miles round, the in-gatherings of rain from all sides. On the north of this lake lies an excellent meadow; on the hill-skirt to the west of it there is a spring[1406] having its source in the heights overlooking the lake. The place being suitable I have made a garden there, called the Bāgh-i-ṣafā,[1407] as will be told later; it is a very charming place with good air.

(_Feb. 21st_) We rode from Kalda-kahār at dawn next day. When we reached the top of the Hamtātū-pass a few local people waited on me, bringing a humble gift. They were joined with `Abdu'r-raḥīm the chief-scribe (_shaghāwal_) and sent with him to speak the Bhīra people fair and say, "The possession of this country by a Turk has come down from of old; beware not to bring ruin on its people by giving way to fear and anxiety; our eye is on this land and on this people; raid and rapine shall not be."

We dismounted near the foot of the pass at breakfast-time, [Sidenote: Fol. 224b.] and thence sent seven or eight men ahead, under Qurbān of Chīrkh and `Abdu'l-malūk of Khwāst. Of those sent one Mīr Muḥammad (a servant ?) of Mahdī Khwāja[1408] brought in a man. A few Afghān headmen, who had come meantime with offerings and done obeisance, were joined with Langar Khān to go and speak the Bhīra people fair.

After crossing the pass and getting out of the jungle, we arrayed in right and left and centre, and moved forward for Bhīra. As we got near it there came in, of the servants of Daulat Khān _Yūsuf-khail's_ son `Alī Khān, Sīktū's son Dīwa _Hindū_; with them came several of the notables of Bhīra who brought a horse and camel as an offering and did me obeisance. At the Mid-day Prayer we dismounted on the east of Bhīra, on the bank of the Bahat (Jehlam), in a sown-field, without hurt or harm being allowed to touch the people of Bhīra.

(_k. History of Bhīra._)

Tīmūr Beg had gone into Hindūstān; from the time he went out again these several countries _viz._ Bhīra, Khūsh-āb, Chīn-āb and Chīnīūt, had been held by his descendants and the dependants and adherents of those descendants. After the death of Sl. Mas`ūd Mīrzā and his son `Alī _Asghar_ Mīrzā, the sons of Mīr `Alī Beg [Sidenote: Fol. 225.] _viz._ Bābā-i-kābulī, Daryā Khān and Apāq Khān, known later as Ghāzī Khān, all of whom Sl. Mas`ūd M. had cherished, through their dominant position, got possession of Kābul, Zābul and the afore-named countries and _parganas_ of Hindūstān. In Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā's time, Kābul and Zābul went from their hands, the Hindūstān countries remaining. In 910 AH. (1504 AD.) the year I first came into Kābul, the government of Bhīra, Khūsh-āb and Chīn-āb depended on Sayyid `Alī Khān, son of Ghāzī Khān and grandson of Mīr `Alī Beg, who read the _khuṯba_ for Sikandar son of Buhlūl (_Lūdī Afghān_) and was subject to him. When I led that army out (910 AH.) Sayyid `Alī Khān left Bhīra in terror, crossed the Bahat-water, and seated himself in Sher-kot, one of the villages of Bhīra. A few years later the Afghāns became suspicious about him on my account; he, giving way to his own fears and anxieties, made these countries over to the then governor [Sidenote: Fol. 225b.] in Lāhūr, Daulat Khān, son of Tātār Khān _Yūsuf-khail_, who gave them to his own eldest son `Alī Khān, and in `Alī Khān's possession they now were.

(_Author's note on Sl. Mas`ūd Mīrzā._) He was the son of Sūyūrghatmīsh Mīrzā, son of Shāhrukh Mīrzā, (son of Tīmūr), and was known as Sl. Mas`ūd _Kābulī_ because the government and administration of Kābul and Zābul were then dependent on him (deposed 843 AH.-1440 AD.)

(_Author's note to 910 AH._) That year, with the wish to enter Hindūstān, Khaibar had been crossed and Parashāwūr (_sic_) had been reached, when Bāqī _Chaghānīānī_ insisted on a move against Lower Bangash _i.e._ Kohāt, a mass of Afghāns were raided and scraped clean (_qīrīb_), the Bannū plain was raided and plundered, and return was made through Dūkī (Dūgī).

(_Author's note on Daulat Khān Yūsuf-khail._) This Tātār Khān, the father of Daulat Khān, was one of six or seven _sardārs_ who, sallying out and becoming dominant in Hindūstān, made Buhlūl Pādshāh. He held the country north of the Satluj (_sic_) and Sahrind,[1409] the revenues of which exceeded 3 _krūrs_.[1410] On Tātār Khān's death, Sl. Sikandar (_Lūdī_), as over-lord, took those countries from Tātār Khān's sons and gave Lāhūr only to Daulat Khān. That happened a year or two before I came into the country of Kābul (910 AH.).

(_l. Bābur's journey resumed._)

(_Feb. 22nd_) Next morning foragers were sent to several convenient places; on the same day I visited Bhīra; and on the same day Sangur Khān _Janjūha_ came, made offering of a horse, and did me obeisance.

(_Feb. 23rd_) On Wednesday the 22nd of the month, the headmen and _chauderis_[1411] of Bhīra were summoned, a sum of 400,000 _shāhrukhīs_[1412] was agreed on as the price of peace _(māl-i-amān)_, and collectors were appointed. We also made an excursion, going in a boat and there eating a confection.

(_Feb. 24th_) Ḥaidar the standard-bearer had been sent to the Bilūchīs located in Bhīra and Khūsh-āb; on Thursday morning they made an offering of an almond-coloured _tīpūchāq_ [horse], and did obeisance. As it was represented to me that some of the soldiery were behaving without sense and were laying-hands on Bhīra people, persons were sent who caused some of those [Sidenote: Fol. 226.] senseless people to meet their death-doom, of others slit the noses and so led them round the camp.

(_Feb. 25th_) On Friday came a dutiful letter from the Khūshābīs; on this Shāh Shujā` _Arghūn's_ son Shāh Ḥasan was appointed to go to Khūsh-āb.

(_Feb. 26th_) On Saturday the 25th of the month,[1413] Shāh Ḥasan was started for Khūsh-āb.

(_Feb. 27th_) On Sunday so much rain fell[1414] that water covered all the plain. A small brackish stream[1415] flowing between Bhīra and the gardens in which the army lay, had become like a great river before the Mid-day Prayer; while at the ford near Bhīra there was no footing for more than an arrow's flight; people crossing had to swim. In the afternoon I rode out to watch the water coming down (_kīrkān sū_); the rain and storm were such that on the way back there was some fear about getting in to camp. I crossed that same water (_kīrkān sū_) with my horse swimming. The army-people were much alarmed; most of them abandoned tents and heavy baggage, shouldered armour, horse-mail and arms, made their horses swim and crossed bare-back. Most streams flooded the plain.

(_Feb. 28th_) Next day boats were brought from the river (Jehlam), and in these most of the army brought their tents and baggage over. Towards mid-day, Qūj Beg's men went 2 miles up the water and there found a ford by which the rest crossed.

[Sidenote: Fol. 226b.] (_March 1st_) After a night spent in Bhīra-fort, Jahān-nūma they call it, we marched early on the Tuesday morning out of the worry of the rain-flood to the higher ground north of Bhīra.

As there was some delay about the moneys asked for and agreed to (_taqabbul_), the country was divided into four districts and the begs were ordered to try to make an end of the matter. Khalīfa was appointed to one district, Qūj Beg to another, Nāṣir's Dost to another, Sayyid Qāsim and Muḥibb-i-`alī to another. Picturing as our own the countries once occupied by the Turk, there was to be no over-running or plundering.

(_m. Envoys sent to the court in Dihlī._)

(_March 3rd_) People were always saying, "It could do no harm to send an envoy, for peace' sake, to countries that once depended on the Turk." Accordingly on Thursday the 1st of Rabī`u'l-awwal, Mullā Murshid was appointed to go to Sl. Ibrāhīm who through the death of his father Sl. Iskandar had attained to rule in Hindūstān some 5 or 6 months earlier(?). I sent him a goshawk (_qārchīgha_) and asked for the countries which from of old had depended on the Turk. Mullā Murshid was given charge of writings (_khāṯt̤lār_) for Daulat Khān (_Yūsuf-khail_) and writings for Sl. Ibrāhīm; matters were sent also by word-of-mouth; and he was given leave to go. Far from sense and wisdom, shut off from judgment and counsel must people in Hindūstān be, the Afghāns above all; for they could not move and make stand like a foe, nor did they know ways and rules of friendliness. [Sidenote: Fol. 227.] Daulat Khān kept my man several days in Lāhūr without seeing him himself or speeding him on to Sl. Ibrāhīm; and he came back to Kābul a few months later without bringing a reply.

(_n. Birth of Hind-āl._)

(_March 4th_) On Friday the 2nd of the month, the foot-soldiers Shaibak and Darwesh-i-`alī,—he is now a matchlockman,—bringing dutiful letters from Kābul, brought news also of Hind-āl's birth. As the news came during the expedition into Hindūstān, I took it as an omen, and gave the name Hind-āl (Taking of Hind). Dutiful letters came also from Muḥammad-i-zamān M. in Balkh, by the hand of Qaṃbar Beg.

(_March 5th_) Next morning when the Court rose, we rode out for an excursion, entered a boat and there drank _`araq_.[1416] The people of the party were Khwāja Dost-khāwand, Khusrau, Mīrīm, Mīrzā Qulī, Muḥammadī, Aḥmadī, Gadāī, Na`man, Langar Khān, Rauh-dam,[1417] Qāsim-i-`alī the opium-eater (_tariyākī_), Yūsuf-i-`alī and Tīngrī-qulī. Towards the head of the boat there was a _tālār_[1418] on the flat top of which I sat with a few people, a few others sitting below. There was a sitting-place also at the tail of the boat; there Muḥammadī, Gadāī and Na`man sat. _`Araq_ was drunk till the Other Prayer when, disgusted by its bad flavour, by consent of those at the head of the boat, _ma'jūn_ was preferred. [Sidenote: Fol. 227b.] Those at the other end, knowing nothing about our _ma'jūn_ drank _`araq_ right through. At the Bed-time Prayer we rode from the boat and got into camp late. Thinking I had been drinking _`araq_ Muḥammadī and Gadāī had said to one another, "Let's do befitting service," lifted a pitcher of _`araq_ up to one another in turn on their horses, and came in saying with wonderful joviality and heartiness and speaking together, "Through this dark night have we come carrying this pitcher in turns!" Later on when they knew that the party was (now) meant to be otherwise and the hilarity to differ, that is to say, that [there would be that] of the _ma'jūn_ band and that of the drinkers, they were much disturbed because never does a _ma'jūn_ party go well with a drinking-party. Said I, "Don't upset the party! Let those who wish to drink _`araq_, drink _`araq_; let those who wish to eat _ma'jūn_, eat _ma'jūn_. Let no-one on either side make talk or allusion to the other." Some drank _`araq_, some ate _ma'jūn_, and for a time the party went on quite politely. Bābā Jān the _qabūz_-player had not been of our party (in the boat); we invited him when we reached the tents. He asked to drink _`araq_. We invited Tardī Muḥammad _Qībchāq_ also and made him a comrade of the drinkers. A _ma'jūn_ party never goes well with an _`araq_ or a wine-party; the drinkers began to make wild talk and chatter from all sides, mostly in allusion to _ma'jūn_ and _ma'jūnīs_. Bābā Jān even, when drunk, said many wild things. The drinkers soon made Tardī Khān mad-drunk, by giving him one full bowl after another. Try as we did [Sidenote: Fol. 228.] to keep things straight, nothing went well; there was much disgusting uproar; the party became intolerable and was broken up.

(_March 7th_) On Monday the 5th of the month, the country of Bhīra was given to Hindū Beg.

(_March 8th_) On Tuesday the Chīn-āb country was bestowed on Ḥusain _Aīkrak_(?) and leave was given to him and the Chīn-āb people to set out. At this time Sayyid `Alī Khān's son Minūchihr Khān, having let us know (his intention), came and waited on me. He had started from Hindūstān by the upper road, had met in with Tātār Khān _Kakar_;[1419] Tātār Khān had not let him pass on, but had kept him, made him a son-in-law by giving him his own daughter, and had detained him for some time.

(_o. The Kakars._)

In amongst the mountains of Nīl-āb and Bhīra which connect with those of Kashmīr, there are, besides the Jūd and Janjūha tribes, many Jats, Gujūrs, and others akin to them, seated in villages everywhere on every rising-ground. These are governed by headmen of the Kakar tribes, a headship like that over the Jūd and Janjūha. At this time (925 AH.) the headmen of the people of those hill-skirts were Tātār _Kakar_ and Hātī _Kakar_, two descendants of one forefather; being paternal-uncles' sons.[1420] Torrent-beds and ravines are their strongholds. Tātār's place, named Parhāla,[1421] is a good deal below the snow-mountains; Hātī's country connects with the mountains and also he had made Bābū Khān's fief Kālanjar,[1422] look towards himself. Tātār [Sidenote: Fol. 228b.] _Kakar_ had seen Daulat Khān (_Yūsuf-khail_) and looked to him with complete obedience. Hātī had not seen Daulat Khān; his attitude towards him was bad and turbulent. At the word of the Hindūstān begs and in agreement with them, Tātār had so posted himself as to blockade Hātī from a distance. Just when we were in Bhīra, Hātī moved on pretext of hunting, fell unexpectedly on Tātār, killed him, and took his country, his wives and his having (_būlghāni_).[1423]

(_p. Bābur's journey resumed._)

Having ridden out at the Mid-day Prayer for an excursion, we got on a boat and _`araq_ was drunk. The people of the party were Dost Beg, Mīrzā Qulī, Aḥmadī, Gadāī, Muḥammad `Alī _Jang-jang_, `Asas,[1424] and Aūghān-bīrdī _Mughūl_. The musicians were Rauḥ-dam, Bābā Jān, Qāsim-i-`alī, Yūsuf-i-`alī, Tīngrī-qulī, Abū'l-qāsim, Rāmẓān _Lūlī_. We drank in the boat till the Bed-time Prayer; then getting off it, full of drink, we mounted, took torches in our hands, and went to camp from the river's bank, leaning over from our horses on this side, leaning over from that, at one loose-rein gallop! Very drunk I must have been for, when they told me next day that we had galloped loose-rein into camp, carrying torches, I could not recall it in the very least. After reaching my quarters, I vomited a good deal.

(_March 11th_) On Friday we rode out on an excursion, crossed the water (Jehlam) by boat and went about amongst the orchards (_bāghāt_) of blossoming trees and the lands of the sugar-cultivation. We saw the wheel with buckets, had water drawn, and asked [Sidenote: Fol. 229.] particulars about getting it out; indeed we made them draw it again and again. During this excursion a confection was preferred. In returning we went on board a boat. A confection (_ma'jūn_) was given also to Minūchihr Khān, such a one that, to keep him standing, two people had to give him their arms. For a time the boat remained at anchor in mid-stream; we then went down-stream; after a while had it drawn up-stream again, slept in it that night and went back to camp near dawn.

(_March 12th_) On Saturday the 10th of the first Rabī`, the Sun entered the Ram. Today we rode out before mid-day and got into a boat where _`araq_ was drunk. The people of the party were Khwāja Dost-khāwand, Dost Beg, Mīrīm, Mīrzā Qulī, Muḥammadī, Aḥmadī, Yūnas-i-`alī, Muḥ. `Alī _Jang-jang_, Gadāī T̤aghāī, Mīr Khurd (and ?) `Asas. The musicians were Rauḥdam, Bābā Jān, Qāsim, Yūsuf-i-`alī, Tīngrī-qulī and Ramẓān. We got into a branch-water (_shakh-i-āb_), for some time went down-stream, landed a good deal below Bhīra and on its opposite bank, and went late into camp.

This same day Shāh Ḥasan returned from Khūsh-āb whither he had been sent as envoy to demand the countries which from of old had depended on the Turk; he had settled peaceably with them and had in his hands a part of the money assessed on them.

The heats were near at hand. To reinforce Hindū Beg (in Bhīra) were appointed Shāh Muḥammad Keeper of the Seal and his younger brother Dost Beg Keeper of the Seal, together with several suitable braves; an accepted (_yārāsha_) stipend [Sidenote: Fol. 229b.] was fixed and settled in accordance with each man's position. Khūsh-āb was bestowed, with a standard, on Langar Khān, the prime cause and mover of this expedition; we settled also that he was to help Hindū Beg. We appointed also to help Hindū Beg, the Turk and local soldiery of Bhīra, increasing the allowances and pay of both. Amongst them was the afore-named Minūchihr Khān whose name has been mentioned; there was also Naẕar-i-`alī _Turk_, one of Minūchihr Khān's relations; there were also Sangar Khān _Janjūha_ and Malik Hast _Janjūha_.

(_pp. Return for Kābul._)

(_March 13th_) Having settled the country in every way making for hope of peace, we marched for Kābul from Bhīra on Sunday the 11th of the first Rabī`. We dismounted in Kaldah-kahār. That day too it rained amazingly; people with rain-cloaks[1425] were in the same case as those who had none! The rear of the camp kept coming in till the Bed-time Prayer.

(_q. Action taken against Hātī Kakar._)

(_March 14th_) People acquainted with the honour and glory (_āb u tāb_) of this land and government, especially the Janjūhas, old foes of these Kakars, represented, "Hātī is the bad man round-about; he it is robs on the roads; he it is brings men to ruin; he ought either to be driven out from these parts, or to be severely punished." Agreeing with this, we left Khwāja Mīr-i-mīrān and Nāṣir's Mīrīm next day with the camp, parting from them at big breakfast,[1426] and moved on Hātī _Kakar_. As has been said, he had killed Tātār a few days earlier, and having taken possession of Parhāla, was in it now. Dismounting at the Other [Sidenote: Fol. 230.] Prayer, we gave the horses corn; at the Bed-time Prayer we rode on again, our guide being a Gujūr servant of Malik Hast, named Sar-u-pā. We rode the night through and dismounted at dawn, when Beg Muḥammad _Mughūl_ was sent back to the camp, and we remounted when it was growing light. At breakfast-time (9 a.m.) we put our mail on and moved forward faster. The blackness of Parhāla shewed itself from 2 miles off; the gallop was then allowed (_chāpqūn qūīūldī_); the right went east of Parhāla, Qūj Beg, who was also of the right, following as its reserve; the men of the left and centre went straight for the fort, Dost Beg being their rear-reserve.

Parhāla stands amongst ravines. It has two roads; one, by which we came, leads to it from the south-east, goes along the top of ravines and on either hand has hollows worn out by the torrents. A mile from Parhāla this road, in four or five places before it reaches the Gate, becomes a one-man road with a ravine falling from its either side; there for more than an arrow's flight men must ride in single file. The other road comes from the north-west; it gets up to Parhāla by the trough of a valley and it also is a one-man road. There is no other road on any side. Parhāla though without breast-work or battlement, has no assailable place, its sides shooting perpendicularly [Sidenote: Fol. 230b.] down for 7, 8, 10 yards.

When the van of our left, having passed the narrow place, went in a body to the Gate, Hātī, with whom were 30 to 40 men in armour, their horses in mail, and a mass of foot-soldiers, forced his assailants to retire. Dost Beg led his reserve forward, made a strong attack, dismounted a number of Hātī's men, and beat him. All the country-round, Hātī was celebrated for his daring, but try as he did, he could effect nothing; he took to flight; he could not make a stand in those narrow places; he could not make the fort fast when he got back into it. His assailants went in just behind him and ran on through the ravine and narrows of the north-west side of the fort, but he rode light and made his flight good. Here again, Dost Beg did very well and recompense was added to renown.[1427]

Meantime I had gone into the fort and dismounted at Tātār _Kakar's_ dwelling. Several men had joined in the attack for whom to stay with me had been arranged; amongst them were Amīn-i-muḥammad Tarkhān _Argkūn_ and Qarācha.[1428] For this fault they were sent to meet the camp, without _sar-u-pā_, into the wilds and open country with Sar-u-pā[1429] for their guide, the Gujūr mentioned already.

(_March 16th_) Next day we went out by the north-west ravine and dismounted in a sown field. A few serviceable braves under Wālī the treasurer were sent out to meet the camp.[1430]

(_March 17th_) Marching on Thursday the 15th, we dismounted at Andarāba on the Sūhān, a fort said to have depended from [Sidenote: Fol. 231.] of old on ancestors of Malik Hast. Hātī _Kakar_ had killed Malik Hast's father and destroyed the fort; there it now lay in ruins.

At the Bed-time Prayer of this same day, those left at Kalda-kahār with the camp rejoined us.

(_r. Submissions to Bābur._)

It must have been after Hātī overcame Tātār that he started his kinsman Parbat to me with tribute and an accoutred horse. Parbat did not light upon us but, meeting in with the camp we had left behind, came on in the company of the train. With it came also Langar Khān up from Bhīra on matters of business. His affairs were put right and he, together with several local people, was allowed to leave.

(_March 18th_) Marching on and crossing the Sūhān-water, we dismounted on the rising-ground. Here Hātī's kinsman (Parbat) was robed in an honorary dress (_khil`at_), given letters of encouragement for Hātī, and despatched with a servant of Muḥammad `Alī _Jang-jang_. Nīl-āb and the Qārlūq (Himalayan?) Hazāra had been given to Humāyūn (_aet._ 12); some of his servants under Bābā Dost and Halāhil came now for their darogha-ship.[1431]

(_March 19th_) Marching early next morning, we dismounted after riding 2 miles, went to view the camp from a height and ordered that the camp-camels should be counted; it came out at 570. [Sidenote: Fol. 231b.]

We had heard of the qualities of the saṃbhal plant[1432]; we saw it on this ground; along this hill-skirt it grows sparsely, a plant here, a plant there; it grows abundantly and to a large size further along the skirt-hills of Hindūstān. It will be described when an account is given of the animals and plants of Hindūstān.[1433]

(_March 20th_) Marching from that camp at beat of drum (_i.e._ one hour before day), we dismounted at breakfast-time (9 a.m.) below the Sangdakī-pass, at mid-day marched on, crossed the pass, crossed the torrent, and dismounted on the rising-ground.

(_March 21st_) Marching thence at midnight, we made an excursion to the ford[1434] we had crossed when on our way to Bhīra. A great raft of grain had stuck in the mud of that same ford and, do what its owners would, could not be made to move. The corn was seized and shared out to those with us. Timely indeed was that corn!

Near noon we were a little below the meeting of the waters of Kābul and Sind, rather above old Nīl-āb; we dismounted there between two waters.[1435] From Nīl-āb six boats were brought, and were apportioned to the right, left and centre, who busied themselves energetically in crossing the river (Indus). We got there on a Monday; they kept on crossing the water through the night preceding Tuesday (_March 22nd_), through Tuesday and up to Wednesday (_March 23rd_) and on Thursday (_24th_) also a few crossed.

Hātl's kinsman Parbat, he who from Andarāba was sent to [Sidenote: Fol. 232.] Hātī with a servant of Muḥ. `Alī _Jang-jang_, came to the bank of the river with Hātī's offering of an accoutred horse. Nīlābīs also came, brought an accoutred horse and did obeisance.

(_s. Various postings._)

Muḥammad `Alī _Jang-jang_ had wished to stay in Bhīra but Bhīra being bestowed on Hindū Beg, he was given the countries between it and the Sind-river, such as the Qārlūq Hazāra, Hātī, Ghiyāṣ-wāl and Kīb (Kitib):—

Where one is who submits like a _ra`iyat_, so treat him; But him who submits not, strike, strip, crush and force to obey.

He also received a special head-wear in black velvet, a special Qīlmāq corselet, and a standard. When Hātī's kinsman was given leave to go he took for Hātī a sword and head-to-foot (_bāsh-ayāq_) with a royal letter of encouragement.

(_March 24th_) On Thursday at sunrise we marched from the river's bank. That day confection was eaten. While under its influence[1436] wonderful fields of flowers were enjoyed. In some places sheets of yellow flowers bloomed in plots; in others sheets of red (_arghwānī_) flowers in plots, in some red and yellow bloomed together. We sat on a mound near the camp to enjoy the sight. There were flowers on all sides of the mound, yellow [Sidenote: Fol. 232b.] here, red there, as if arranged regularly to form a sextuple. On two sides there were fewer flowers but as far as the eye reached, flowers were in bloom. In spring near Parashāwar the fields of flowers are very beautiful indeed.

(_March 25th_) We marched from that ground at dawn. At one place on the road a tiger came out and roared. On hearing it, the horses, willy-nilly, flung off in terror, carrying their riders in all directions, and dashing into ravines and hollows. The tiger went again into the jungle. To bring it out, we ordered a buffalo brought and put on the edge of the jungle. The tiger again came out roaring. Arrows were shot at it from all sides[1437]; I shot with the rest. Khalwī (var. Khalwā) a foot-soldier, pricked it with a spear; it bit the spear and broke off the spearhead. After tasting of those arrows, it went into the bushes (_būta_) and stayed there. Bābā the waiting-man [_yasāwal_] went with drawn sword close up to it; it sprang; he chopped at its head; `Alī _Sīstānī_[1438] chopped at its loins; it plunged into the river and was killed right in the water. It was got out and ordered to be skinned.

(_March 26th_) Marching on next day, we reached Bīgrām and went to see Gūr-khattrī. This is a smallish abode, after the fashion of a hermitage (_ṣauma`at_), rather confined and dark. After entering at the door and going down a few steps, one must lie full length to get beyond. There is no getting in without a lamp. All round near the building there is let lie an enormous quantity of hair of the head and beard which men have shaved off there. There are a great many retreats (_ḥujra_) near Gūr-khattrī [Sidenote: Fol. 233.] like those of a rest-house or a college. In the year we came into Kābul (910 AH.) and over-ran Kohāt, Bannū and the plain, we made an excursion to Bīgrām, saw its great tree and were consumed with regret at not seeing Gūr-khattrī, but it does not seem a place to regret not-seeing.[1439]

On this same day an excellent hawk of mine went astray out of Shaikhīm the head-falconer's charge; it had taken many cranes and storks and had moulted (_tūlāb_) two or three times. So many things did it take that it made a fowler of a person so little keen as I!

At this place were bestowed 100 mis̤qāls of silver, clothing (_tūnlūq_), three bullocks and one buffalo, out of the offerings of Hindūstān, on each of six persons, the chiefs of the Dilazāk Afghāns under Malik Bū Khān and Malik Mūsa; to others, in their degree, were given money, pieces of cloth, a bullock and a buffalo.

(_March 27th_) When we dismounted at `Alī-masjid, a Dilazāk Afghān of the Yaq`ūb-khail, named Ma`rūf, brought an offering of 10 sheep, two ass-loads of rice and eight large cheeses.

(_March 28th_) Marching on from `Alī-masjid, we dismounted at Yada-bīr; from Yada-bīr Jūī-shāhī was reached by the Midday Prayer and we there dismounted. Today Dost Beg was attacked by burning fever.

(_March 29th_) Marching from Jūī-shāhī at dawn, we ate our mid-day meal in the Bāgh-i-wafā. At the Mid-day Prayer we betook ourselves out of the garden, close to the Evening Prayer forded the Siyāh-āb at Gandamak, satisfied our horses' hunger in a field of green corn, and rode on in a _garī_ or two (24-48 min.).

After crossing the Sūrkh-āb, we dismounted at Kark and took [Sidenote: Fol. 233b.] a sleep.

(_March 30th_) Riding before shoot of day from Kark, I went with 5 or 6 others by the road taking off for Qarā-tū in order to enjoy the sight of a garden there made. Khalīfa and Shāh Ḥasan Beg and the rest went by the other road to await me at Qūrūq-sāī.

When we reached Qarā-tū, Shāh Beg _Arghūn's_ commissary (_tawāchī_) Qīzīl (Rufus) brought word that Shāh Beg had taken Kāhān, plundered it and retired.

An order had been given that no-one soever should take news of us ahead. We reached Kābul at the Mid-day Prayer, no person in it knowing about us till we got to Qūtlūq-qadam's bridge. As Humāyūn and Kāmrān heard about us only after that, there was not time to put them on horseback; they made their pages carry them, came, and did obeisance between the gates of the town and the citadel.[1440] At the Other Prayer there waited on me Qāsim Beg, the town Qāẓī, the retainers left in Kābul and the notables of the place.

(_April 2nd_) At the Other Prayer of Friday the 1st of the second Rabī` there was a wine-party at which a special head-to-foot (_bāsh-ayāq_) was bestowed on Shāh Ḥasan.

(_April 3rd_) At dawn on Saturday we went on board a boat and took our morning.[1441] Nūr Beg, then not obedient (_tā'īb_), played the lute at this gathering. At the Mid-day Prayer we left the boat to visit the garden made between Kul-kīna[1442] and the mountain (Shāh-i-kābul). At the Evening Prayer we went to the Violet-garden where there was drinking again. From Kul-kīna I got in by the rampart and went into the citadel.

(_u. Dost Beg's death._)

(_April 6th_) On the night of Tuesday the 5th of the month,[1443] Dost Beg, who on the road had had fever, went to God's mercy. [Sidenote: Fol. 234.]

Sad and grieved enough we were! His bier and corpse were carried to Ghaznī where they laid him in front of the gate of the Sulṯān's garden (_rauza_).

Dost Beg had been a very good brave (_yīkīt_) and he was still rising in rank as a beg. Before he was made a beg, he did excellent things several times as one of the household. One time was at Rabāṯ-i-zauraq,[1444] one _yīghāch_ from Andijān when Sl. Aḥmad _Taṃbal_ attacked me at night (908 AH.). I, with 10 to 15 men, by making a stand, had forced his gallopers back; when we reached his centre, he made a stand with as many as 100 men; there were then three men with me, _i.e._ there were four counting myself. Nāṣir's Dost (_i.e._ Dost Beg) was one of the three; another was Mīrzā Qulī _Kūkūldāsh_; Karīm-dād _Turkmān_ was the other. I was just in my _jība_[1445]; Taṃbal and another were standing like gate-wards in front of his array; I came face to face with Taṃbal, shot an arrow striking his helm; shot another aiming at the attachment of his shield;[1446] they shot one through my leg (_būtūm_); Taṃbal chopped at my head. It was wonderful! The (under)-cap of my helm was on my head; not a thread of it was cut, but on the head itself was a very bad wound. Of other help came none; no-one was left with me; of necessity I brought myself to gallop back. Dost Beg had been a little in my rear; (Taṃbal) on leaving me alone, chopped at him.[1447]

[Sidenote: Fol. 234b.] Again, when we were getting out of Akhsī [908 AH.],[1448] Dost Beg chopped away at Bāqī _Ḥīz_[1449] who, although people called him _Ḥīz_, was a mighty master of the sword. Dost Beg was one of the eight left with me after we were out of Akhsī; he was the third they unhorsed.

Again, after he had become a beg, when Sīūnjuk Khān (_Aūzbeg_), arriving with the (Aūzbeg) sulṯāns before Tāshkīnt, besieged Aḥmad-i-qāsim [_Kohbur_] in it [918 AH.],[1450] Dost Beg passed through them and entered the town. During the siege he risked his honoured life splendidly, but Aḥmad-i-qāsim, without a word to this honoured man,[1451] flung out of the town and got away. Dost Beg for his own part got the better of the Khān and sulṯāns and made his way well out of Tāshkīnt.

Later on when Sherīm T̤aghāī, Mazīd and their adherents were in rebellion,[1452] he came swiftly up from Ghaznī with two or three hundred men, met three or four hundred effective braves sent out by those same Mughūls to meet him, unhorsed a mass of them near Sherūkān(?), cut off and brought in a number of heads.

Again, his men were first over the ramparts at the fort of Bajaur (925 AH.). At Parhāla, again, he advanced, beat Hātī, put him to flight, and won Parhāla.

After Dost Beg's death, I bestowed his district on his younger brother Nāṣir's Mīrīm.[1453]

(_v. Various incidents._)

(_April 9th_) On Friday the 8th of the second Rabī`, the walled-town was left for the Chār-bāgh.

(_April 13th_) On Tuesday the 12th there arrived in Kābul the honoured Sulṯānīm Begīm, Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā's eldest daughter, the mother of Muḥammad Sulṯān Mīrzā. During those throneless times,[1454] she had settled down in Khwārizm where Yīlī-pārs [Sidenote: Fol. 235.] Sulṯān's younger brother Aīsān-qulī Sl. took her daughter. The Bāgh-i-khilwat was assigned her for her seat. When she had settled down and I went to see her in that garden, out of respect and courtesy to her, she being as my honoured elder sister, I bent the knee. She also bent the knee. We both advancing, saw one another mid-way. We always observed the same ceremony afterwards.

(_April 18th_) On Sunday the 17th, that traitor to his salt, Bābā Shaikh[1455] was released from his long imprisonment, forgiven his offences and given an honorary dress.

(_w. Visit to the Koh-dāman._)

(_April 20th_) On Tuesday the 19th of the month, we rode out at the return of noon for Khwāja Sih-yārān. This day I was fasting. All astonished, Yūnas-i-`alī and the rest said, "A Tuesday! a journey! and a fast! This is amazing!" At Bīhzādī we dismounted at the Qāẓī's house. In the evening when a stir was made for a social gathering, the Qāẓī set this before me, "In my house such things never are; it is for the honoured Pādshāh to command!" For his heart's content, drink was left out, though all the material for a party was ready.

(_April 21st_) On Wednesday we went to Khwāja Sih-yārān.

(_April 22nd_) On Thursday the 22nd of the month, we had a large round seat made in the garden under construction on the mountain-naze.[1456]

(_April 23rd_) On Friday we got on a raft from the bridge. On our coming opposite the fowlers' houses, they brought a _dang_ [Sidenote: Fol. 235b.] (or _ding_)[1457] they had caught. I had never seen one before; it is an odd-looking bird. It will come into the account of the birds of Hindustan.[1458]

(_April 24th_) On Saturday the 23rd of the month cuttings were planted, partly of plane, partly of _tāl_,[1459] above the round seat. At the Mid-day Prayer there was a wine-party at the place.

(_April 25th_) At dawn we took our morning on the new seat. At noon we mounted and started for Kābul, reached Khwāja Ḥasan quite drunk and slept awhile, rode on and by midnight got to the Chār-bāgh. At Khwāja Ḥasan, `Abdu'l-lāh, in his drunkenness, threw himself into water just as he was in his _tūn aūfrāghī_.[1460] He was frozen with cold and could not go on with us when we mounted after a little of the night had passed. He stayed on Qūtlūq Khwāja's estate that night. Next day, awakened to his past intemperance, he came on repentant. Said I, "At once! will this sort of repentance answer or not? Would to God you would repent now at once in such a way that you would drink nowhere except at my parties!" He agreed to this and kept the rule for a few months, but could not keep it longer.

(_x. Hindū Beg abandons Bhīra._)

(_April 26th_) On Monday the 25th came Hindū Beg. There having been hope of peace, he had been left in those countries with somewhat scant support. No sooner was our back turned than a mass of Hindūstānīs and Afghāns gathered, disregarded us and, not listening to our words, moved against Hindū Beg in Bhīra. The local peoples also went over to the Afghāns. Hindū Beg could make no stand in Bhīra, came to Khūsh-āb, came through the Dīn-kot country, came to Nīl-āb, came on to Kābul. [Sidenote: Fol. 236.] Sīktū's son Dīwa _Hindū_ and another Hindū had been brought prisoner from Bhīra. Each now giving a considerable ransom, they were released. Horses and head-to-foot dresses having been given them, leave to go was granted.

(_April 30th_) On Friday the 29th of the month, burning fever appeared in my body. I got myself let blood. I had fever with sometimes two, sometimes three days between the attacks. In no attack did it cease till there had been sweat after sweat. After 10 or 12 days of illness, Mullā Khwāja gave me narcissus mixed with wine; I drank it once or twice; even that did no good.

(_May 15th_) On Sunday the 15th of the first Jumāda[1461] Khwāja Muḥammad `Alī came from Khwāst, bringing a saddled horse as an offering and also _taṣadduq_ money.[1462] Muḥ. Sharīf the astrologer and the Mīr-zādas of Khwāst came with him and waited on me.

(_May 16th_) Next day, Monday, Mullā Kabīr came from Kāshghar; he had gone round by Kāshghar on his way from Andijān to Kābul.

(_May 23rd_) On Monday the 23rd of the month, Malik Shāh Manṣūr _Yūsuf-zāī_ arrived from Sawād with 6 or 7 Yūsuf-zāī chiefs, and did obeisance.

(_May 31st_) On Monday the 1st of the second Jumāda, the chiefs of the Yūsuf-zāī Afghāns led by Malik Shāh Manṣūr were dressed in robes of honour (_khil`at_). To Malik Shāh Manṣūr was given a long silk coat and an under-coat (? _jība_) with its buttons; to one of the other chiefs was given a coat with silk sleeves, and to six others silk coats. To all leave to go was granted. Agreement was made with them that they were not [Sidenote: Fol. 236b.] to reckon as in the country of Sawād what was above Abuha (?), that they should make all the peasants belonging to it go out from amongst themselves, and also that the Afghān cultivators of Bajaur and Sawād should cast into the revenue 6000 ass-loads of rice.

(_June 2nd_) On Wednesday the 3rd, I drank _jul-āb_.[1463]

(_June 5th_) On Saturday the 6th, I drank a working-draught (_dārū-i-kār_).

(_June 7th_) On Monday the 8th, arrived the wedding-gift for the marriage of Qāsim Beg's youngest son Ḥamza with Khalīfa's eldest daughter. It was of 1000 _shāhrukhī_; they offered also a saddled horse.

(_June 8th_) On Tuesday Shāh Beg's Shāh Ḥasan asked for permission to go away for a wine-party. He carried off to his house Khwāja Muḥ. `Alī and some of the household-begs. In my presence were Yūnas-i-`alī and Gadāī T̤aghāī. I was still abstaining from wine. Said I, "Not at all in this way is it (_hech andāq būlmāī dūr_) that I will sit sober and the party drink wine, I stay sane, full of water, and that set (_būlāk_) of people get drunk; come you and drink in my presence! I will amuse myself a little by watching what intercourse between the sober and the drunk is like."[1464] The party was held in a smallish tent in which I sometimes sat, in the Plane-tree garden south-east of the Picture-hall. Later on Ghiyāṣ the house-buffoon (_kīdī_) arrived; several times for fun he was ordered kept out, but at last he made a great disturbance and his buffooneries found him a way in. We invited Tardī Muḥammad _Qībchāq_ also and Mullā _kitāb-dār_ (librarian). The following quatrain, written impromptu, was sent to Shāh Ḥasan and those gathered in his [Sidenote: Fol. 237.] house:—

In your beautiful flower-bed of banquetting friends, Our fashion it is not to be; If there be ease (_ḥuzūr_) in that gathering of yours, Thank God! there is here no un-ease [_bī ḥuzūr_].[1465]

It was sent by Ibrāhīm _chuhra_. Between the two Prayers (_i.e._ afternoon) the party broke up drunk.

I used to go about in a litter while I was ill. The wine-mixture was drunk on several of the earlier days, then, as it did no good I left it off, but I drank it again at the end of my convalescence, at a party had under an apple-tree on the south-west side of the Tālār-garden.

(_June 11th_) On Friday the 12th came Aḥmad Beg and Sl. Muḥammad _Dūldāī_ who had been left to help in Bajaur.

(_June 16th_) On Wednesday the 17th of the month, Tīngrī-bīrdī and other braves gave a party in Ḥaidar _Tāqi's_ garden; I also went and there drank. We rose from it at the Bed-time Prayer when a move was made to the great tent where again there was drinking.

(_June 23rd_) On Thursday the 25th of the month, Mullā Maḥmūd was appointed to read extracts from the Qorān[1466] in my presence.

(_June 28th_) On Tuesday the last day of the month, Abū'l-muslim Kūkūldāsh arrived as envoy from Shāh Shujā` _Arghūn_ bringing a _tīpūchāq_. After bargain made about swimming the reservoir in the Plane-tree garden, Yūsuf-i-`alī the stirrup-holder swam round it today 100 times and received a gift of a head-to-foot (dress), a saddled horse and some money.

(_July 6th_) On Wednesday the 8th of Rajab, I went to Shāh Ḥasan's house and drank there; most of the household and of [Sidenote: Fol. 237b.] the begs were present.

(_July 9th_) On Saturday the 11th, there was drinking on the terrace-roof of the pigeon-house between the Afternoon and Evening Prayers. Rather late a few horsemen were observed, going from Dih-i-afghān towards the town. It was made out to be Darwīsh-i-muḥammad _Sārbān_, on his way to me as the envoy of Mīrzā Khān (Wais). We shouted to him from the roof, "Drop the envoy's forms and ceremonies! Come! come without formality!" He came and sat down in the company. He was then obedient and did not drink. Drinking went on till the end of the evening. Next day he came into the Court Session with due form and ceremony, and presented Mīrzā Khān's gifts.

(_y. Various incidents._)

Last year[1467] with 100 efforts, much promise and threats, we had got the clans to march into Kābul from the other side (of Hindū-kush). Kābul is a confined country, not easily giving summer and winter quarters to the various flocks and herds of the Turks and (Mughūl?) clans. If the dwellers in the wilds follow their own hearts, they do not wish for Kābul! They now waited (_khidmat qīlīb_) on Qāsim Beg and made him their mediator with me for permission to re-cross to that other side. He tried very hard, so in the end, they were allowed to cross over to the Qūndūz and Bāghlān side.

Ḥāfiẕ the news-writer's elder brother had come from Samarkand; when I now gave him leave to return, I sent my _Dīwān_ by him to Pūlād Sulṯān.[1468] On the back of it I wrote the following [Sidenote: Fol. 238.] verse:—

O breeze! if thou enter that cypress' chamber (_ḥarīm_) Remind her of me, my heart reft by absence; She yearns not for Bābur; he fosters a hope That her heart of steel God one day may melt.[1469]

(_July 15th_) On Friday the 17th of the month, Shaikh Mazīd Kūkūldāsh waited on me from Muḥammad-i-zamān Mīrzā, bringing _taṣadduq_ tribute and a horse.[1470] Today Shāh Beg's envoy Abū'l-muslim Kūkūldāsh was robed in an honorary dress and given leave to go. Today also leave was given for their own districts of Khwāst and Andar-āb to Khwāja Muḥammad `Alī and Tīngrī-bīrdī.

(_July 21st_) On Thursday the 23rd came Muḥ. `Alī _Jang-jang_ who had been left in charge of the countries near Kacha-kot and the Qārlūq. With him came one of Hātī's people and Mīrzā-i-malū-i-qārlūq's son Shāh Ḥasan. Today Mullā `Alī-jān waited on me, returned from fetching his wife from Samarkand.

(_z. The `Abdu'r-raḥman Afghāns and Rustam-maidān._)

(_July 27th_) The `Abdu'r-raḥman Afghāns on the Gīrdīz border were satisfactory neither in their tribute nor their behaviour; they were hurtful also to the caravans which came and went. On Wednesday the 29th of Rajab we rode out to over-run them. We dismounted and ate food near Tang-i-waghchān,[1471] and rode on again at the Mid-day Prayer. In the night we lost the road and got much bewildered in the ups and downs of the land to the south-east of Pātakh-i-āb-i-shakna.[1472] After a time we lit on [Sidenote: Fol. 238b.] a road and by it crossed the Chashma-i-tūra[1473] pass.

(_July 28th_) At the first prayer (_farẓ-waqt_) we got out from the valley-bottom adjacent[1474] to the level land, and the raid was allowed. One detachment galloped towards the Kar-māsh[1475] mountain, south-east of Gīrdīz, the left-hand of the centre led by Khusrau, Mīrzā Qulī and Sayyid `Alī in their rear. Most of the army galloped up the dale to the east of Gīrdīz, having in their rear men under Sayyid Qāsim Lord of the Gate, Mīr Shāh _Qūchīn_, Qayyām (Aūrdū-shāh Beg?), Hindū Beg, Qūtlūq-qadam and Ḥusain [Ḥasan?]. Most of the army having gone up the dale, I followed at some distance. The dalesmen must have been a good way up; those who went after them wore their horses out and nothing to make up for this fell into their hands.

Some Afghāns on foot, some 40 or 50 of them, having appeared on the plain, the rear-reserve went towards them. A courier was sent to me and I hastened on at once. Before I got up with them, Ḥusain Ḥāsan, all alone, foolishly and thoughtlessly, put his horse at those Afghāns, got in amongst them and began to lay on with his sword. They shot his horse, thus made him fall, slashed at him as he was getting up, flung him down, knifed him from all sides and cut him to pieces, while the other braves looked on, standing still and reaching him no helping hand! On hearing news of it, I hurried still faster forward, and sent some of the household and braves galloping loose-rein ahead [Sidenote: Fol. 239.] under Gadāī T̤aghāī, Payānda-i-muḥammad _Qīplān_, Abū'l-ḥasan the armourer and Mūmin Ātāka. Mūmin Ātāka was the first of them to bring an Afghān down; he speared one, cut off his head and brought it in. Abū'l-ḥasan the armourer, without mail as he was, went admirably forward, stopped in front of the Afghāns, laid his horse at them, chopped at one, got him down, cut off and brought in his head. Known though both were for bravelike deeds done earlier, their action in this affair added to their fame. Every one of those 40 or 50 Afghāns, falling to the arrow, falling to the sword, was cut in pieces. After making a clean sweep of them, we dismounted in a field of growing corn and ordered a tower of their heads to be set up. As we went along the road I said, with anger and scorn, to the begs who had been with Ḥusain, "You! what men! there you stood on quite flat ground, and looked on while a few Afghāns on foot overcame such a brave in the way they did! Your rank and station must be taken from you; you must lose _pargana_ and country; your beards must be shaved off and you must be exhibited in towns; for there shall be punishment assuredly for him who looks on while such a brave is beaten by such a foe [Sidenote: Fol. 239b.] on dead-level land, and reaches out no hand to help!" The troop which went to Kar-māsh brought back sheep and other spoil. One of them was Bābā Qashqa[1476] _Mughūl_; an Afghān had made at him with a sword; he had stood still to adjust an arrow, shot it off and brought his man down.

(_July 29th_) Next day at dawn we marched for Kābul. Pay-aster Muḥammad, `Abdu'l-`azīz Master of the Horse, and Mīr Khūrd the taster were ordered to stop at Chashma-tūra, and get pheasants from the people there.

As I had never been along the Rustam-maidān road,[1477] I went with a few men to see it. Rustam-plain (_maidān_) lies amongst mountains and towards their head is not a very charming place. The dale spreads rather broad between its two ranges. To the south, on the skirt of the rising-ground is a smallish spring, having very large poplars near it. There are many trees also, but not so large, at the source on the way out of Rustam-maidān for Gīrdīz. This is a narrower dale, but still there is a plot of green meadow below the smaller trees mentioned, and the little dale is charming. From the summit of the range, looking south, the Karmāsh and Bangash mountains are seen at one's feet; and beyond the Karmāsh show pile upon pile of the rain-clouds of Hindūstān. Towards those other lands where no rain falls, not [Sidenote: Fol. 240.] a cloud is seen.

We reached Hūnī at the Mid-day Prayer and there dismounted.

(_July 30th_) Dismounting next day at Muḥammad Āghā's village,[1478] we perpetrated (_irtqāb_) a _ma'jūn_. There we had a drug thrown into water for the fish; a few were taken.[1479]

(_July 31st_) On Sunday the 3rd of Sha`bān, we reached Kābul.

(_August 2nd_) On Tuesday the 5th of the month, Darwīsh-i-muḥammad _Faẓlī_ and Khusrau's servants were summoned and, after enquiry made into what short-comings of theirs there may have been when Ḥusain was overcome, they were deprived of place and rank. At the Mid-day Prayer there was a wine-party under a plane-tree, at which an honorary dress was given to Bābā Qashqa _Mughūl_.

(_August 5th_) On Friday the 8th Kīpa returned from the presence of Mīrzā Khān.

(_aa. Excursion to the Koh-dāman._)

(_August 11th_) On Thursday at the Other Prayer, I mounted for an excursion to the Koh-dāman, Bārān and Khwāja Sih-yārān.[1480] At the Bed-time Prayer, we dismounted at Māmā Khātūn.[1481]

(_August 12th_) Next day we dismounted at Istālīf; a confection was eaten on that day.

(_August 13th_) On Saturday there was a wine-party at Istālīf.

(_August 14th_) Riding at dawn from Istālīf, we crossed the space between it and the Sinjid-valley. Near Khwāja Sih-yārān a great snake was killed as thick, it may be, as the fore-arm and as long as a _qūlāch_.[1482] From its inside came out a slenderer snake, that seemed to have been just swallowed, every part of it being [Sidenote: Fol. 240b.] whole; it may have been a little shorter than the larger one. From inside this slenderer snake came out a little mouse; it too was whole, broken nowhere.[1483]

On reaching Khwāja Sih-yārān there was a wine-party. Today orders were written and despatched by Kīch-kīna the night-watch (_tūnqṯār_) to the begs on that side (_i.e._ north of Hindū-kush), giving them a rendezvous and saying, "An army is being got to horse, take thought, and come to the rendezvous fixed."

(_August 15th_) We rode out at dawn and ate a confection. At the infall of the Parwān-water many fish were taken in the local way of casting a fish-drug into the water.[1484] Mīr Shāh Beg set food and water (_āsh u āb_) before us; we then rode on to Gul-bahār. At a wine-party held after the Evening Prayer, Darwīsh-i-muḥammad (_Sārbān_) was present. Though a young man and a soldier, he had not yet committed the sin (_irtqāb_) of wine, but was in obedience (_tā'ib_). Qūtlūq Khwāja _Kūkūldāsh_ had long before abandoned soldiering to become a darwīsh; moreover he was very old, his very beard was quite white; nevertheless he took his share of wine at these parties. Said I to Darwīsh-i-muḥammad, "Qūtlūq Khwāja's beard shames you! He, a darwīsh and an old man, always drinks wine; you, a soldier, a young man, your beard quite black, never drink! What does it mean?" My custom being not to press wine on a non-drinker, with so much said, it all passed off as a joke; he was not pressed to drink.

(_August 16th_) At dawn we made our morning (_ṣubāḥī ṣubūḥī qīldūk_).

(_August 17th_) Riding on Wednesday from Gul-i-bahār, we [Sidenote: Fol. 241.] dismounted in Abūn-village[1485], ate food, remounted, went to a summer-house in the orchards (_bāghāt-i-kham_) and there dismounted. There was a wine-party after the Mid-day Prayer.

(_August 18th_) Riding on next day, we made the circuit of Khwāja Khāwand Sa`īd's tomb, went to China-fort and there got on a raft. Just where the Panjhīr-water comes in, the raft struck the naze of a hill and began to sink. Rauḥ-dam, Tīngrī-qulī and Mīr Muḥammad the raftsman were thrown into the water by the shock; Rauḥ-dam and Tīngrī-qulī were got on the raft again; a China cup and a spoon and a ṯambour went into the water. Lower down, the raft struck again opposite the Sang-i-barīda (the cut-stone), either on a branch in mid-stream or on a stake stuck in as a stop-water (_qāqghān qāzūq_). Right over on his back went Shāh Beg's Shāh Ḥasan, clutching at Mīrzā Qulī Kūkūldāsh and making him fall too. Darwīsh-i-muḥammad _Sārbān_ was also thrown into the water. Mīrzā Qulī went over in his own fashion! Just when he fell, he was cutting a melon which he had in his hand; as he went over, he stuck his knife into the mat of the raft. He swam in his _tūn aūfrāghī_[1486] and got out of the water without coming on the raft again. Leaving it that night, we slept at raftsmen's houses. Darwīsh-i-muḥammad _Sārbān_ presented me with a seven-coloured cup exactly like the one lost in the water.

(_August 19th_) On Friday we rode away from the river's bank and dismounted below Aīndīkī on the skirt of Koh-i-bacha where, with our own hands, we gathered plenty of tooth-picks.[1487] [Sidenote: Fol. 241b.] Passing on, food was eaten at the houses of the Khwāja Khiẓr people. We rode on and at the Mid-day Prayer, dismounted in a village of Qūtlūq Khwāja's fief in Lamghān where he made ready a hasty meal (_mā ḥaẓirī_); after partaking of this, we mounted and went to Kābul.

(_bb. Various incidents._)

(_August 22nd_) On Monday the 25th, a special honorary dress and a saddled horse were bestowed on Darwīsh-i-muḥammad _Sārbān_ and he was made to kneel as a retainer (_naukar_).

(_August 24th_) For 4 or 5 months I had not had my head shaved; on Wednesday the 27th, I had it done. Today there was a wine-party.

(_August 26th_) On Friday the 29th, Mīr Khūrd was made to kneel as Hind-āl's guardian.[1488] He made an offering of 1000 _shāhrukhīs_ (_circa_ £50).

(_August 31st_) On Wednesday the 5th of Ramẓān, a dutiful letter was brought by Tūlik Kūkūldāsh's servant Barlās Jūkī(?). Aūzbeg raiders had gone into those parts (Badakhshān); Tūlik had gone out, fought and beaten them. Barlās Jūkī brought one live Aūzbeg and one head.

(_Sep. 2nd_) In the night of Saturday the 8th, we broke our fast[1489] in Qāsim Beg's house; he led out a saddled horse for me.

(_Sep. 3rd_) On Sunday night the fast was broken in Khalīfa's house; he offered me a saddled horse.

(_Sep. 4th_) Next day came Khwāja Muḥ. `Alī and Jān-i-nāṣir who had been summoned from their districts for the good of the army.[1490]

(_Sep. 7th_) On Wednesday the 12th, Kāmrān's maternal uncle [Sidenote: Fol. 242.] Sl. `Alī Mīrzā arrived.[1491] As has been mentioned,[1492] he had gone to Kāshghar in the year I came from Khwāst into Kābul.

(_cc. A Yūsuf-zāī campaign._)

(_Sep. 8th_) We rode out on Thursday the 13th of the month of Ramẓān, resolved and determined to check and ward off the Yūsuf-zāī, and we dismounted in the meadow on the Dih-i-yaq`ūb side of Kābul. When we were mounting, the equerry Bābā Jān led forward a rather good-for-nothing horse; in my anger I struck him in the face a blow which dislocated my fist below the ring-finger.[1493] The pain was not much at the time, but was rather bad when we reached our encampment-ground. For some time I suffered a good deal and could not write. It got well at last.

To this same assembly-ground were brought letters and presents (_bīlāk_) from my maternal-aunt Daulat-sulṯān Khānīm[1494] in Kāshghar, by her foster-brother Daulat-i-muḥammad. On the same day Bū Khān and Mūsa, chiefs of the Dilazāk, came, bringing tribute, and did obeisance.

(_Sep. 11th_) On Sunday the 16th Qūj Beg came.

(_Sep. 14th_) Marching on Wednesday the 19th we passed through Būt-khāk and, as usual, dismounted on the Būt-khāk water.[1495]

As Qūj Beg's districts, Bāmīān, Kāh-mard and Ghūrī, are close to the Aūzbeg, he was excused from going with this army and given leave to return to them from this ground. I bestowed on him a turban twisted for myself, and also a head-to-foot (_bāsh-ayāq_).

(_Sep. 16th_) On Friday the 21st, we dismounted at Badām-chashma. [Sidenote: Fol. 242b.]

(_Sep. 17th_) Next day we dismounted on the Bārīk-āb, I reaching the camp after a visit to Qarā-tū. On this ground honey was obtained from a tree.

(_Sep. 20th_) We went on march by march till Wednesday the 26th, and dismounted in the Bāgh-i-wafā.

(_Sep. 21st_) Thursday we just stayed in the garden.

(_Sep. 22nd_) On Friday we marched out and dismounted beyond Sulṯānpūr. Today Shāh Mīr Ḥusain came from his country. Today came also Dilazāk chiefs under Bū Khān and Mūsa. My plan had been to put down the Yūsuf-zāī in Sawād, but these chiefs set forth to me that there was a large horde (_aūlūs_) in Hash-naghar and that much corn was to be had there. They were very urgent for us to go to Hash-naghar. After consultation the matter was left in this way:—As it is said there is much corn in Hash-naghar, the Afghāns there shall be overrun; the forts of Hash-naghar and Parashāwar shall be put into order; part of the corn shall be stored in them and they be left in charge of Shāh Mīr Ḥusain and a body of braves. To suit Shāh Mīr Ḥusain's convenience in this, he was given 15 days leave, with a rendezvous named for him to come to after going to his country and preparing his equipment.

(_Sep. 23rd_) Marching on next day, we reached Jūī-shāhī and there dismounted. On this ground Tīngrī-bīrdī and Sl. Muḥammad _Dūldāī_ overtook us. Today came also Ḥamza from Qūndūz.[1496]

(_Sep. 25th_) On Sunday the last day of the month (Ramẓān), we marched from Jūī-shāhī and dismounted at Qīrīq-arīq (forty-conduits), [Sidenote: Fol. 243.] I going by raft, with a special few. The new moon of the Feast was seen at that station.[1497] People had brought a few beast-loads of wine from Nūr-valley;[1498] after the Evening Prayer there was a wine-party, those present being Muḥibb-i-`alī the armourer, Khwāja Muḥ. `Alī the librarian, Shāh Beg's Shāh Ḥasan, Sl. Muḥ. _Dūldāī_ and Darwīsh-i-muḥ. _Sārbān,_ then obedient (_tā'ib_). From my childhood up it had been my rule not to press wine on a non-drinker; Darwīsh-i-muḥammad was at every party and no pressure was put on him (by me), but Khwāja Muḥ. `Alī left him no choice; he pressed him and pressed him till he made him drink.

(_Sep. 26th_) On Monday we marched with the dawn of the Feast-day,[1499] eating a confection on the road to dispel crop-sickness. While under its composing influence (_nāklīk_), we were brought a colocynth-apple (_khunṯul_). Darwīsh-i-muḥammad had never seen one; said I, "It is a melon of Hindūstān," sliced it and gave him a piece. He bit into it at once; it was night before the bitter taste went out of his mouth. At Garm-chashma we dismounted on rising-ground where cold meat was being set out for us when Langar Khān arrived to wait on me after being for a time at his own place (Koh-i-jūd). He brought an offering of a horse and a few confections. Passing on, we dismounted at Yada-bīr, at the Other Prayer got on a raft there, went for as much as two miles on it, then left it.

(_Sep. 27th_) Riding on next morning, we dismounted below the Khaibar-pass. Today arrived Sl. Bāyazīd, come up by the [Sidenote: Fol. 243b.] Bāra-road after hearing of us; he set forth that the Afrīdī Afghāns were seated in Bāra with their goods and families and that they had grown a mass of corn which was still standing (lit. on foot). Our plan being for the Yūsuf-zāī Afghāns of Hash-naghar, we paid him no attention. At the Mid-day Prayer there was a wine-party in Khwāja Muḥammad `Alī's tent. During the party details about our coming in this direction were written and sent off by the hand of a sulṯān of Tīrah to Khwāja Kalān in Bajaur. I wrote this couplet on the margin of the letter (_farmān_):—

Say sweetly o breeze, to that beautiful fawn, Thou hast given my head to the hills and the wild.[1500]

(_Sep. 28th_) Marching on at dawn across the pass, we got through the Khaibar-narrows and dismounted at `Alī-masjid. At the Mid-day Prayer we rode on, leaving the baggage behind, reached the Kābul-water at the second watch (midnight) and there slept awhile.

(_Sep. 29th_) A ford[1501] was found at daylight; we had forded the water (_sū-dīn kīchīldī_), when news came from our scout that the Afghāns had heard of us and were in flight. We went on, passed through the Sawād-water and dismounted amongst the Afghān corn-fields. Not a half, not a fourth indeed of the promised corn was had. The plan of fitting-up Hash-naghar, made under the hope of getting corn here, came to nothing. [Sidenote: Fol. 244.] The Dilazāk Afghāns, who had urged it on us, were ashamed. We next dismounted after fording the water of Sawād to its Kābul side.

(_Sep. 30th_) Marching next morning from the Sawād-water, we crossed the Kābul-water and dismounted. The Begs admitted to counsel were summoned and a consultation having been had, the matter was left at this:—that the Afrīdī Afghāns spoken of by Sl. Bāyazīd should be over-run, Pūrshāwūr-fort be fitted up on the strength of their goods and corn, and some-one left there in charge.

At this station Hindū Beg _Qūchīn_ and the Mīr-zādas of Khwāst overtook us. Today _ma'jūn_ was eaten, the party being Darwesh-i-muḥammad _Sārbān_, Muḥammad Kūkūldāsh, Gadāī T̤aghāī and `Asas; later on we invited Shāh Ḥasan also. After food had been placed before us, we went on a raft, at the Other Prayer. We called Langar Khān _Nīa-zāī_ on also. At the Evening Prayer we got off the raft and went to camp.

(_Oct. 1st_) Marching at dawn, in accordance with the arrangement made on the Kābul-water, we passed Jām and dismounted at the outfall of the `Alī-masjid water.[1502]

(_dd. Badakhshān affairs._)

Sl. `Alī (T̤aghāī's servant ?) Abū'l-hāshim overtaking us, said, "On the night of `Arafa,[1503] I was in Jūī-shāhī with a person from Badakhshān; he told me that Sl. Sa`īd Khān had come with designs on Badakhshān, so I came on from Jūī-shāhī along the Jām-rūd, to give the news to the Pādshāh." On this the begs were summoned and advice was taken. In consequence of this [Sidenote: Fol. 244b.] news, it seemed inadvisable to victual the fort (Pūrshāwūr), and we started back intending to go to Badakhshān.[1504] Langar Khān was appointed to help Muḥ. `Alī _Jang-jang_; he was given an honorary dress and allowed to go.

That night a wine-party was held in Khwāja Muḥ. `Alī's tent. We marched on next day, crossed Khaibar and dismounted below the pass.

(_ee. The Khiẓr-khail Afghāns._)

(_Oct. 3rd_) Many improper things the Khiẓr-khail had done! When the army went to and fro, they used to shoot at the laggards and at those dismounted apart, in order to get their horses. It seemed lawful therefore and right to punish them. With this plan we marched from below the pass at daybreak, ate our mid-day meal in Dih-i-ghulāmān (Basaul),[1505] and after feeding our horses, rode on again at the Mid-day Prayer.

Muḥ Ḥusain the armourer was made to gallop off to Kābul with orders to keep prisoner all Khiẓr-khailīs there, and to submit to me an account of their possessions; also, to write a detailed account of whatever news there was from Badakhshān and to send a man off with it quickly from Kābul to me.

That night we moved on till the second watch (midnight), got a little beyond Sulṯānpūr, there slept awhile, then rode on again. The Khiẓr-khail were understood to have their seat from Bahār (Vihāra?) and Mīch-grām to Karā-sū (_sic_). Arriving before dawn, (_Oct. 4th_) the raid was allowed. Most of the goods of the Khiẓr-khailīs and their small children fell into the army's hands; a few tribesmen, being near the mountains, drew off to [Sidenote: Fol. 245.] them and were left.

(_Oct. 5th_) We dismounted next day at Qīlaghū where pheasants were taken on our ground. Today the baggage came up from the rear and was unloaded here. Owing to this punitive raid, the Wazīrī Afghāns who never had given in their tribute well, brought 300 sheep.

(_Oct. 9th_) I had written nothing since my hand was dislocated; here I wrote a little, on Sunday the 14th of the month.[1506]

(_Oct. 10th_) Next day came Afghān chiefs leading the Khirilchī [and] Samū-khail. The Dilazāk Afghāns entreated pardon for them; we gave it and set the captured free, fixed their tribute at 4000 sheep, gave coats (_tūn_) to their chiefs, appointed and sent out collectors.

(_Oct. 13th_) These matters settled, we marched on Thursday the 18th, and dismounted at Bahār (Vihāra?) and Mīch-grām.

(_Oct. 14th_) Next day I went to the Bāgh-i-wafā. Those were the days of the garden's beauty; its lawns were one sheet of trefoil; its pomegranate-trees yellowed to autumn splendour,[1507] their fruit full red; fruit on the orange-trees green and glad (_khurram_), countless oranges but not yet as yellow as our hearts desired! The pomegranates were excellent, not equal, however, to the best ones of Wilāyat.[1508] The one excellent and blessed content we have had from the Bāgh-i-wafā was had at this time. [Sidenote: Fol. 245b.] We were there three or four days; during the time the whole camp had pomegranates in abundance.

(_Oct. 17th_) We marched from the garden on Monday. I stayed in it till the first watch (9 a.m.) and gave away oranges; I bestowed the fruit of two trees on Shāh Ḥasan; to several begs I gave the fruit of one tree each; to some gave one tree for two persons. As we were thinking of visiting Lamghān in the winter, I ordered that they should reserve (_qūrūghlāīlār_) at least 20 of the trees growing round the reservoir. That day we dismounted at Gandamak.

(_Oct. 18th_) Next day we dismounted at Jagdālīk. Near the Evening Prayer there was a wine-party at which most of the household were present. After a time Qāsim Beg's sister's son Gadāī _bihjat_[1509] used very disturbing words and, being drunk, slid down on the cushion by my side, so Gadāī T̤aghāī picked him up and carried him out from the party.

(_Oct. 19th_) Marching next day from that ground, I made an excursion up the valley-bottom of the Bārīk-āb towards Qūrūq-sāī. A few purslain trees were in the utmost autumn beauty. On dismounting, seasonable[1510] food was set out. The vintage was the cause! wine was drunk! A sheep was ordered brought from the road and made into _kabābs_ (_brochettes_). We amused ourselves by setting fire to branches of holm-oak.[1511]

Mullā `Abdu'l-malik _dīwāna_[1512] having begged to take the news of our coming into Kābul, was sent ahead. To this place came Ḥasan Nabīra from Mīrzā Khān's presence; he must have come after letting me know [his intention of coming].[1513] There was [Sidenote: Fol. 246.] drinking till the Sun's decline; we then rode off. People in our party had become very drunk, Sayyid Qāsim so much so, that two of his servants mounted him and got him into camp with difficulty. Muḥ. Bāqir's Dost was so drunk that people, headed by Amīn-i-muḥammad Tarkhān and Mastī _chuhra_, could not get him on his horse; even when they poured water on his head, nothing was effected. At that moment a body of Afghāns appeared. Amīn-i-muḥammad, who had had enough himself, had this idea, "Rather than leave him here, as he is, to be taken, let us cut his head off and carry it with us." At last after 100 efforts, they mounted him and brought him with them. We reached Kābul at midnight.

(_ff. Incidents in Kābul._)

In Court next morning Qulī Beg waited on me. He had been to Sl. Sa'īd Khān's presence in Kāshghar as my envoy. To him as envoy to me had been added Bīshka Mīrzā _Itārchī_[1514] who brought me gifts of the goods of that country.

(_Oct. 25th_) On Wednesday the 1st of Ẕū'l-qa`da, I went by myself to Qābil's tomb[1515] and there took my morning. The people of the party came later by ones and twos. When the Sun waxed hot, we went to the Violet-garden and drank there, by the side of the reservoir. Mid-day coming on, we slept. At the Mid-day Prayer we drank again. At this mid-day party I gave wine to Tīngrī-qulī Beg and to Mahndī (?) to whom at any earlier party, wine had not been given. At the Bed-time [Sidenote: Fol. 246b.] Prayer, I went to the Hot-bath where I stayed the night.

(_Oct. 26th_) On Thursday honorary dresses were bestowed on the Hindūstānī traders, headed by Yaḥya _Nūḥānī_, and they were allowed to go.

(_Oct. 28th_) On Saturday the 4th, a dress and gifts were bestowed on Bīshka Mīrzā, who had come from Kāshghar, and he was given leave to go.

(_Oct. 29th_) On Sunday there was a party in the little Picture-hall over the (Chār-bāgh) gate; small retreat though it is, 16 persons were present.

(_gg. Excursion to the Koh-dāman._)

(_Oct. 30th_) Today we went to Istālīf to see the harvest (_khizān_). Today was done the sin (? _irtikāb qīlīb aīdī_) of _ma'jūn_. Much rain fell; most of the begs and the household came into my tent, outside the Bāgh-i-kalān.

(_Oct. 31st_) Next day there was a wine-party in the same garden, lasting till night.

(_November 1st_) At dawn we took our morning (_ṣubāḥī ṣubūḥī qīldūk_) and got drunk, took a sleep, and at the Mid-day Prayer rode from Istālīf. On the road a confection was eaten. We reached Bih-zādī at the Other Prayer. The harvest-crops were very beautiful; while we were viewing them those disposed for wine began to agitate about it. The harvest-colour was extremely beautiful; wine was drunk, though _ma'jūn_ had been eaten, sitting under autumnal trees. The party lasted till the Bed-time Prayer. Khalīfa's Mullā Maḥmūd arriving, we had him summoned to join the party. `Abdu'l-lāh was very drunk [Sidenote: Fol. 247.] indeed; a word affecting Khalīfa (_ṯarfidīn_) being said, `Abdu'l-lāh forgot Mullā Maḥmūd and recited this line:—

Regard whom thou wilt, he suffers from the same wound.[1516]

Mullā Maḥmūd was sober; he blamed `Abdu'l-lāh for repeating that line in jest; `Abdu'l-lāh came to his senses, was troubled in mind, and after this talked and chatted very sweetly.

Our excursion to view the harvest was over; we dismounted, close to the Evening Prayer, in the Chār-bāgh.

(_Nov. 12th_) On Friday the 16th, after eating a confection

with a few special people in the Violet-garden, we went on a boat. Humāyūn and Kāmrān were with us later; Humāyūn made a very good shot at a duck.

(_hh. A Bohemian episode._)

(_Nov. 14th_) On Saturday the 18th, I rode out of the Chār-bāgh at midnight, sent night-watch and groom back, crossed Mullā Bābā's bridge, got out by the Dīūrīn-narrows, round by the bāzārs and _kārez_ of Qūsh-nādur (var.), along the back of the Bear-house (_khirs-khāna_), and near sunrise reached Tardī Beg _Khāk-sār's[1517] kārez_. He ran out quickly on hearing of me. His shortness (_qālāshlīghī_) was known; I had taken 100 _shāhrukhīs_ (£5) with me; I gave him these and told him to get wine and other things ready as I had a fancy for a private and unrestrained party. He went for wine towards Bih-zādī[1518]; I sent my horse by his slave to the valley-bottom and sat down on the slope behind the _kārez_. At the first watch (9 a.m.) Tardī Beg brought [Sidenote: Fol. 247b.] a pitcher of wine which we drank by turns. After him came Muḥammad-i-qāsim _Barlās_ and Shāh-zāda who had got to know of his fetching the wine, and had followed him, their minds quite empty of any thought about me. We invited them to the party. Said Tardī Beg, "Hul-hul Anīga wishes to drink wine with you." Said I, "For my part, I never saw a woman drink wine; invite her." We also invited Shāhī a qalandar, and one of the _kārez_-men who played the rebeck. There was drinking till the Evening Prayer on the rising-ground behind the _kārez_; we then went into Tardī Beg's house and drank by lamp-light almost till the Bed-time Prayer. The party was quite free and unpretending. I lay down, the others went to another house and drank there till beat of drum (midnight). Hul-hul Anīga came in and made me much disturbance; I got rid of her at last by flinging myself down as if drunk. It was in my mind to put people off their guard, and ride off alone to Astar-ghach, but it did not come off because they got to know. In the end, I rode away at beat of drum, after letting Tardī Beg and Shāh-zāda know. We three mounted and made for Astar-ghach.

(_Nov. 15th_) We reached Khwāja Ḥasan below Istālīf by the first prayer (_farẓ waqt_); dismounted for a while, ate a confection, [Sidenote: Fol. 248.] and went to view the harvest. When the Sun was up, we dismounted at a garden in Istālīf and ate grapes. We slept at Khwāja Shahāb, a dependency of Astar-ghach. Ātā, the Master of the Horse, must have had a house somewhere near, for before we were awake he had brought food and a pitcher of wine. The vintage was very fine. After drinking a few cups, we rode on. We next dismounted in a garden beautiful with autumn; there a party was held at which Khwāja Muḥammad Amīn joined us. Drinking went on till the Bed-time Prayer. During that day and night `Abdu'l-lāh, `Asas, Nūr Beg and Yūsuf-i-`alī all arrived from Kābul.

(_Nov. 16th_) After food at dawn, we rode out and visited the Bāgh-i-pādshāhī below Astar-ghach. One young apple-tree in it had turned an admirable autumn-colour; on each branch were left 5 or 6 leaves in regular array; it was such that no painter trying to depict it could have equalled. After riding from Astar-ghach we ate at Khwāja Ḥasan, and reached Bih-zādī at the Evening Prayer. There we drank in the house of Khwāja Muḥ. Amīn's servant Imām-i-muḥammad.

(_Nov. 17th_) Next day, Tuesday, we went into the Chār-bāgh of Kābul.

(_Nov. 18th_) On Thursday the 23rd, having marched (_kūchūb_), the fort was entered.

(_Nov. 19th_) On Friday Muḥammad `Alī (son of ?) Ḥaidar the stirrup-holder brought, as an offering, a _tūīgūn_[1519] he had caught.

(_Nov. 20th_) On Saturday the 25th, there was a party in the Plane-tree garden from which I rose and mounted at the Bed-time Prayer. Sayyid Qāsim being in shame at past occurrences,[1520] we dismounted at his house and drank a few cups.

[Sidenote: Fol. 248b.] (_Nov. 24th_) On Thursday the 1st of Ẕū'l-ḥijja, Tāju'd-dīn Maḥmūd, come from Qandahār, waited on me.

(_Dec. 12th_) On Monday the 19th, Muḥ. `Alī _Jang-jang_ came from Nīl-āb.

(_Dec. 13th_) On Tuesday the ... of the month, Sangar Khān _Janjūha_, come from Bhīra, waited on me.

(_Dec. 16th_) On Friday the 23rd, I finished (copying?) the odes and couplets selected according to their measure from `Alī-sher Beg's four Dīwāns.[1521]

(_Dec. 20th_) On Tuesday the 27th there was a social-gathering in the citadel, at which it was ordered that if any-one went out from it drunk, that person should not be invited to a party again.

(_Dec. 23rd_) On Friday the 30th of Ẕū'l-ḥijja it was ridden out with the intention of making an excursion to Lamghān.

926 AH.-DEC. 23RD 1519 TO DEC. 12TH 1520 AD.[1522]

(_a. Excursion to the Koh-dāman and Kohistān._)

(_Dec. 23rd_) On Saturday Muḥarram 1st Khwāja Sih-yārān was reached. A wine-party was had on the bank of the conduit, where this comes out on the hill.[1523]

(_Dec. 24th_) Riding on next morning (2nd), we visited the moving sands (_reg-i-rawān_). A party was held in Sayyid Qāsim's _Bulbul's_ house.[1524]

(_Dec. 25th_) Riding on from there, we ate a confection (_ma'jūn_), went further and dismounted at Bilkir (?).

(_Dec. 26th_) At dawn (4th) we made our morning [_ṣubāḥī ṣubūḥī qīldūk_], although there might be drinking at night. We rode on at the Mid-day Prayer, dismounted at Dūr-nāma[1525] and there had a wine party.

(_Dec. 27th_) We took our morning early. Ḥaq-dād, the headman of Dūr-namā made me an offering (_pesh-kash_) of his garden.

(_Dec. 28th_) Riding thence on Thursday (6th), we dismounted at the villages of the Tājiks in Nijr-aū.

(_Dec. 29th_) On Friday (7th) we hunted the hill between Forty-ploughs (_Chihil-qulba_) and the water of Bārān; many deer fell. [Sidenote: Fol. 249.] I had not shot an arrow since my hand was hurt; now, with an easy[1526] bow, I shot a deer in the shoulder, the arrow going in to half up the feather. Returning from hunting, we went on at the Other Prayer in Nijr-aū.

(_Dec. 30th_) Next day (Saturday 8th) the tribute of the Nijr-aū people was fixed at 60 gold mis̤qāls.[1527]

(_Jan. 1st_) On Monday (10th) we rode on intending to visit Lamghān.[1528] I had expected Humāyūn to go with us, but as he inclined to stay behind, leave was given him from Kūra-pass. We went on and dismounted in Badr-aū (Tag-aū).

(_b. Excursions in Lamghān._)

(_Jan. ..._) Riding on, we dismounted at Aūlūgh-nūr.[1529] The fishermen there took fish at one draught[1530] from the water of Bārān. At the Other Prayer (afternoon) there was drinking on the raft; and there was drinking in a tent after we left the raft at the Evening Prayer.

Ḥaidar the standard-bearer had been sent from Dāwar[1531] to the Kāfirs; several Kāfir headmen came now to the foot of Bād-i-pīch (pass), brought a few goat-skins of wine, and did obeisance. In descending that pass a surprising number of ...[1532] was seen.

(_Jan. ..._) Next day getting on a raft, we ate a confection, got off below Būlān and went to camp. There were two rafts.

(_Jan. 5th_) Marching on Friday (14th), we dismounted below Mandrāwar on the hill-skirt. There was a late wine-party.

(_Jan. 6th_) On Saturday (15th), we passed through the Darūta narrows by raft, got off a little above Jahān-namā'ī (Jalālābād) and went to the Bāgh-i-wafā in front of Adīnapūr. When we were leaving the raft the governor of Nīngnahār Qayyām Aūrdū Shāh came and did obeisance. Langar Khān _Nīā-zāī_,—he had [Sidenote: Fol. 249b.] been in Nīl-āb for a time,—waited upon me on the road. We dismounted in the Bāgh-i-wafā; its oranges had yellowed beautifully; its spring-bloom was well-advanced, and it was very charming. We stayed in it five or six days.

As it was my wish and inclination (_jū dagh-dagha_)to return to obedience (_tā'ib_) in my 40th year, I was drinking to excess now that less than a year was left.

(_Jan. 7th_) On Sunday the 16th, having made my morning (_ṣubūḥī_) and became sober. Mullā Yārak played an air he had composed in five-time and in the five-line measure (_makhammas_), while I chose to eat a confection (_ma'jūn_). He had composed an excellent air. I had not occupied myself with such things for some time; a wish to compose came over me now, so I composed an air in four-time, as will be mentioned in time.[1533]

(_Jan. 10th_) On Wednesday (19th) it was said for fun, while we were making our morning (_ṣubūḥī_), "Let whoever speaks like a Sārt (_i.e._ in Persian) drink a cup." Through this many drank. At _sunnat-waqt_[1534] again, when we were sitting under the willows in the middle of the meadow, it was said, "Let whoever speaks like a Turk, drink a cup!" Through this also numbers drank. After the sun got up, we drank under the orange-trees on the reservoir-bank.

(_Jan. 11th_) Next day (20th) we got on a raft from Darūta; got off again below Jūī-shāhī and went to Atar.

(_Jan...._) We rode from there to visit Nūr-valley, went as far as Sūsān (lily)-village, then turned back and dismounted in Amla.

[Sidenote: Fol. 250.] (_Jan. 14th_) As Khwāja Kalān had brought Bajaur into good order, and as he was a friend of mine, I had sent for him and had made Bajaur over to Shāh Mīr Ḥusain's charge. On Saturday the 22nd of the month (Muḥarram), Shāh Mīr Ḥusain was given leave to go. That day in Amla we drank.

(_Jan. 15th_) It rained (_yāmghūr yāghdūrūb_) next day (23rd).

When we reached Kula-grām in Kūnār[1535] where Malik `Alī's house is, we dismounted at his middle son's house, overlooking an orange-orchard. We did not go into the orchard because of the rain but just drank where we were. The rain was very heavy. I taught Mullā `Alī Khān a ṯalisman I knew; he wrote it on four pieces of paper and hung them on four sides; as he did it, the rain stopped and the air began to clear.

(_Jan. 16th_) At dawn (24th) we got on a raft; on another several braves went. People in Bajaur, Sawād, Kūnār and thereabouts make a beer (_bīr būza_)[1536] the ferment of which is a thing they call _kīm_.[1537] This _kīm_ they make of the roots of herbs and several simples, shaped like a loaf, dried and kept by them. Some sorts of beer are surprisingly exhilarating, but bitter and distasteful. We had thought of drinking beer but, because of its bitter taste, preferred a confection. `Asas, Ḥasan _Aīkirik_,[1538] and Mastī, on the other raft, were ordered to drink some; they did so and became quite drunk. Ḥasan _Aīkirik_ set up a disgusting disturbance; `Asas, very drunk, did such [Sidenote: Fol. 250b.] unpleasant things that we were most uncomfortable (_ba tang_). I thought of having them put off on the far side of the water, but some of the others begged them off.

I had sent for Khwāja Kalān at this time and had bestowed Bajaur on Shāh Mīr Ḥusain. For why? Khwāja Kalān was a friend; his stay in Bajaur had been long; moreover the Bajaur appointment appeared an easy one.

At the ford of the Kūnār-water Shāh Mīr Ḥusain met me on his way to Bajaur. I sent for him and said a few trenchant words, gave him some special armour, and let him go.

Opposite Nūr-gal (Rock-village) an old man begged from those on the rafts; every-one gave him something, coat (_tūn_), turban, bathing-cloth and so on, so he took a good deal away.

At a bad place in mid-stream the raft struck with a great shock; there was much alarm; it did not sink but Mīr Muḥammad the raftsman was thrown into the water. We were near Atar that night.

(_Jan. 17th_) On Tuesday (25th) we reached Mandrāwar.[1539] Qūtlūq-qadam and his father had arranged a party inside the fort; though the place had no charm, a few cups were drunk there to please them. We went to camp at the Other Prayer.

(_Jan. 18th_) On Wednesday (26th) an excursion was made to Kind-kir[1540] spring. Kind-kir is a dependent village of the Mandrāwar _tūmān_, the one and only village of the Lamghānāt [Sidenote: Fol. 251.] where dates are grown. It lies rather high on the mountain-skirt, its date lands on its east side. At one edge of the date lands is the spring, in a place aside (_yān yīr_). Six or seven yards below the spring-head people have heaped up stones to make a shelter[1541] for bathing and by so-doing have raised the water in the reservoir high enough for it to pour over the heads of the bathers. The water is very soft; it is felt a little cold in wintry days but is pleasant if one stays in it.

(_Jan. 19th_) On Thursday (27th) Sher Khān _Tarkalānī_ got us to dismount at his house and there gave us a feast (_ẓiyāfat_). Having ridden on at the Mid-day Prayer, fish were taken out of the fish-ponds of which particulars have been given.[1542]

(_Jan. 20th_) On Friday (28th) we dismounted near Khwāja Mīr-i-mīrān's village. A party was held there at the Evening Prayer.

(_Jan. 21st_) On Saturday (29th) we hunted the hill between `Alī-shang and Alangār. One hunting-circle having been made on the `Alī-shang side, another on the Alangār, the deer were driven down off the hill and many were killed. Returning from hunting, we dismounted in a garden belonging to the Maliks of Alangār and there had a party.

Half of one of my front-teeth had broken off, the other half remaining; this half broke off today while I was eating food.

(_Jan. 22nd_) At dawn (Ṣafar 1st) we rode out and had a fishing-net cast, at mid-day went into `Alī-shang and drank in a garden.

(_Jan. 23rd_) Next day (Ṣafar 2nd) Ḥamza Khān, Malik of `Alī-shang was made over to the avengers-of-blood[1543] for his evil deeds in shedding innocent blood, and retaliation was made.

(_Jan. 24th_) On Tuesday, after reading a chapter of the Qorān [Sidenote: Fol. 251b.] (_wird_), we turned for Kābul by the Yān-būlāgh road. At the Other Prayer, we passed the [Bārān]-water from Aūlūgh-nūr (Great-rock); reached Qarā-tū by the Evening Prayer, there gave our horses corn and had a hasty meal prepared, rode on again as soon as they had finished their barley.[1544]

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE ON 926 TO 932 AH.-1520 TO 1525 AD.

Bābur's diary breaks off here for five years and ten months.[1545] His activities during the unrecorded period may well have left no time in which to keep one up, for in it he went thrice to Qandahār, thrice into India, once to Badakhshān, once to Balkh; twice at least he punished refractory tribesmen; he received embassies from Hindūstān, and must have had much to oversee in muster and equipment for his numerous expeditions. Over and above this, he produced the _Mubīn_, a Turkī poem of 2000 lines.

That the gap in his autobiography is not intentional several passages in his writings show;[1546] he meant to fill it; there is no evidence that he ever did so; the reasonable explanation of his failure is that he died before he had reached this part of his book.

The events of these unrecorded years are less interesting than those of the preceding gap, inasmuch as their drama of human passion is simpler; it is one mainly of cross-currents of ambition, nothing in it matching the maelstrom of sectarian hate, tribal antipathy, and racial struggle which engulphed Bābur's fortunes beyond the Oxus.

None-the-less the period has its distinctive mark, the biographical one set by his personality as his long-sustained effort works out towards rule in Hindūstān. He becomes felt; his surroundings bend to his purpose; his composite following accepts his goal; he gains the southern key of Kābul and Hindūstān and presses the Arghūns out from his rear; in the Panj-āb he becomes a power; the Rājpūt Rānā of Chitor proffers him alliance against Ibrāhīm; and his intervention is sought in those warrings of the Afghāns which were the matrix of his own success.

_a. Dramatis personae._

The following men played principal parts in the events of the unchronicled years:—

Bābur in Kābul, Badakhshān and Balkh,[1547] his earlier following purged of Mughūl rebellion, and augmented by the various Mīrzās-in-exile in whose need of employment Shāh Beg saw Bābur's need of wider territory.[1548]

Sulṯān Ibrāhīm _Lūdī_ who had succeeded after his father Sikandar's death (Sunday Ẕū'l-qa`da 7th 923 _AH._-Nov. 21st 1517 AD.)[1549], was now embroiled in civil war, and hated for his tyranny and cruelty.

Shāh Ismā`īl _Ṣafawī_, ruling down to Rajab 19th 930 AH. (May 24th 1524 AD.) and then succeeded by his son T̤ahmāsp _aet._ 10.

Kūchūm (Kūchkūnjī) Khān, Khāqān of the Aūzbegs, Shaibānī's successor, now in possession of Transoxiana.

Sulṯān Sa`īd Khān _Chaghatāī_, with head-quarters in Kāshghar, a ruler amongst the Mughūls but not their Khāqān, the supreme Khānship being his elder brother Manṣūr's.

Shāh Shujā' Beg _Arghūn_, who, during the period, at various times held Qandahār, Shāl, Mustang, Sīwīstān, and part of Sind. He died in 930 AH. (1524 AD.) and was succeeded by his son Ḥasan who read the _khuṯba_ for Bābur.

Khān Mīrzā _Mīrānshāhī_, who held Badakhshān from Bābur, with head-quarters in Qūndūz; he died in 927 AH. (1520 AD.) and was succeeded in his appointment by Humāyūn _aet._ 13.

Muḥammad-i-zamān _Bāī-qarā_ who held Balkh perhaps direct from Bābur, perhaps from Ismā`īl through Bābur.

`Alā'u'd-dīn `Ālam Khān _Lūdī_, brother of the late Sulṯān Sikandar _Lūdī_ and now desiring to supersede his nephew Ibrāhīm.

Daulat Khān _Yūsuf-khail_ (as Bābur uniformly describes him), or _Lūdī_ (as other writers do), holding Lāhor for Ibrāhīm _Lūdī_ at the beginning of the period.

_SOURCES FOR THE EVENTS OF THIS GAP_

A complete history of the events the _Bābur-nāma_ leaves unrecorded has yet to be written. The best existing one, whether Oriental or European, is Erskine's _History of India_, but this does not exhaust the sources—notably not using the _Ḥabību's-siyar_—and could be revised here and there with advantage.

Most of the sources enumerated as useful for filling the previous gap are so here; to them must be added, for the affairs of Qandahār, Khwānd-amīr's _Ḥabību's-siyar_. This Mīr Ma`ṣūm's _Tārīkh-i-sind_ supplements usefully, but its brevity and its discrepant dates make it demand adjustment; in some details it is expanded by Sayyid Jamāl's _Tarkhān-_ or _Arghūn-nāma_.

For the affairs of Hindūstān the main sources are enumerated in Elliot and Dowson's _History of India_ and in Nassau Lees' _Materials for the history of India_. Doubtless all will be exhausted for the coming _Cambridge History of India_.

_EVENTS OF THE UNCHRONICLED YEARS_

926 AH.-DEC. 23RD 1519 TO DEC. 12TH 1520 AD.

The question of which were Bābur's "Five expeditions" into Hindūstān has been often discussed; it is useful therefore to establish the dates of those known as made. I have entered one as made in this year for the following reasons;—it broke short because Shāh Beg made incursion into Bābur's territories, and that incursion was followed by a siege of Qandahār which several matters mentioned below show to have taken place in 926 AH.

_a. Expedition into Hindūstān._

The march out from Kābul may have been as soon as muster and equipment allowed after the return from Lamghān chronicled in the diary. It was made through Bajaur where refractory tribesmen were brought to order. The Indus will have been forded at the usual place where, until the last one of 932 AH. (1525 AD.), all expeditions crossed on the outward march. Bhīra was traversed in which were Bābur's own Commanders, and advance was made, beyond lands yet occupied, to Sīālkot, 72 miles north of Lāhor and in the Rechna _dū-āb_. It was occupied without resistance; and a further move made to what the MSS. call Sayyidpūr; this attempted defence, was taken by assault and put to the sword. No place named Sayyidpūr is given in the Gazetteer of India, but the _Āyīn-i-akbarī_ mentions a Sidhpūr which from its neighbourhood to Sīālkot may be what Bābur took.

Nothing indicates an intention in Bābur to join battle with Ibrāhīm at this time; Lāhor may have been his objective, after he had made a demonstration in force to strengthen his footing in Bhīra. Whatever he may have planned to do beyond Sidhpūr(?) was frustrated by the news which took him back to Kābul and thence to Qandahār, that an incursion into his territory had been made by Shāh Beg.

_b. Shāh Shujā` Beg's position._

Shāh Beg was now holding Qandahār, Shāl, Mustang and Sīwīstān.[1550] He knew that he held Qandahār by uncertain tenure, in face of its desirability for Bābur and his own lesser power. His ground was further weakened by its usefulness for operations on Harāt and the presence with Bābur of Bāī-qarā refugees, ready to seize a chance, if offered by Ismā`īl's waning fortunes, for recovery of their former seat. Knowing his weakness, he for several years had been pushing his way out into Sind by way of the Bolān-pass.

His relations with Bābur were ostensibly good; he had sent him envoys twice last year, the first time to announce a success at Kāhān had in the end of 924 AH. (Nov. 1519 AD.). His son Ḥasan however, with whom he was unreconciled, had been for more than a year in Bābur's company,—a matter not unlikely to stir under-currents of unfriendliness on either side.

His relations with Shāh Ismā`īl were deferential, in appearance even vassal-like, as is shewn by Khwānd-amīr's account of his appeal for intervention against Bābur to the Shāh's officers in Harāt. Whether he read the _khuṯba_ for any suzerain is doubtful; his son Ḥasan, it may be said, read it later on for Bābur.

_c. The impelling cause of this siege of Qandahār._

Precisely what Shāh Beg did to bring Bābur back from the Panj-āb and down upon Qandahār is not found mentioned by any source. It seems likely to have been an affair of subordinates instigated by or for him. Its immediate agents may have been the Nīkdīrī (Nūkdīrī) and Hazāra tribes Bābur punished on his way south. Their location was the western border-land; they may have descended on the Great North Road or have raided for food in that famine year. It seems certain that Shāh Beg made no serious attempt on Kābul; he was too much occupied in Sind to allow him to do so. Some unused source may throw light on the matter incidentally; the offence may have been small in itself and yet sufficient to determine Bābur to remove risk from his rear.[1551]

_d. Qandahār._

The Qandahār of Bābur's sieges was difficult of capture; he had not taken it in 913 AH. (f. 208_b_) by siege or assault, but by default after one day's fight in the open. The strength of its position can be judged from the following account of its ruins as they were seen in 1879 AD., the military details of which supplement Bellew's description quoted in Appendix J.

The fortifications are of great extent with a treble line of bastioned walls and a high citadel in the centre. The place is in complete ruin and its locality now useful only as a grazing ground.... "The town is in three parts, each on a separate eminence, and capable of mutual defence. The mountain had been covered with towers united by curtains, and the one on the culminating point may be called impregnable. It commanded the citadel which stood lower down on the second eminence, and this in turn commanded the town which was on a table-land elevated above the plain. The triple walls surrounding the city were at a considerable distance from it. After exploring the citadel and ruins, we mounted by the gorge to the summit of the hill with the impregnable fort. In this gorge are the ruins of two tanks, some 80 feet square, all destroyed, with the pillars fallen; the work is _pukka_ in brick and _chunām_ (cement) and each tank had been domed in; they would have held about 400,000 gallons each." (Le Messurier's _Kandahar in 1879 AD._ pp. 223, 245.)

_e. Bābur's sieges of Qandahār._

The term of five years is found associated with Bābur's sieges of Qandahār, sometimes suggesting a single attempt of five years' duration. This it is easy to show incorrect; its root may be Mīr Ma`ṣūm's erroneous chronology.

The day on which the keys of Qandahār were made over to Bābur is known, from the famous inscription which commemorates the event (Appendix J), as Shawwāl 13th 928 AH. Working backwards from this, it is known that in 927 AH. terms of surrender were made and that Bābur went back to Kābul; he is besieging it in 926 AH.—the year under description; his annals of 925 AH. are complete and contain no siege; the year 924 AH. appears to have had no siege, Shāh Beg was on the Indus and his son was for at least part of it with Bābur; 923 AH. was a year of intended siege, frustrated by Bābur's own illness; of any siege in 922 AH. there is as yet no record known. So that it is certain there was no unremitted beleaguerment through five years.

_f. The siege of 926 AH. (1520 AD.)._

When Bābur sat down to lay regular siege to Qandahār, with mining and battering of the walls,[1552] famine was desolating the country round. The garrison was reduced to great distress; "pestilence," ever an ally of Qandahār, broke out within the walls, spread to Bābur's camp, and in the month of Tīr (June) led him to return to Kābul.

In the succeeding months of respite, Shāh Beg pushed on in Sind and his former slave, now commander, Mehtar Saṃbhal revictualled the town.

927 AH.—DEC. 12TH 1520 TO DEC. 1ST 1521 AD.

_a. The manuscript sources._

Two accounts of the sieges of Qandahār in this and next year are available, one in Khwānd-amīr's _Ḥabību's-siyar_, the other in Ma`ṣūm _Bhakkarī's Tārīkh-i-sind_. As they have important differences, it is necessary to consider the opportunities of their authors for information.

Khwānd-amīr finished his history in 1524-29 AD. His account of these affairs of Qandahār is contemporary; he was in close touch with several of the actors in them and may have been in Harāt through their course; one of his patrons, Amīr Ghiyāṣu'd-dīn, was put to death in this year in Harāt because of suspicion that he was an ally of Bābur; his nephew, another Ghiyāṣu'd-dīn was in Qandahār, the bearer next year of its keys to Bābur; moreover he was with Bābur himself a few years later in Hindūstān.

Mīr Ma`ṣūm wrote in 1600 AD. 70 to 75 years after Khwānd-amīr. Of these sieges he tells what may have been traditional and mentions no manuscript authorities. Blochmann's biography of him (_Āyīn-i-akbarī_ p. 514) shews his ample opportunity of learning orally what had happened in the Arghūn invasion of Sind, but does not mention the opportunity for hearing traditions about Qandahār which his term of office there allowed him. During that term it was that he added an inscription, commemorative of Akbar's dominion, to Bābur's own at Chihil-zīna, which records the date of the capture of Qandahār (928 AH.-1522 AD.).

_b. The Ḥabību's-siyar account_ (lith. ed. iii, part 4, p. 97).

Khwānd-amīr's contemporary narrative allows Ma`ṣūm's to dovetail into it as to some matters, but contradicts it in the important ones of date, and mode of surrender by Shāh Beg to Bābur. It states that Bābur was resolved in 926 AH. (1520 AD.) to uproot Shāh Shujā` Beg from Qandahār, led an army against the place, and "opened the Gates of war". It gives no account of the siege of 926 AH. but passes on to the occurrences of 927 AH. (1521 AD.) when Shāh Beg, unable to meet Bābur in the field, shut himself up in the town and strengthened the defences. Bābur put his utmost pressure on the besieged, "often riding his piebald horse close to the moat and urging his men to fiery onset." The garrison resisted manfully, breaching the "life-fortresses" of the Kābulīs with sword, arrow, spear and death-dealing stone, but Bābur's heroes were most often victorious, and drove their assailants back through the Gates.

_c. Death of Khān Mīrzā reported to Bābur._

Meantime, continues Khwānd-amīr, Khān Mīrzā had died in Badakhshān; the news was brought to Bābur and caused him great grief; he appointed Humāyūn to succeed the Mīrzā while he himself prosecuted the siege of Qandahār and the conquest of the Garm-sīr.[1553]

_d. Negociations with Bābur._

The Governor of Harāt at this time was Shāh Ismā`īl's son T̤ahmāsp, between six and seven years old. His guardian Amīr Khān took chief part in the diplomatic intervention with Bābur, but associated with him was Amīr Ghiyāṣu'd-dīn—the patron of Khwānd-amīr already mentioned—until put to death as an ally of Bābur. The discussion had with Bābur reveals a complexity of motives demanding attention. Nominally undertaken though intervention was on behalf of Shāh Beg, and certainly so at his request, the Persian officers seem to have been less anxious on his account than for their own position in Khurāsān, their master's position at the time being weakened by ill-success against the Sulṯān of Rūm. To Bābur, Shāh Beg is written of as though he were an insubordinate vassal whom Bābur was reducing to order for the Shāh, but when Amīr Khān heard that Shāh Beg was hard pressed, he was much distressed because he feared a victorious Bābur might move on Khurāsān. Nothing indicates however that Bābur had Khurāsān in his thoughts; Hindūstān was his objective, and Qandahār a help on the way; but as Amīr Khān had this fear about him, a probable ground for it is provided by the presence with Bābur of Bāī-qarā exiles whose ambition it must have been to recover their former seat. Whether for Harāt, Kābul, or Hindūstān, Qandahār was strength. Another matter not fitting the avowed purpose of the diplomatic intervention is the death of Ghiyāṣu'd-dīn because an ally of Bābur; this makes Amīr Khān seem to count Bābur as Ismā`īl's enemy.

Shāh Beg's requests for intervention began in 926 AH. (1520 AD.), as also did the remonstrance of the Persian officers with Bābur; his couriers followed one another with entreaty that the Amīrs would contrive for Bābur to retire, with promise of obeisance and of yearly tribute. The Amīrs set forth to Bābur that though Shāh Shujā` Beg had offended and had been deserving of wrath and chastisement, yet, as he was penitent and had promised loyalty and tribute, it was now proper for Bābur to raise the siege (of 926 AH.) and go back to Kābul. To this Bābur answered that Shāh Beg's promise was a vain thing, on which no reliance could be placed; please God!, said he, he himself would take Qandahār and send Shāh Beg a prisoner to Harāt; and that he should be ready then to give the keys of the town and the possession of the Garm-sīr to any-one appointed to receive them.

This correspondence suits an assumption that Bābur acted for Shāh Ismā`īl, a diplomatic assumption merely, the verbal veil, on one side, for anxiety lest Bābur or those with him should attack Harāt,—on the other, for Bābur's resolve to hold Qandahār himself.

Amīr Khān was not satisfied with Bābur's answer, but had his attention distracted by another matter, presumably `Ubaidu'l-lāh Khān's attack on Harāt in the spring of the year (March-April 1521 AD.). Negociations appear to have been resumed later, since Khwānd-amīr claims it as their result that Bābur left Qandahār this year.

_e. The Tārīkh-i-sind account._

Mīr Ma`ṣūm is very brief; he says that in this year (his 922 AH.), Bābur went down to Qandahār before the year's tribute in grain had been collected, destroyed the standing crops, encompassed the town, and reduced it to extremity; that Shāh Beg, wearied under reiterated attack and pre-occupied by operations in Sind, proposed terms, and that these were made with stipulation for the town to be his during one year more and then to be given over to Bābur. These terms settled, Bābur went to Kābul, Shāh Beg to Sīwī.

The Arghūn families were removed to Shāl and Sīwī, so that the year's delay may have been an accommodation allowed for this purpose.

_f. Concerning dates._

There is much discrepancy between the dates of the two historians. Khwānd-amīr's agree with the few fixed ones of the period and with the course of events; several of Ma`ṣūm's, on the contrary, are _seriatim_ five (lunar) years earlier. For instance, events Khwānd-amīr places under 927 AH. Ma`ṣūm places under 922 AH. Again, while Ma`ṣūm correctly gives 913 AH. (1507 AD.) as the year of Bābur's first capture of Qandahār, he sets up a discrepant series later, from the success Shāh Beg had at Kāhān; this he allots to 921 AH. (1515 AD.) whereas Bābur received news of it (f. 233_b_) in the beginning of 925 AH. (1519 AD.). Again, Ma`ṣūm makes Shāh Ḥasan go to Bābur in 921 AH. and stay two years; but Ḥasan spent the whole of 925 AH. with Bābur and is not mentioned as having left before the second month of 926 AH. Again, Ma`ṣūm makes Shāh Beg surrender the keys of Qandahār in 923 AH. (1517 AD.), but 928 AH. (1522 AD.) is shewn by Khwānd-amīr's dates and narrative, and is inscribed at Chihil-zīna.[1554]

928 AH.-DEC. 1ST 1521 TO NOV. 20TH 1522 AD.

_a. Bābur visits Badakhshān._

Either early in this year or late in the previous one, Bābur and Māhīm went to visit Humāyūn in his government, probably to Faizābād, and stayed with him what Gul-badan calls a few days.

_b. Expedition to Qandahār._

This year saw the end of the duel for possession of Qandahār. Khwānd-amīr's account of its surrender differs widely from Ma`ṣūm's. It claims that Bābur's retirement in 927 AH. was due to the remonstrances from Harāt, and that Shāh Beg, worn out by the siege, relied on the arrangement the Amīrs had made with Bābur and went to Sīwī, leaving one `Abdu'l-bāqī in charge of the place. This man, says Khwānd-amīr, drew the line of obliteration over his duty to his master, sent to Bābur, brought him down to Qandahār, and gave him the keys of the town—by the hand of Khwānd-amīr's nephew Ghiyāṣu'd-dīn, specifies the _Tarkhān-nāma_. In this year messengers had come and gone between Bābur and Harāt; two men employed by Amīr Khān are mentioned by name; of them the last had not returned to Harāt when a courier of Bābur's, bringing a tributary gift, announced there that the town was in his master's hands. Khwānd-amīr thus fixes the year 928 AH. as that in which the town passed into Bābur's hands; this date is confirmed by the one inscribed in the monument of victory at Chihil-zīna which Bābur ordered excavated on the naze of the limestone ridge behind the town. The date there given is Shawwāl 13th 928 AH. (Sep. 6th 1522 AD.).

Ma`ṣūm's account, dated 923 AH. (1517 AD.), is of the briefest:—Shāh Beg fulfilled his promise, much to Bābur's approval, by sending him the keys of the town and royal residence.

Although Khwānd-amīr's account has good claim to be accepted, it must be admitted that several circumstances can be taken to show that Shāh Beg had abandoned Qandahār, _e.g._ the removal of the families after Bābur's retirement last year, and his own absence in a remote part of Sind this year.

_c. The year of Shāh Beg's death._

Of several variant years assigned for the death of Shāh Beg in the sources, two only need consideration.[1555] There is consensus of opinion about the month and close agreement about the day, Sha`bān 22nd or 23rd. Ma`ṣūm gives a chronogram, _Shahr-Sha`bān_, (month of Sha`bān) which yields 928, but he does not mention where he obtained it, nor does anything in his narrative shew what has fixed the day of the month.

Two objections to 928 are patent: (1) the doubt engendered by Ma`ṣūm's earlier ante-dating; (2) that if 928 be right, Shāh Beg was already dead over two months when Qandahār was surrendered. This he might have been according to Khwānd-amīr's narrative, but if he died on Sha`bān 22nd 928 (July 26th 1522), there was time for the news to have reached Qandahār, and to have gone on to Harāt before the surrender. Shāh Beg's death at that time could not have failed to be associated in Khwānd-amīr's narrative with the fate of Qandahār; it might have pleaded some excuse with him for `Abdu'l-bāqī, who might even have had orders from Shāh Ḥasan to make the town over to Bābur whose suzerainty he had acknowledged at once on succession by reading the _khuṯba_ in his name. Khwānd-amīr however does not mention what would have been a salient point in the events of the siege; his silence cannot but weigh against the 928 AH.

The year 930 AH. is given by Niẕāmu'd-dīn Aḥmad's _T̤abaqāt-i-akbarī_ (lith. ed. p. 637), and this year has been adopted by Erskine, Beale, and Ney Elias, perhaps by others. Some light on the matter may be obtained incidentally as the sources are examined for a complete history of India, perhaps coming from the affairs of Multān, which was attacked by Shāh Ḥasan after communication with Bābur.

_d. Bābur's literary work in 928 AH. and earlier._

1. The _Mubīn_. This year, as is known from a chronogram within the work, Bābur wrote the Turkī poem of 2000 lines to which Abū'l-faẓl and Badāyūnī give the name _Mubīn_ (The Exposition), but of which the true title is said by the _Nafā'isu'l-ma`āsir_ to be _Dar fiqa mubaiyan_ (The Law expounded). Sprenger found it called also _Fiqa-i-bāburī_ (Bābur's Law). It is a versified and highly orthodox treatise on Muḥammadan Law, written for the instruction of Kāmrān. A Commentary on it, called also _Mubīn_, was written by Shaikh Zain. Bābur quotes from it (f. 351_b_) when writing of linear measures. Berézine found and published a large portion of it as part of his _Chrestomathie Turque_ (Kazan 1857); the same fragment may be what was published by Ilminsky. Teufel remarks that the MS. used by Berézine may have descended direct from one sent by Bābur to a distinguished legist of Transoxiana, because the last words of Berézine's imprint are Bābur's _Begleitschreiben_ (_envoi_); he adds the expectation that the legist's name might be learned. Perhaps this recipient was the Khwāja Kalān, son of Khwāja Yaḥya, a Samarkandī to whom Bābur sent a copy of his Memoirs on March 7th 1520 (935 AH. f. 363).[1556]

2. The _Bābur-nāma_ diary of 925-6 AH. (1519-20 AD.). This is almost contemporary with the _Mubīn_ and is the earliest part of the _Bābur-nāma_ writings now known. It was written about a decade earlier than the narrative of 899 to 914 AH. (1494 to 1507 AD.), carries later annotations, and has now the character of a draft awaiting revision.

3. A _Dīwān_ (Collection of poems). By dovetailing a few fragments of information, it becomes clear that by 925 AH. (1519 AD.) Bābur had made a Collection of poetical compositions distinct from the Rāmpūr _Dīwān_; it is what he sent to Pūlād Sulṯan in 925 AH. (f. 238). Its date excludes the greater part of the Rāmpūr one. It may have contained those verses to which my husband drew attention in the Asiatic Quarterly Review of 1911, as quoted in the _Abūshqa_; and it may have contained, in agreement with its earlier date, the verses Bābur quotes as written in his earlier years. None of the quatrains found in the _Abūshqa_ and there attributed to "Bābur Mīrzā", are in the Rāmpūr _Dīwān_; nor are several of those early ones of the _Bābur-nāma_. So that the Dīwān sent to Pūlād Sulṯān may be the source from which the _Abūshqa_ drew its examples.

On first examining these verses, doubt arose as to whether they were really by Bābur _Mīrānshāhī_; or whether they were by "Bābur Mīrzā" _Shāhrukhī_. Fortunately my husband lighted on one of them quoted in the _Sanglakh_ and there attributed to Bābur Pādshāh. The _Abūshqa_ quatrains are used as examples in de Courteille's _Dictionary_, but without an author's name; they can be traced there through my husband's articles.[1557]

929 AH.—NOV. 20TH 1522 TO NOV. 10TH 1523 AD.

_a. Affairs of Hindūstān._

The centre of interest in Bābur's affairs now moves from Qandahār to a Hindūstān torn by faction, of which faction one result was an appeal made at this time to Bābur by Daulat Khān _Lūdī_ (_Yūsuf-khail_) and `Alāu'd-dīn `Ālam Khān _Lūdī_ for help against Ibrāhīm.[1558]

The following details are taken mostly from Aḥmad Yādgār's _Tārīkh-i-salāṯīn-i-afāghana_[1559]:—Daulat Khān had been summoned to Ibrāhīm's presence; he had been afraid to go and had sent his son Dilāwar in his place; his disobedience angering Ibrāhīm, Dilāwar had a bad reception and was shewn a ghastly exhibit of disobedient commanders. Fearing a like fate for himself, he made escape and hastened to report matters to his father in Lāhor. His information strengthening Daulat Khān's previous apprehensions, decided the latter to proffer allegiance to Bābur and to ask his help against Ibrāhīm. Apparently `Ālam Khān's interests were a part of this request. Accordingly Dilāwar (or Apāq) Khān went to Kābul, charged with his father's message, and with intent to make known to Bābur Ibrāhīm's evil disposition, his cruelty and tyranny, with their fruit of discontent amongst his Commanders and soldiery.

_b. Reception of Dilāwar Khān in Kābul._

Wedding festivities were in progress[1560] when Dilāwar Khān reached Kābul. He presented himself, at the Chār-bāgh may be inferred, and had word taken to Bābur that an Afghān was at his Gate with a petition. When admitted, he demeaned himself as a suppliant and proceeded to set forth the distress of Hindūstān. Bābur asked why he, whose family had so long eaten the salt of the Lūdīs, had so suddenly deserted them for himself. Dilāwar answered that his family through 40 years had upheld the Lūdī throne, but that Ibrāhīm maltreated Sikandar's amīrs, had killed 25 of them without cause, some by hanging some burned alive, and that there was no hope of safety in him. Therefore, he said, he had been sent by many amīrs to Bābur whom they were ready to obey and for whose coming they were on the anxious watch.

_c. Bābur asks a sign._

At the dawn of the day following the feast, Bābur prayed in the garden for a sign of victory in Hindūstān, asking that it should be a gift to himself of mango or betel, fruits of that land. It so happened that Daulat Khān had sent him, as a present, half-ripened mangoes preserved in honey; when these were set before him, he accepted them as the sign, and from that time forth, says the chronicler, made preparation for a move on Hindūstān.

_d. `Ālam Khān._

Although `Ālam Khān seems to have had some amount of support for his attempt against his nephew, events show he had none valid for his purpose. That he had not Daulat Khān's, later occurrences make clear. Moreover he seems not to have been a man to win adherence or to be accepted as a trustworthy and sensible leader.[1561] Dates are uncertain in the absence of Bābur's narrative, but it may have been in this year that `Ālam Khān went in person to Kābul and there was promised help against Ibrāhīm.

_e. Birth of Gul-badan._

Either in this year or the next was born Dil-dār's third daughter Gul-badan, the later author of an _Humāyūn-nāma_ written at her nephew Akbar's command in order to provide information for the _Akbar-nāma_.

930 AH.—NOV. 10TH 1523 TO OCT. 29TH 1524 AD.

_a. Bābur's fourth expedition to Hindūstān._

This expedition differs from all earlier ones by its co-operation with Afghān malcontents against Ibrāhīm _Lūdī_, and by having for its declared purpose direct attack on him through reinforcement of `Ālam Khān.

Exactly when the start from Kābul was made is not found stated; the route taken after fording the Indus, was by the sub-montane road through the Kakar country; the Jīhlam and Chīn-āb were crossed and a move was made to within 10 miles of Lāhor.

Lāhor was Daulat Khān's head-quarters but he was not in it now; he had fled for refuge to a colony of Bilūchīs, perhaps towards Multān, on the approach against him of an army of Ibrāhīm's under Bihār Khān _Lūdī_. A battle ensued between Bābur and Bihār Khān; the latter was defeated with great slaughter; Bābur's troops followed his fugitive men into Lāhor, plundered the town and burned some of the _bāzārs_.

Four days were spent near Lāhor, then move south was made to Dībālpūr which was stormed, plundered and put to the sword. The date of this capture is known from an incidental remark of Bābur about chronograms (f. 325), to be mid-Rabī`u'l-awwal 930 AH. (_circa_ Jan. 22nd 1524 AD.).[1562] From Dībālpūr a start was made for Sihrind but before this could be reached news arrived which dictated return to Lāhor.

_b. The cause of return._

Daulat Khān's action is the obvious cause of the retirement. He and his sons had not joined Bābur until the latter was at Dībālpūr; he was not restored to his former place in charge of the important Lāhor, but was given Jalandhar and Sulṯānpūr, a town of his own foundation. This angered him extremely but he seems to have concealed his feelings for the time and to have given Bābur counsel as if he were content. His son Dilāwar, however, represented to Bābur that his father's advice was treacherous; it concerned a move to Multān, from which place Daulat Khān may have come up to Dībālpūr and connected with which at this time, something is recorded of co-operation by Bābur and Shāh Ḥasan _Arghūn_. But the incident is not yet found clearly described by a source. Dilāwar Khān told Bābur that his father's object was to divide and thus weaken the invading force, and as this would have been the result of taking Daulat Khān's advice, Bābur arrested him and Apāq on suspicion of treacherous intent. They were soon released, and Sulṯānpūr was given them, but they fled to the hills, there to await a chance to swoop on the Panj-āb. Daulat Khān's hostility and his non-fulfilment of his engagement with Bābur placing danger in the rear of an eastward advance, the Panj-āb was garrisoned by Bābur's own followers and he himself went back to Kābul.

It is evident from what followed that Daulat Khān commanded much strength in the Panj-āb; evident also that something counselled delay in the attack on Ibrāhīm, perhaps closer cohesion in favour of `Ālam Khān, certainly removal of the menace of Daulat Khān in the rear; there may have been news already of the approach of the Aūzbegs on Balkh which took Bābur next year across Hindū-kush.

_c. The Panj-āb garrison._

The expedition had extended Bābur's command considerably, notably by obtaining possession of Lāhor. He now posted in it Mīr `Abdu'l-`azīz his Master of the Horse; in Dībālpūr he posted, with `Ālam Khān, Bābā Qashqa _Mughūl_; in Sīālkot, Khusrau Kūkūldāsh, in Kalanūr, Muḥammad `Alī _Tājik_.

_d. Two deaths._

This year, on Rajab 19th (May 23rd) died Ismā`īl _Ṣafawī_ at the age of 38, broken by defeat from Sulṯān Salīm of Rūm.[1563] He was succeeded by his son T̤ahmāsp, a child of ten.

This year may be that of the death of Shāh Shujā` _Arghūn_,[1564] on Sha`bān 22nd (July 18th), the last grief of his burden being the death of his foster-brother Fāẓil concerning which, as well as Shāh Beg's own death, Mīr Ma`ṣūm's account is worthy of full reproduction. Shāh Beg was succeeded in Sind by his son Ḥasan, who read the _khuṯba_ for Bābur and drew closer links with Bābur's circle by marrying, either this year or the next, Khalīfa's daughter Gul-barg, with whom betrothal had been made during Ḥasan's visit to Bābur in Kābul. Moreover Khalīfa's son Muḥibb-i-`alī married Nāhīd the daughter of Qāsim Kūkūldāsh and Māh-chūchūk _Arghūn_ (f. 214_b_). These alliances were made, says Ma`ṣūm, to strengthen Ḥasan's position at Bābur's Court.

_e. A garden detail._

In this year and presumably on his return from the Panj-āb, Bābur, as he himself chronicles (f. 132), had plantains (bananas) brought from Hindūstān for the Bāgh-i-wafā at Adīnapūr.

931 AH.—OCT. 29TH 1524 TO OCT. 18TH 1525 AD.

_a. Daulat Khān._

Daulat Khān's power in the Panj-āb is shewn by what he effected after dispossessed of Lāhor. On Bābur's return to Kābul, he came down from the hills with a small body of his immediate followers, seized his son Dilāwar, took Sulṯānpūr, gathered a large force and defeated `Ālam Khān in Dībālpūr. He detached 5000 men against Sīālkot but Bābur's begs of Lāhor attacked and overcame them. Ibrāhīm sent an army to reconquer the Panj-āb; Daulat Khān, profiting by its dissensions and discontents, won over a part to himself and saw the rest break up.

_b. `Ālam Khān._

From his reverse at Dībālpūr, `Ālam Khān fled straight to Kābul. The further help he asked was promised under the condition that while he should take Ibrāhīm's place on the throne of Dihlī, Bābur in full suzerainty should hold Lāhor and all to the west of it. This arranged, `Ālam Khān was furnished with a body of troops, given a royal letter to the Lāhor begs ordering them to assist him, and started off, Bābur promising to follow swiftly.

`Ālam Khān's subsequent proceedings are told by Bābur in the annals of 932 AH. (1525 AD.) at the time he received details about them (f. 255_b_).

_c. Bābur called to Balkh._

All we have yet found about this affair is what Bābur says in explanation of his failure to follow `Ālam Khān as promised (f. 256), namely, that he had to go to Balkh because all the Aūzbeg Sulṯāns and Khāns had laid siege to it. Light on the affair may come from some Persian or Aūzbeg chronicle; Bābur's arrival raised the siege; and risk must have been removed, for Bābur returned to Kābul in time to set out for his fifth and last expedition to Hindūstān on the first day of the second month of next year (932 AH. 1525). A considerable body of troops was in Badakhshān with Humāyūn; their non-arrival next year delaying his father's progress, brought blame on himself.

THE MEMOIRS OF BĀBUR

SECTION III. HINDŪSTĀN

932 AH.-OCT. 18TH 1525 TO OCT. 8TH 1526 AD.[1565]

(_a. Fifth expedition into Hindūstān._)

(_Nov. 17th_) On Friday the 1st of the month of Ṣafar at the [Sidenote: Ḥaidarābād MS. Fol. 251b.] date 932, the Sun being in the Sign of the Archer, we set out for Hindūstān, crossed the small rise of Yak-langa, and dismounted in the meadow to the west of the water of Dih-i-ya`qūb.[1566] `Abdu'l-malūk the armourer came into this camp; he had gone seven or eight months earlier as my envoy to Sulṯān Sa`īd Khān (in Kāshghar), and now brought one of the Khān's men, styled Yāngī Beg (new beg) Kūkūldāsh who conveyed letters, and small presents, and verbal messages[1567] from the Khānīms and the Khān.[1568]

(_Nov. 18th to 21st_) After staying two days in that camp for the convenience of the army,[1569] we marched on, halted one night,[1570] and next dismounted at Bādām-chashma. There we ate a confection (_ma`jūn_).

(_Nov. 22nd_) On Wednesday (Ṣafar 6th), when we had dismounted at Bārīk-āb, the younger brethren of Nūr Beg—he himself remaining in Hindūstān—brought gold _ashrafīs_ and _tankas_[1571] to the value of 20,000 _shāhrukhīs_, sent from the Lāhor revenues by Khwāja Ḥusain. The greater part of these moneys was despatched by Mullā Aḥmad, one of the chief men of Balkh, for the benefit of Balkh.[1572]

(_Nov. 24th_) On Friday the 8th of the month (Ṣafar), after [Sidenote: Fol. 252.] dismounting at Gandamak, I had a violent discharge;[1573] by God's mercy, it passed off easily.

(_Nov. 25th_) On Saturday we dismounted in the Bāgh-i-wafā. We delayed there a few days, waiting for Humāyūn and the army from that side.[1574] More than once in this history the bounds and extent, charm and delight of that garden have been described; it is most beautifully placed; who sees it with the buyer's eye will know the sort of place it is. During the short time we were there, most people drank on drinking-days[1575] and took their morning; on non-drinking days there were parties for _ma`jūn_.

I wrote harsh letters to Humāyūn, lecturing him severely because of his long delay beyond the time fixed for him to join me.[1576]

(_Dec. 3rd_) On Sunday the 17th of Ṣafar, after the morning had been taken, Humāyūn arrived. I spoke very severely to him at once. Khwāja Kalān also arrived to-day, coming up from Ghaznī. We marched in the evening of that same Sunday, and dismounted in a new garden between Sulṯānpur and Khwāja Rustam.

(_Dec. 6th_) Marching on Wednesday (Ṣafar 20th), we got on a raft, and, drinking as we went reached Qūsh-guṃbaz,[1577] there landed and joined the camp.

(_Dec. 7th_) Starting off the camp at dawn, we ourselves went on a raft, and there ate confection (_ma`jūn_). Our encamping-ground was always Qīrīq-ārīq, but not a sign or trace of the camp could [Sidenote: Fol. 252b.] be seen when we got opposite it, nor any appearance of our horses. Thought I, "Garm-chashma (Hot-spring) is close by; they may have dismounted there." So saying, we went on from Qīrīq-ārīq. By the time we reached Garm-chashma, the very day was late;[1578] we did not stop there, but going on in its lateness (_kīchīsī_), had the raft tied up somewhere, and slept awhile.

(_Dec. 8th_) At day-break we landed at Yada-bīr where, as the day wore on, the army-folks began to come in. The camp must have been at Qīrīq-ārīq, but out of our sight.

There were several verse-makers on the raft, such as Shaikh Abū'l-wajd,[1579] Shaikh Zain, Mullā `Alī-jān, Tardī Beg _Khāksār_ and others. In this company was quoted the following couplet of Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ:—[1580]

(Persian) With thee, arch coquette, for a sweetheart, what can man do? With another than thou where thou art, what can man do?

Said I, "Compose on these lines";[1581] whereupon those given to versifying, did so. As jokes were always being made at the expense of Mullā `Alī-jān, this couplet came off-hand into my head:—

(Persian) With one all bewildered as thou, what can man do? . . . . . . , what can man do?[1582]

(_b. Mention of the Mubīn._[1583])

From time to time before it,[1584] whatever came into my head, of good or bad, grave or jest, used to be strung into verse and written down, however empty and harsh the verse might be, but while I was composing the _Mubīn_, this thought pierced through my dull wits and made way into my troubled heart, "A pity it [Sidenote: Fol. 253.] will be if the tongue which has treasure of utterances so lofty as these are, waste itself again on low words; sad will it be if again vile imaginings find way into the mind that has made exposition of these sublime realities."[1585] Since that time I had refrained from satirical and jesting verse; I was repentant (_ta'īb_); but these matters were totally out of mind and remembrance when I made that couplet (on Mullā `Alī-jān).[1586] A few days later in Bīgrām when I had fever and discharge, followed by cough, and I began to spit blood each time I coughed, I knew whence my reproof came; I knew what act of mine had brought this affliction on me.

"Whoever shall violate his oath, will violate it to the hurt of his own soul; but whoever shall perform that which he hath covenanted with God, to that man surely will He give great reward" (_Qorān_ cap. 48 v. 10).

(_Turkī_) What is it I do with thee, ah! my tongue? My entrails bleed as a reckoning for thee. Good once[1587] as thy words were, has followed this verse Jesting, empty,[1588] obscene, has followed a lie. If thou say, "Burn will I not!" by keeping this vow Thou turnest thy rein from this field of strife.[1589]

"O Lord! we have dealt unjustly with our own souls; if Thou forgive us not, and be not merciful unto us, we shall surely be of those that perish"[1590] (_Qorān_ cap. 7 v. 22).

Taking anew the place of the penitent pleading for pardon, I gave my mind rest[1591] from such empty thinking and such unlawful occupation. I broke my pen. Made by that Court, such reproof of sinful slaves is for their felicity; happy are the highest and the slave when such reproof brings warning and its profitable fruit.

(_c. Narrative resumed._)

(_Dec. 8th continued_) Marching on that evening, we dismounted at `Alī-masjid. The ground here being very confined, I always [Sidenote: Fol. 253b.] used to dismount on a rise overlooking the camp in the valley-bottom.[1592] The camp-fires made a wonderful illumination there at night; assuredly it was because of this that there had always been drinking there, and was so now.

(_Dec. 9th and 10th_) To-day I rode out before dawn; I preferred a confection (_ma`jūn_)[1593] and also kept this day a fast. We dismounted near Bīgrām (Peshāwar); and next morning, the camp remaining on that same ground, rode to Karg-awī.[1594] We crossed the Siyāh-āb in front of Bīgrām, and formed our hunting-circle looking down-stream. After a little, a person brought word that there was a rhino in a bit of jungle near Bīgrām, and that people had been stationed near-about it. We betook ourselves, loose rein, to the place, formed a ring round the jungle, made a noise, and brought the rhino out, when it took its way across the plain. Humāyūn and those come with him from that side (Tramontana), who had never seen one before, were much entertained. It was pursued for two miles; many arrows were shot at it; it was brought down without having made a good set at man or horse. Two others were killed. I had often wondered how a rhino and an elephant would behave if brought face to face; this time one came out right in front of some elephants the mahauts were bringing along; it did not face them [Sidenote: Fol. 254.] when the mahauts drove them towards it, but got off in another direction.

(_d. Preparations for ferrying the Indus._[1595])

On the day we were in Bīgrām, several of the begs and household were appointed, with pay-masters and dīwāns, six or seven being put in command, to take charge of the boats at the Nīl-āb crossing, to make a list of all who were with the army, name by name, and to count them up.

That evening I had fever and discharge[1596] which led on to cough and every time I coughed, I spat blood. Anxiety was great but, by God's mercy, it passed off in two or three days.

(_Dec. 11th_) It rained when we left Bīgrām; we dismounted on the Kābul-water.

(_e. News from Lāhor._)

News came that Daulat Khān[1597] and (Apāq) Ghāzī Khān, having collected an army of from 20 to 30,000, had taken Kilānūr, and intended to move on Lāhor. At once Mumin-i-`alī the commissary was sent galloping off to say, "We are advancing march by march;[1598] do not fight till we arrive."

(_Dec. 14th_) With two night-halts on the way, we reached the water of Sind (Indus), and there dismounted on Thursday the 28th (of Ṣafar).

(_f. Ferrying the Indus._)

(_Dec. 16th_) On Saturday the 1st of the first Rabī`, we crossed the Sind-water, crossed the water of Kacha-kot (Hārū), and dismounted on the bank of the river.[1599] The begs, pay-masters and dīwāns who had been put in charge of the boats, reported that the number of those come with the army, great and small, good and bad, retainer and non-retainer, was written down as 12,000.

(_g. The eastward march._)

The rainfall had been somewhat scant in the plains, but [Sidenote: Fol. 254b.] seemed to have been good in the cultivated lands along the hill-skirts; for these reasons we took the road for Sīālkot along the skirt-hills. Opposite Hātī _Kakar's_ country[1600] we came upon a torrent[1601] the waters of which were standing in pools. Those pools were all frozen over. The ice was not very thick, as thick as the hand may-be. Such ice is unusual in Hindūstān; not a sign or trace of any was seen in the years we were (_aīdūk_) in the country.[1602]

We had made five marches from the Sind-water; after the sixth (_Dec. 22nd_—Rabī` I. 7th) we dismounted on a torrent in the camping-ground (_yūrt_) of the Bugīāls[1603] below Balnāth Jogī's hill which connects with the Hill of Jūd.

(_Dec. 23rd_) In order to let people get provisions, we stayed the next day in that camp. _`Araq_ was drunk on that day. Mullā Muḥ. _Pargharī_ told many stories; never had he been so talkative. Mullā Shams himself was very riotous; once he began, he did not finish till night.

The slaves and servants, good and bad, who had gone out after provisions, went further than this[1604] and heedlessly scattered over jungle and plain, hill and broken ground. Owing to this, a few were overcome; Kīchkīna _tūnqiṯār_ died there.

(_Dec. 24th_) Marching on, we crossed the Bihat-water at a ford below Jīlam (Jīhlam) and there dismounted. Walī _Qīzīl_ (Rufus) came there to see me. He was the Sīālkot reserve, and held the parganas of Bīmrūkī and Akrīāda. Thinking about Sīālkot, [Sidenote: Fol. 255.] I took towards him the position of censure and reproach. He excused himself, saying "I had come to my _pargana_ before Khusrau Kūkūldāsh left Sīālkot; he did not even send me word." After listening to his excuse, I said, "Since thou hast paid no attention to Sīālkot, why didst thou not join the begs in Lāhor?" He was convicted, but as work was at hand, I did not trouble about his fault.

(_h. Scouts sent with orders to Lāhor._)

(_Dec. 25th_) Sayyid T̤ūfān and Sayyid Lāchīn were sent galloping off, each with a pair-horse,[1605] to say in Lāhor, "Do not join battle; meet us at Sīālkot or Parsrūr" (mod. Pasrūr). It was in everyone's mouth that Ghāzī Khān had collected 30 to 40,000 men, that Daulat Khān, old as he was, had girt two swords to his waist, and that they were resolved to fight. Thought I, "The proverb says that ten friends are better than nine; do you not make a mistake: when the Lāhor begs have joined you, fight there and then!"

(_Dec. 26th and 27th_) After starting off the two men to the begs, we moved forward, halted one night, and next dismounted on the bank of the Chīn-āb (Chan-āb).

As Buhlūlpūr was _khalṣa_,[1606] we left the road to visit it. Its fort is situated above a deep ravine, on the bank of the Chīn-āb. It pleased us much. We thought of bringing Sīālkot to it. Please God! the chance coming, it shall be done straightway! [Sidenote: Fol. 255b.] From Buhlūlpūr we went to camp by boat.

(_i. Jats and Gujūrs._[1607])

(_Dec. 29th_) On Friday the 14th of the first Rabī` we dismounted at Sīālkot. If one go into Hindūstān the Jats and Gujūrs always pour down in countless hordes from hill and plain for loot in bullock and buffalo. These ill-omened peoples are just senseless oppressors! Formerly their doings did not concern us much because the country was an enemy's, but they began the same senseless work after we had taken it. When we reached Sīālkot, they fell in tumult on poor and needy folks who were coming out of the town to our camp, and stripped them bare. I had the silly thieves sought for, and ordered two or three of them cut to pieces.

From Sīālkot Nūr Beg's brother Shāham also was made to gallop off to the begs in Lāhor to say, "Make sure where the enemy is; find out from some well-informed person where he may be met, and send us word."

A trader, coming into this camp, represented that `Ālam Khān had let Sl. Ibrāhīm defeat him.

(_j. `Ālam Khān's action and failure._[1608])

Here are the particulars:—`Ālam Khān, after taking leave of me (in Kābul, 931 AH.), went off in that heat by double marches, regardless of those with him.[1609] As at the time I gave him leave to go, all the Aūzbeg khāns and sulṯāns had laid siege to Balkh, [Sidenote: Fol. 256.] I rode for Balkh as soon as I had given him his leave. On his reaching Lāhor, he insisted to the begs, "You reinforce me; the Pādshāh said so; march along with me; let us get (Apāq) Ghāzī Khān to join us; let us move on Dihlī and Āgra." Said they, "Trusting to what, will you join Ghāzī Khān? Moreover the royal orders to us were, 'If at any time Ghāzī Khān has sent his younger brother Ḥājī Khān with his son to Court, join him; or do so, if he has sent them, by way of pledge, to Lāhor; if he has done neither, do not join him.' You yourself only yesterday fought him and let him beat you! Trusting to what, will you join him now? Besides all this, it is not for your advantage to join him!" Having said what-not of this sort, they refused `Ālam Khān. He did not fall in with their views, but sent his son Sher Khān to speak with Daulat Khān and with Ghāzī Khān, and afterwards all saw one another.

`Ālam Khān took with him Dilāwar Khān, who had come into Lāhor two or three months earlier after his escape from prison; he took also Maḥmūd Khān (son of) Khān-i-jahān,[1610] to whom a _pargana_ in the Lāhor district had been given. They seem to have left matters at this:—Daulat Khān with Ghāzī Khān was to take all the begs posted in Hindūstān to himself, indeed he was to take everything on that side;[1611] while `Ālam [Sidenote: Fol. 256b.] Khān was to take Dilāwar Khān and Ḥājī Khān and, reinforced by them, was to capture Dihlī and Āgra. Ismā`īl _Jilwānī_ and other amīrs came and saw `Ālam Khān; all then betook themselves, march by march, straight for Dihlī. Near Indrī came also Sulaimān Shaikh-zāda.[1612] Their total touched 30 to 40,000 men.

They laid siege to Dihlī but could neither take it by assault nor do hurt to the garrison.[1613] When Sl. Ibrāhīm heard of their assembly, he got an army to horse against them; when they heard of his approach, they rose from before the place and moved to meet him. They had left matters at this:—"If we attack by day-light, the Afghāns will not desert (to us), for the sake of their reputations with one another; but if we attack at night when one man cannot see another, each man will obey his own orders." Twice over they started at fall of day from a distance of 12 miles (6 _kurohs_), and, unable to bring matters to a point, neither advanced nor retired; but just sat on horseback for two or three watches. On a third occasion they delivered an attack when one watch of night remained—their purpose seeming to be the burning of tents and huts! They went; they set fire from every end; they made a disturbance. Jalāl Khān _Jig-hat_[1614] came with other amīrs and saw `Ālam Khān.

Sl. Ibrāhīm did not bestir himself till shoot of dawn from where he was with a few of his own family[1615] within his own enclosure (_sarācha_). Meantime `Ālam Khān's people were busy [Sidenote: Fol. 257.] with plunder and booty. Seeing the smallness of their number, Sl. Ibrāhīm's people moved out against them in rather small force with one elephant. `Ālam Khān's party, not able to make stand against the elephant, ran away. He in his flight crossed over into the Mīān-dū-āb and crossed back again when he reached the Pānīpat neighbourhood. In Indrī he contrived on some pretext to get 4 _laks_ from Mīān Sulaimān.[1616] He was deserted by Ismā`īl _Jilwānī_, by Biban[1617] and by his own oldest son Jalāl, who all withdrew into the Mīān-dū-āb; and he had been deserted just before the fighting, by part of his troops, namely, by Daryā Khān (_Nūḥānī_)'s son Saif Khān, by Khān-i-jahān (_Nūḥānī_)'s son Maḥmūd Khān, and by Shaikh Jamāl _Farmulī_. When he was passing through Sihrind with Dilāwar Khān, he heard of our advance and of our capture of Milwat (Malot).[1618] On this Dilāwar Khān—who always had been my well-wisher and on my account had dragged out three or four months in prison,—left `Ālam Khān and the rest and went to his family in Sulṯānpūr. He waited on me three or four days after we took Milwat. `Ālam Khān and Ḥājī Khān crossed the Shatlut (_sic_)-water and went into Gingūta,[1619] one of the strongholds in the range that lies between the valley and the plain.[1620] There our Afghān and Hazāra[1621] troops besieged them, and had [Sidenote: Fol. 257b] almost taken that strong fort when night came on. Those inside were thinking of escape but could not get out because of the press of horses in the Gate. There must have been elephants also; when these were urged forward, they trod down and killed many horses. `Ālam Khān, unable to escape mounted, got out on foot in the darkness. After a _lak_ of difficulties, he joined Ghāzī Khān, who had not gone into Milwat but had fled into the hills. Not being received with even a little friendliness by Ghāzī Khān; needs must! he came and waited on me at the foot of the dale[1622] near Pehlūr.

(_k. Diary resumed._)

A person came to Sīālkot from the Lāhor begs to say they would arrive early next morning to wait on me.

(_Dec. 30th_) Marching early next day (Rabī` I. 15th), we dismounted at Parsrūr. There Muḥ. `Alī _Jang-jang_, Khwāja Ḥusain and several braves waited on me. As the enemy's camp seemed to be on the Lāhor side of the Rāvī, we sent men out under Būjka for news. Near the third watch of the night they brought word that the enemy, on hearing of us, had fled, no man looking to another.

(_Dec. 31st_) Getting early to horse and leaving baggage and train in the charge of Shāh Mīr Ḥusain and Jān Beg, we bestirred ourselves. We reached Kalānūr in the afternoon, and there dismounted. Muḥammad Sl. Mīrzā and `Ādil Sl.[1623] came [Sidenote: Fol. 258.] to wait on me there, together with some of the begs.

(_Jan. 1st 1526 AD._) We marched early from Kalānūr. On the road people gave us almost certain news of Ghāzī Khān and other fugitives. Accordingly we sent, flying after those fliers, the commanders Muḥammadī, Aḥmadī, Qūtlūq-qadam, Treasurer Walī and most of those begs who, in Kābul, had recently bent the knee for their begship. So far it was settled:—That it would be good indeed if they could overtake and capture the fugitives; and that, if they were not able to do this, they were to keep careful watch round Milwat (Malot), so as to prevent those inside from getting out and away. Ghāzī Khān was the object of this watch.

(_l. Capture of Milwat._)

(_Jan. 2nd and 3rd_) After starting those begs ahead, we crossed the Bīāh-water (Beas) opposite Kanwāhīn[1624] and dismounted. From there we marched to the foot of the valley of Fort Milwat, making two night-halts on the way. The begs who had arrived before us, and also those of Hindūstān were ordered to dismount in such a way as to besiege the place closely.

A grandson of Daulat Khān, son of his eldest son `Alī Khān, Ismā`īl Khān by name, came out of Milwat to see me; he took back promise mingled with threat, kindness with menace.

(_Jan. 5th_) On Friday (Rabī` I. 21st) I moved camp forward to within a mile of the fort, went myself to examine the place, posted right, left and centre, then returned to camp.

Daulat Khān sent to represent to me that Ghāzī Khān had [Sidenote: Fol. 258b.] fled into the hills, and that, if his own faults were pardoned, he would take service with me and surrender Milwat. Khwāja Mīr-i-mīrān was sent to chase fear from his heart and to escort him out; he came, and with him his son `Alī Khān. I had ordered that the two swords he had girt to his waist to fight me with, should be hung from his neck. Was such a rustic blockhead possible! With things as they were, he still made pretensions! When he was brought a little forward, I ordered the swords to be removed from his neck. At the time of our seeing one another[1625] he hesitated to kneel; I ordered them to pull his leg and make him do so. I had him seated quite in front, and ordered a person well acquainted with Hindūstānī to interpret my words to him, one after another. Said I, "Thus speak:—I called thee Father. I shewed thee more honour and respect than thou couldst have asked. Thee and thy sons I saved from door-to-door life amongst the Balūchīs.[1626] Thy family and thy _ḥaram_ I freed from Ibrāhīm's prison-house.[1627] Three _krors_ I gave thee on Tātār Khān's lands.[1628] What ill sayest thou I have done thee, that thus thou shouldst hang a sword on thy either side,[1629] lead an army out, fall on lands of ours,[1630] and stir strife and trouble?" Dumbfounded, the old man [Sidenote: Fol. 259.] stuttered a few words, but, he gave no answer, nor indeed could answer be given to words so silencing. He was ordered to remain with Khwāja Mīr-i-mīrān.

(_Jan. 6th_) On Saturday the 22nd of the first Rabī`, I went myself to safeguard the exit of the families and _ḥarams_[1631] from the fort, dismounting on a rise opposite the Gate. To me there came `Alī Khān and made offering of a few _ashrafīs_. People began to bring out the families just before the Other Prayer. Though Ghāzī Khān was reported to have got away, there were some who said they had seen him in the fort. For this reason several of the household and braves[1632] were posted at the Gate, in order to prevent his escape by a ruse, for to get away was his full intention.[1633] Moreover if jewels and other valuables were being taken away by stealth, they were to be confiscated. I spent that night in a tent pitched on the rise in front of the Gate.

(_Jan. 7th_) Early next morning, Muḥammadī, Aḥmadī, Sl. Junaid, `Abdu'l-`azīz, Muḥammad `Alī _Jang-jang_ and Qūtlūq-qadam were ordered to enter the fort and take possession of all [Sidenote: Fol. 259b.] effects. As there was much disturbance at the Gate, I shot off a few arrows by way of chastisement. Humāyūn's story-teller (_qiṣṣa-khẉān_) was struck by the arrow of his destiny and at once surrendered his life.

(_Jan. 7th and 8th_) After spending two nights[1634] on the rise, I inspected the fort. I went into Ghāzī Khān's book-room;[1635] some of the precious things found in it, I gave to Humāyūn, some sent to Kāmrān (in Qandahār). There were many books of learned contents,[1636] but not so many valuable ones as had at first appeared. I passed that night in the fort; next morning I went back to camp.

(_Jan. 9th_) It had been in our minds that Ghāzī Khān was in the fort, but he, a man devoid of nice sense of honour, had escaped to the hills, abandoning father, brethren and sisters in Milwat.

See that man without honour who never The face of good luck shall behold; Bodily ease he chose for himself, In hardship he left wife and child (_Gulistān_ cap. i, story 17).

(_Jan. 10th_) Leaving that camp on Wednesday, we moved towards the hills to which Ghāzī Khān had fled. When we dismounted in the valley-bottom two miles from the camp in the mouth of Milwat,[1637] Dilāwar Khān came and waited on me. Daulat Khān, `Alī Khān and Ismā`īl Khān, with other chiefs, were given into Kitta Beg's charge who was to convey them to the Bhīra fort of Milwat (Malot),[1638] and there keep guard over [Sidenote: Fol. 260.] them. In agreement with Dilāwar Khān, blood-ransom was fixed for some who had been made over each to one man; some gave security, some were kept prisoner. Daulat Khān died when Kitta Beg reached Sulṯānpūr with the prisoners.[1639]

Milwat was given into the charge of Muḥ. `Alī _Jang-jang_ who, pledging his own life for it, left his elder brother Arghūn and a party of braves in it. A body of from 200 to 250 Afghāns were told off to reinforce him.

Khwāja Kalān had loaded several camels with Ghaznī wines. A party was held in his quarters overlooking the fort and the whole camp, some drinking _`araq_, some wine. It was a varied party.

(_m. Jaswān-valley._)

Marching on, we crossed a low hill of the grazing-grounds (_arghā-dāl-līq_) of Milwat and went into the _dūn_, as Hindūstānīs are understood to call a dale (_julga_).[1640] In this dale is a running-water[1641] of Hindūstān; along its sides are many villages; and it is said to be the pargana of the Jaswāl, that is to say, of Dilāwar Khān's maternal uncles. It lies there shut-in, with meadows along its torrent, rice cultivated here and there, a three or four mill-stream flowing in its trough, its width from two to [Sidenote: Fol. 260b.] four miles, six even in places, villages on the skirts of its hills—hillocks they are rather—where there are no villages, peacocks, monkeys, and many fowls which, except that they are mostly of one colour, are exactly like house-fowls.

As no reliable news was had of Ghāzī Khān, we arranged for Tardīka to go with Bīrīm Deo _Malinhās_ and capture him wherever he might be found.

In the hills of this dale stand thoroughly strong forts; one on the north-east, named Kūtila, has sides 70 to 80 yards (_qārī_) of straight fall, the side where the great gate is being perhaps 7 or 8 yards.[1642] The width of the place where the draw-bridge is made, may be 10 to 12 yards. Across this they have made a bridge of two tall trees[1643] by which horses and herds are taken over. This was one of the local forts Ghāzī Khān had strengthened; his man will have been in it now. Our raiders (_chāpqūnchī_) assaulted it and had almost taken it when night came on. The garrison abandoned this difficult place and went off. Near this dale is also the stronghold of Ginguta; it is girt round by precipices as Kūtila is, but is not so strong as Kūtila. As has been mentioned `Ālam Khān went into it.[1644] [Sidenote: Fol. 261.]

(_n. Bābur advances against Ibrāhīm._)

After despatching the light troop against Ghāzī Khān, I put my foot in the stirrup of resolution, set my hand on the rein of trust in God, and moved forward against Sulṯān Ibrāhīm, son of Sulṯān Sikandar, son of Buhlūl _Lūdī Afghān_, in possession of whose throne at that time were the Dihlī capital and the dominions of Hindūstān, whose standing-army was called a _lak_ (100,000), whose elephants and whose begs' elephants were about 1,000.

At the end of our first stage, I bestowed Dībālpūr on Bāqī _shaghāwal_[1645] and sent him to help Balkh[1646]; sent also gifts, taken in the success of Milwat, for (my) younger children and various train in Kābul.

When we had made one or two marches down the (Jaswān) _dūn_, Shāh `Imād _Shīrāzī_ arrived from Araish Khān and Mullā Muḥammad _Maẕhab_,[1647] bringing letters that conveyed their good wishes for the complete success of our campaign and indicated their effort and endeavour towards this. In response, we sent, by a foot-man, royal letters expressing our favour. We then marched on.

(_o. `Ālam Khān takes refuge with Bābur._)

The light troop we had sent out from Milwat (Malot), took Hurūr, Kahlūr and all the hill-forts of the neighbourhood—places to which because of their strength, no-one seemed to have gone for a long time—and came back to me after plundering a little. Came also `Ālam Khān, on foot, ruined, stripped bare. We sent some of the begs to give him honourable meeting, sent horses too, and he waited (_malāẓamat qīldī_) in that [Sidenote: Fol. 261b.] neighbourhood.[1648]

Raiders of ours went into the hills and valleys round-about, but after a few nights' absence, came back without anything to count. Shāh Mīr Ḥusain, Jān Beg and a few of the braves asked leave and went off for a raid.

(_p. Incidents of the march for Pānī-pat._)

While we were in the (Jaswān) _dūn_, dutiful letters had come more than once from Ismā`īl _Jilwānī_ and Biban; we replied to them from this place by royal letters such as their hearts desired. After we got out of the dale to Rūpar, it rained very much and became so cold that a mass of starved and naked Hindūstānīs died.

When we had left Rūpar and were dismounted at Karal,[1649] opposite Sihrind, a Hindūstānī coming said, "I am Sl. Ibrāhīm's envoy," and though he had no letter or credentials, asked for an envoy from us. We responded at once by sending one or two Sawādī night-guards (_tunqiṯār_).[1650] These humble persons Ibrāhīm put in prison; they made their escape and came back to us on the very day we beat him.

After having halted one night on the way, we dismounted on the bank of the torrent[1651] of Banūr and Sanūr. Great rivers apart, one running water there is in Hindūstān, is this[1652]; they call it the water of Kakar (Ghaggar). Chitr also is on its bank. We rode up it for an excursion. The rising-place (_zih_) of the water of this torrent (_rūd_) is 3 or 4 _kurohs_ (6-8 m.) above Chitr. Going up the (Kakar) torrent, we came to where a 4 or 5 millstream issues from a broad (side-)valley (_dara_), up which there [Sidenote: Fol. 262.] are very pleasant places, healthy and convenient. I ordered a Chār-bāgh to be made at the mouth of the broad valley of this (tributary) water, which falls into the (Kakar-) torrent after flowing for one or two _kurohs_ through level ground. From its infall to the springs of the Kakar the distance may be 3 to 4 _kurohs_ (6-8 m.). When it comes down in flood during the rains and joins the Kakar, they go together to Sāmāna and Sanām.[1653]

In this camp we heard that Sl. Ibrāhīm had been on our side of Dihlī and had moved on from that station, also that Ḥamīd Khān _khāṣa-khail_,[1654] the military-collector (_shiqdār_) of Ḥiṣār-fīrūza, had left that place with its army and with the army of its neighbourhood, and had advanced 10 or 15 _kurohs_ (20-30 m.). Kitta Beg was sent for news to Ibrāhīm's camp, and Mumin Ātaka to the Ḥiṣār-fīrūza camp.

(_q. Humāyūn moves against Ḥamīd Khān._)

(_Feb. 25th_) Marching from Aṃbāla, we dismounted by the side of a lake. There Mumin Ātāka and Kitta Beg rejoined us, both on the same day, Sunday the 13th of the first Jumāda.

We appointed Humāyūn to act against Ḥamīd Khān, and joined the whole of the right (wing) to him, that is to say, Khwāja Kalān, Sl. Muḥammad _Dūldāī_, Treasurer Walī, and also some of the begs whose posts were in Hindūstān, namely, Khusrau, Hindū Beg,`Abdu'l-'azīz and Muḥammad `Alī _Jang-jang_, with also, from the household and braves of the centre, Shāh Manṣūr _Barlās_, Kitta Beg and Muḥibb-i `alī. [Sidenote: Fol. 262b.]

Biban waited on me in this camp. These Afghāns remain very rustic and tactless! This person asked to sit although Dilāwar Khān, his superior in following and in rank, did not sit, and although the sons of `Ālam Khān, who are of royal birth, did not sit. Little ear was lent to his unreason!

(_Feb. 26th_) At dawn on Monday the 14th Humāyūn moved out against Ḥamīd Khān. After advancing for some distance, he sent between 100 and 150 braves scouting ahead, who went close up to the enemy and at once got to grips. But when after a few encounters, the dark mass of Humāyūn's troops shewed in the rear, the enemy ran right away. Humāyūn's men unhorsed from 100 to 200, struck the heads off one half and brought the other half in, together with 7 or 8 elephants.

(_March 2nd_) On Friday the 18th of the month, Beg Mīrak _Mughūl_ brought news of Humāyūn's victory to the camp. He (Humāyūn?) was there and then given a special head-to-foot and a special horse from the royal stable, besides promise of guerdon (_juldū_).

(_March 5th_) On Monday the 25th of the month, Humāyūn arrived to wait on me, bringing with him as many as 100 prisoners and 7 or 8 elephants. Ustād `Alī-qulī and the [Sidenote: Fol. 263.] matchlockmen were ordered to shoot all the prisoners, by way of example. This had been Humāyūn's first affair, his first experience of battle; it was an excellent omen!

Our men who had gone in pursuit of the fugitives, took Ḥiṣār-fīrūza at once on arrival, plundered it, and returned to us. It was given in guerdon to Humāyūn, with all its dependencies and appurtenances, with it also a _kror_ of money.

We marched from that camp to Shāhābād. After we had despatched a news-gatherer (_tīl-tūtār kīshī_) to Sl. Ibrāhīm's camp, we stayed a few days on that ground. Raḥmat the foot-man was sent with the letters of victory to Kābul.

(_r. News of Ibrāhīm._)

(_March 13th_) On Monday the 28th of the first Jumāda,[1655] we being in that same camp, the Sun entered the Sign of the Ram. News had come again and again from Ibrāhīm's camp, "He is coming, marching two miles" or "four miles", "stopping in each camp two days," or "three days". We for our part advanced from Shāhābād and after halting on two nights, reached the bank of the Jūn-river (Jumna) and encamped opposite Sarsāwa. From that ground Khwāja Kalān's servant Ḥaidar-qulī was sent to get news (_tīl tūtā_).

Having crossed the Jūn-river at a ford, I visited Sarsāwa. That day also we ate _ma`jūn_. Sarsāwa[1656] has a source (_chashma_) from which a smallish stream issues, not a bad place! Tardī Beg _khāksār_ praising it, I said, "Let it be thine!" so just [Sidenote: Fol. 263b.] because he praised it, Sarsāwa was given to him!

I had a platform fixed in a boat and used to go for excursions on the river, sometimes too made the marches down it. Two marches along its bank had been made when, of those sent to gather news, Ḥaidar-qulī brought word that Ibrāhīm had sent Daud Khān (_Lūdī_) and Ḥātīm Khān (_Lūdī_) across the river into the Mīān-dū-āb (Tween-waters) with 5 or 6000 men, and that these lay encamped some 6 or 7 miles from his own.

(_s. A successful encounter._)

(_April 1st_) On Sunday the 18th of the second Jumāda, we sent, to ride light against this force, Chīn-tīmūr Sulṯān,[1657] Mahdī Khwāja, Muḥammad Sl. Mīrzā, `Ādil Sulṯān, and the whole of the left, namely, Sl. Junaid, Shāh Mīr Ḥusain, Qūtlūq-qadam, and with them also sent `Abdu'l-lāh and Kitta Beg (of the centre). They crossed from our side of the water at the Mid-day Prayer, and between the Afternoon and the Evening Prayers bestirred themselves from the other bank. Biban having crossed the water on pretext of this movement, ran away.

(_April 2nd_) At day-break they came upon the enemy;[1658] he made as if coming out in a sort of array, but our men closed with his at once, overcame them, hustled them off, pursued and unhorsed them till they were opposite Ibrāhīm's own camp. Ḥātim Khān was one of those unhorsed, who was Daud Khān (_Lūdī_)'s elder brother and one of his commanders. Our men brought him in when they waited on me. They brought also [Sidenote: Fol. 264.] 60-70 prisoners and 6 or 7 elephants. Most of the prisoners, by way of warning, were made to reach their death-doom.

(_t. Preparations for battle._)

While we were marching on in array of right, left and centre, the army was numbered;[1659] it did not count up to what had been estimated.

At our next camp it was ordered that every man in the army should collect carts, each one according to his circumstances. Seven hundred carts (_arāba_) were brought[1660] in. The order given to Ustād `Alī-qulī was that these carts should be joined together in Ottoman[1661] fashion, but using ropes of raw hide instead of chains, and that between every two carts 5 or 6 mantelets should be fixed, behind which the matchlockmen were to stand to fire. To allow of collecting all appliances, we delayed 5 or 6 days in that camp. When everything was ready, all the begs with such braves as had had experience in military affairs were summoned to a General Council where opinion found decision at this:—Pānī-pat[1662] is there with its crowded houses and suburbs. It would be on one side of us; our other sides must be protected by carts and mantelets behind which our foot and matchlockmen would stand. With so much settled we marched forward, halted one night on the way, and reached Pānī-pat on Thursday the last day (29th) of the second Jumāda (April 12th).

(_u. The opposed forces._)

On our right was the town of Pānī-pat with its suburbs; in front of us were the carts and mantelets we had prepared; on our left and elsewhere were ditch and branch. At distances of [Sidenote: Fol. 264b.] an arrow's flight[1663] sally-places were left for from 100 to 200 horsemen.

Some in the army were very anxious and full of fear. Nothing recommends anxiety and fear. For why? Because what God has fixed in eternity cannot be changed. But though this is so, it was no reproach to be afraid and anxious. For why? Because those thus anxious and afraid were there with a two or three months' journey between them and their homes; our affair was with a foreign tribe and people; none knew their tongue, nor did they know ours:—

A wandering band, with mind awander; In the grip of a tribe, a tribe unfamiliar.[1664]

People estimated the army opposing us at 100,000 men; Ibrāhīm's elephants and those of his amīrs were said to be about 1000. In his hands was the treasure of two forbears.[1665] In Hindūstān, when work such as this has to be done, it is customary to pay out money to hired retainers who are known as _b:d-hindī_.[1666] If it had occurred to Ibrāhīm to do this, he might have had another _lak_ or two of troops. God brought it right! Ibrāhīm could neither content his braves, nor share out his treasure. How should he content his braves when he was ruled by avarice and had a craving insatiable to pile coin on coin? He was an unproved brave[1667]; he provided nothing for his [Sidenote: Fol. 265.] military operations, he perfected nothing, nor stand, nor move, nor fight.

In the interval at Pānī-pat during which the army was preparing defence on our every side with cart, ditch and branch, Darwīsh-i-muḥammad _Sārbān_ had once said to me, "With such precautions taken, how is it possible for him to come?" Said I, "Are you likening him to the Aūzbeg khāns and sulṯāns? In what of movement under arms or of planned operations is he to be compared with them?" God brought it right! Things fell out just as I said!

(_Author's note on the Aūzbeg chiefs._) When I reached Ḥiṣār in the year I left Samarkand (918 AH.-1512 AD.), and all the Aūzbeg khāns and sulṯāns gathered and came against us, we brought the families and the goods of the Mughūls and soldiers into the Ḥiṣār suburbs and fortified these by closing the lanes. As those khāns and sulṯāns were experienced in equipment, in planned operations, and in resolute resistance, they saw from our fortification of Ḥiṣār that we were determined on life or death within it, saw they could not count on taking it by assault and, therefore, retired at once from near Nūndāk of Chaghānīān.

(_v. Preliminary encounters._)

During the 7 or 8 days we lay in Pānī-pat, our men used to go, a few together, close up to Ibrāhīm's camp, rain arrows down on his massed troops, cut off and bring in heads. Still he made [Sidenote: Fol. 265b.] no move; nor did his troops sally out. At length, we acted on the advice of several Hindūstānī well-wishers and sent out 4 or 5000 men to deliver a night-attack on his camp, the leaders of it being Mahdī Khwāja, Muḥammad Sl. Mīrzā, `Ādil Sulṯān, Khusrau, Shāh Mīr Ḥusain, Sl. Junaid _Barlās_, `Abdu'l-`azīz the Master of the Horse, Muḥ. `Alī _Jang-jang_, Qūtlūq-qadam, Treasurer Walī, Khalīfa's Muḥibb-i-`alī, Pay-master Muḥammad, Jān Beg and Qarā-qūzī. It being dark, they were not able to act together well, and, having scattered, could effect nothing on arrival. They stayed near Ibrāhīm's camp till dawn, when the nagarets sounded and troops of his came out in array with elephants. Though our men did not do their work, they got off safe and sound; not a man of them was killed, though they were in touch with such a mass of foes. One arrow pierced Muḥ. `Alī _Jang-jang_'s leg; though the wound was not mortal, he was good-for-nothing on the day of battle.

On hearing of this affair, I sent off Humāyūn and his troops to go 2 or 3 miles to meet them, and followed him myself with the rest of the army in battle-array. The party of the night-attack joined him and came back with him. The enemy making no further advance, we returned to camp and dismounted. That night a false alarm fell on the camp; for some 20 minutes (one _garī_) there were uproar and call-to-arms; the disturbance died down after a time. [Sidenote: Fol. 266.]

(_w. Battle of Pānī-pat._[1668])

(_April 20th_) On Friday the 8th of Rajab,[1669] news came, when it was light enough to distinguish one thing from another (_farẓ-waqtī_) that the enemy was advancing in fighting-array. We at once put on mail,[1670] armed and mounted.[1671] Our right was Humāyūn, Khwāja Kalān, Sulṯān Muḥammad _Dūldāī_, Hindū Beg, Treasurer Walī and Pīr-qulī _Sīstānī_; our left was Muḥammad Sl. Mīrzā, Mahdī Khwāja, `Ādil Sulṯān, Shāh Mīr Ḥusain, Sl. Junaid _Barlās_, Qūtlūq-qadam, Jān Beg, Pay-master Muḥammad, and Shāh Ḥusain (of) Yāragī _Mughūl Ghānchī_(?).[1672] The right hand of the centre[1673] was Chīn-tīmūr Sulṯān, Sulaimān Mīrzā,[1674] Muḥammadī Kūkūldāsh, Shāh Manṣūr _Barlās_, Yūnas-i-`alī, Darwīsh-i-muḥammad _Sārbān_ and `Abdu'l-lāh the librarian. The left of the centre was Khalīfa, Khwāja Mīr-i-mīrān, Secretary Aḥmadī, Tardī Beg (brother) of Qūj Beg, Khalīfa's Muḥibb-i-`alī and Mīrzā Beg Tarkhān. The advance was Khusrau Kūkūldāsh and Muḥ. `Alī _Jang-jang_. `Abdu'l-'azīz the Master of the Horse was posted as the reserve. For the turning-party (_tūlghuma_) at the point of the right wing,[1675] we fixed on Red Walī and Malik Qāsim (brother) of Bābā _Qashqa_, with their Mughūls; for the turning-party at the point of the left wing, we arrayed Qarā-qūzī, Abū'l-muḥammad the lance-player, Shaikh Jamāl _Bārīn's_ Shaikh `Alī, Mahndī(?) and Tīngrī-bīrdī _Bashaghī_(?) _Mughūl_; these two parties, directly the enemy got near, were to turn his rear, one from the right, the other from the left. [Sidenote: Fol. 266b.]

When the dark mass of the enemy first came in sight, he seemed to incline towards our right; `Abdu'l-`azīz, who was the right-reserve, was sent therefore to reinforce the right. From the time that Sl. Ibrāhīm's blackness first appeared, he moved swiftly, straight for us, without a check, until he saw the dark mass of our men, when his pulled up and, observing our formation and array,[1676] made as if asking, "To stand or not? To advance or not?" They could not stand; nor could they make their former swift advance.

Our orders were for the turning-parties to wheel from right and left to the enemy's rear, to discharge arrows and to engage in the fight; and for the right and left (wings) to advance and join battle with him. The turning-parties wheeled round and began to rain arrows down. Mahdī Khwāja was the first of the left to engage; he was faced by a troop having an elephant with it; his men's flights of arrows forced it to retire. To reinforce the left I sent Secretary Aḥmadī and also Qūj Beg's Tardī Beg and Khalīfa's Muḥibb-i-'alī. On the right also there was some stubborn fighting. Orders were given for Muḥammadī Kūkūldāsh, Shāh Manṣūr _Barlās_, Yūnas-i-`alī and `Abdu'l-lāh to engage those facing them in front of the centre. From that same position Ustād `Alī-qulī made good discharge of _firingī_ shots;[1677]

Musṯafa the commissary for his part made excellent discharge [Sidenote: Fol. 267.] of _zarb-zan_ shots from the left hand of the centre. Our right, left, centre and turning-parties having surrounded the enemy, rained arrows down on him and fought ungrudgingly. He made one or two small charges on our right and left but under our men's arrows, fell back on his own centre. His right and left hands (_qūl_) were massed in such a crowd that they could neither move forward against us nor force a way for flight.

When the incitement to battle had come, the Sun was spear-high; till mid-day fighting had been in full force; noon passed, the foe was crushed in defeat, our friends rejoicing and gay. By God's mercy and kindness, this difficult affair was made easy for us! In one half-day, that armed mass was laid upon the earth. Five or six thousand men were killed in one place close to Ibrāhīm. Our estimate of the other dead, lying all over the field, was 15 to 16,000, but it came to be known, later in Āgra from the statements of Hindūstānīs, that 40 or 50,000 may have died in that battle.[1678]

The foe defeated, pursuit and unhorsing of fugitives began. Our men brought in amīrs of all ranks and the chiefs they captured; _mahauts_ made offering of herd after herd of elephants.

Ibrāhīm was thought to have fled; therefore, while pursuing [Sidenote: Fol. 267b.] the enemy, we told off Qismatāī Mīrzā, Bābā _chuhra_ and Būjka of the _khaṣa-tābīn_[1679] to lead swift pursuit to Āgra and try to take him. We passed through his camp, looked into his own enclosure (_sarācha_) and quarters, and dismounted on the bank of standing-water (_qarā-sū_).

It was the Afternoon Prayer when Khalīfa's younger brother-in-law T̤āhir Tībrī[1680] who had found Ibrāhīm's body in a heap of dead, brought in his head.

(_x. Detachments sent to occupy Dihlī and Āgra._)

On that very same day we appointed Humāyūn Mīrzā[1681] to ride fast and light to Āgra with Khwāja Kalān, Muḥammadī, Shāh Manṣūr _Barlās_, Yūnas-i-`alī, `Abdu'l-lah and Treasurer Walī, to get the place into their hands and to mount guard over the treasure. We fixed on Mahdī Khwāja, with Muḥammad Sl. Mīrza, `Ādil Sulṯān, Sl. Junaid _Barlās_ and Qūtlūq-qadam to leave their baggage, make sudden incursion on Dihlī, and keep watch on the treasuries.[1682]

(_April 21st_) We marched on next day and when we had gone 2 miles, dismounted, for the sake of the horses, on the bank of the Jūn (Jumna).

(_April 24th_) On Tuesday (Rajab 12th), after we had halted on two nights and had made the circuit of Shaikh Niẓāmu'd-dīn _Auliyā_'s tomb[1683] we dismounted on the bank of the Jūn over against Dihlī.[1684] That same night, being Wednesday-eve, we made an excursion into the fort of Dihlī and there spent the night.

(_April 25th_) Next day (Wednesday Rajab 13th) I made the circuit of Khwāja Quṯbu'd-dīn's[1685] tomb and visited the tombs and residences of Sl. Ghiyāṣu'd-dīn _Balban_[1686] and Sl. `Alāu'u'd-dīn [Sidenote: Fol. 268.] _Khiljī_,[1687] his Minār, and the Ḥauẓ-shamsī, Ḥauẓ-i-khaṣ and the tombs and gardens of Sl. Buhlūl and Sl. Sikandar (_Lūdī_). Having done this, we dismounted at the camp, went on a boat, and there _`araq_ was drunk.

We bestowed the Military Collectorate (_shiqdārlīghī_) of Dihlī on Red Walī, made Dost Dīwān in the Dihlī district, sealed the treasuries, and made them over to their charge.

(_April 26th_) On Thursday we dismounted on the bank of the Jūn, over against Tūghlūqābād.[1688]

(_y. The khuṯba read for Bābur in Dihlī._)

(_April 27th_) On Friday (Rajab 15th) while we remained on the same ground, Maulānā Maḥmūd and Shaikh Zain went with a few others into Dihlī for the Congregational Prayer, read the _khuṯba_ in my name, distributed a portion of money to the poor and needy,[1689] and returned to camp.

(_April 28th_) Leaving that ground on Saturday (Rajab 16th), we advanced march by march for Āgra. I made an excursion to Tūghlūqābād and rejoined the camp.

(_May 4th_) On Friday (Rajab 22nd), we dismounted at the mansion (_manzil_) of Sulaimān _Farmulī_ in a suburb of Āgra, but as the place was far from the fort, moved on the following day to Jalāl Khān _Jig:hat's_ house.

On Humāyūn's arrival at Āgra, ahead of us, the garrison had made excuses and false pretexts (about surrender). He and his noticing the want of discipline there was, said, "The long hand may be laid on the Treasury"! and so sat down to watch the roads out of Āgra till we should come.

(_z. The great diamond._)

In Sultan Ibrāhīm's defeat the Rāja of Gūālīār Bikramājīt the Hindū had gone to hell.[1690] [Sidenote: Fol. 268b.]

(_Author's note on Bikramājīt._) The ancestors of Bikramājīt had ruled in Gūālīār for more than a hundred years.[1691] Sikandar (_Lūdī_) had sat down in Āgra for several years in order to take the fort; later on, in Ibrāhīm's time, `Aẕim Humāyūn _Sarwānī_[1692] had completely invested it for some while; following this, it was taken on terms under which Shamsābād was given in exchange for it.[1693]

Bikramājīt's children and family were in Āgra at the time of Ibrāhīm's defeat. When Humāyūn reached Āgra, they must have been planning to flee, but his postings of men (to watch the roads) prevented this and guard was kept over them. Humāyūn himself did not let them go (_bārghālī qūīmās_). They made him a voluntary offering of a mass of jewels and valuables amongst which was the famous diamond which `Alāu'u'd-dīn must have brought.[1694] Its reputation is that every appraiser has estimated its value at two and a half days' food for the whole world. Apparently it weighs 8 _mis̤qāls_.[1695] Humāyūn offered it to me when I arrived at Āgra; I just gave it him back.

(_aa. Ibrāhīm's mother and entourage._)

Amongst men of mark who were in the fort, there were Malik Dād _Karānī_, Millī _Sūrdūk_ and Fīrūz Khān _Mīwātī_. They, being convicted of false dealing, were ordered out for capital punishment. Several persons interceded for Malik Dād _Karānī_ and four or five days passed in comings and goings before the matter was arranged. We then shewed to them (all?) kindness and favour in agreement with the petition made for them, and we restored them all their goods.[1696] A _pargana_ worth 7 _laks_[1697] was bestowed on Ibrāhīm's mother; _parganas_ were given also to these begs of his.[1698] She was sent out of the fort with her old servants and given encamping-ground (_yūrt_) two miles below [Sidenote: Fol. 269.] Āgra.

(_May 10th_) I entered Āgra at the Afternoon Prayer of Thursday (Rajab 28th) and dismounted at the mansion (_manzil_) of Sl. Ibrāhīm.

EXPEDITIONS OF TRAMONTANE MUḤAMMADANS INTO HIND.

(_a. Bābur's five attempts on Hindūstān._)

From the date 910 at which the country of Kābul was conquered, down to now (932 AH.) (my) desire for Hindūstān had been constant, but owing sometimes to the feeble counsels of begs, sometimes to the non-accompaniment of elder and younger brethren,[1699] a move on Hindūstān had not been practicable and its territories had remained unsubdued. At length no such obstacles were left; no beg, great or small (_beg begāt_) of lower birth,[1700] could speak an opposing word. In 925 AH. (1519 AD.) we led an army out and, after taking Bajaur by storm in 2-3 _garī_ (44-66 minutes), and making a general massacre of its people, went on into Bhīra. Bhīra we neither over-ran nor plundered; we imposed a ransom on its people, taking from them in money and goods to the value of 4 _laks_ of _shāhrukhīs_ and having shared this out to the army and auxiliaries, returned to Kābul. From then till now we laboriously held tight[1701] to Hindūstān, five times leading an army into it.[1702] The fifth time, God the Most High, by his own mercy and favour, made such a foe as Sl. Ibrāhīm the vanquished and loser, such a realm as Hindūstān our conquest and possession.

(_b. Three invaders from Tramontana._)

From the time of the revered Prophet down till now[1703] three men from that side[1704] have conquered and ruled Hindūstān. Sl. Maḥmūd _Ghāzī_[1705] was the first, who and whose descendants sat long on the seat of government in Hindūstān. Sl. Shihābu'd-dīn [Sidenote: Fol. 269b.] of Ghūr was the second,[1706] whose slaves and dependants royally shepherded[1707] this realm for many years. I am the third.

But my task was not like the task of those other rulers. For why? Because Sl. Maḥmūd, when he conquered Hindūstān, had the throne of Khurāsān subject to his rule, vassal and obedient to him were the sulṯāns of Khwārizm and the Marches (_Dāru'l-marz_), and under his hand was the ruler of Samarkand. Though his army may not have numbered 2 _laks_, what question is there that it[1708] was one. Then again, rājas were his opponents; all Hindūstān was not under one supreme head (_pādshāh_), but each rāja ruled independently in his own country. Sl. Shihābu'd-dīn again,—though he himself had no rule in Khurāsān, his elder brother Ghiyās̱u'd-dīn had it. The _T̤abaqāt-i-nāṣirī_[1709] brings it forward that he once led into Hindūstān an army of 120,000 men and horse in mail.[1710] His opponents also were rāīs and rājas; one man did not hold all Hindūstān.

That time we came to Bhīra, we had at most some 1500 to 2000 men. We had made no previous move on Hindūstān with an army equal to that which came the fifth time, when we beat Sl. Ibrāhīm and conquered the realm of Hindūstān, the total written down for which, taking one retainer with another, and [Sidenote: Fol. 270.] with traders and servants, was 12,000. Dependent on me were the countries of Badakhshān, Qūndūz, Kābul and Qandahār, but no reckonable profit came from them, rather it was necessary to reinforce them fully because several lie close to an enemy. Then again, all Māwarā'u'n-nahr was in the power of the Aūzbeg khāns and sulṯāns, an ancient foe whose armies counted up to 100,000. Moreover Hindūstān, from Bhīra to Bihār, was in the power of the Afghāns and in it Sl. Ibrāhīm was supreme. In proportion to his territory his army ought to have been 5 _laks_, but at that time the Eastern amīrs were in hostility to him. His army was estimated at 100,000 and people said his elephants and those of his amīrs were 1000.

Under such conditions, in this strength, and having in my rear 100,000 old enemies such as are the Aūzbegs, we put trust in God and faced the ruler of such a dense army and of domains so wide. As our trust was in Him, the most high God did not make our labour and hardships vain, but defeated that powerful foe and conquered that broad realm. Not as due to strength and effort of our own do we look upon this good fortune, but as had solely through God's pleasure and kindness. We know that this happiness was not the fruit of our own ambition and resolve, but that it was purely from His mercy and favour.

DESCRIPTION OF HINDŪSTĀN.

(_a. Hindūstān._)

The country of Hindūstān is extensive, full of men, and full [Sidenote: Fol. 270b.] of produce. On the east, south, and even on the west, it ends at its great enclosing ocean (_muḥiṯ daryā-sī-gha_). On the north it has mountains which connect with those of Hindū-kush, Kāfiristān and Kashmīr. North-west of it lie Kābul, Ghaznī and Qandahār. Dihlī is held (_aīrīmīsh_) to be the capital of the whole of Hindūstān. From the death of Shihābu'd-dīn _Ghūrī_ (d. 602 AH.-1206 AD.) to the latter part of the reign of Sl. Fīrūz Shāh (_Tūghlūq Turk_ d. 790 AH.-1388 AD.), the greater part of Hindūstān must have been under the rule of the sulṯāns of Dihlī.

(_b. Rulers contemporary with Bābur's conquest._)

At the date of my conquest of Hindūstān it was governed by five Musalmān rulers (_pādshāh_)[1711] and two Pagans (_kāfir_). These were the respected and independent rulers, but there were also, in the hills and jungles, many rāīs and rājas, held in little esteem (_kīchīk karīm_).

First, there were the Afghāns who had possession of Dihlī, the capital, and held the country from Bhīra to Bihār. Jūnpūr, before their time, had been in possession of Sl. Ḥusain _Sharqī_ (Eastern)[1712] whose dynasty Hindūstānīs call Pūrabī (Eastern). His ancestors will have been cup-bearers in the presence of Sl. Fīrūz Shāh and those (Tūghlūq) sulṯāns; they became supreme in Jūnpūr after his death.[1713] At that time Dihlī was in the hands of Sl. `Alāu'u'd-dīn (`Ālam Khān) of the Sayyid dynasty to whose ancestor Tīmūr Beg had given it when, after having captured it, he went away.[1714] Sl. Buhlūl _Lūdī_ and his son (Sikandar) got possession of the capital Jūnpūr and the capital Dihlī, and brought both under one government (881 AH.-1476 AD.).

Secondly, there was Sl. Muḥammad Muz̤affer in Gujrāt; he departed from the world a few days before the defeat of Sl. Ibrāhīm. He was skilled in the Law, a ruler (_pādshāh_) seeking [Sidenote: Fol. 271.] after knowledge, and a constant copyist of the Holy Book. His dynasty people call Tānk.[1715] His ancestors also will have been wine-servers to Sl. Fīrūz Shāh and those (Tūghlūq) sulṯāns; they became possessed of Gujrāt after his death.

Thirdly, there were the Bāhmanīs of the Dakkan (Deccan, _i.e._ South), but at the present time no independent authority is left them; their great begs have laid hands on the whole country, and must be asked for whatever is needed.[1716]

Fourthly, there was Sl. Maḥmūd in the country of Malwā, which people call also Mandāū.[1717] His dynasty they call Khilīj (_Turk_). Rānā Sangā had defeated Sl. Maḥmūd and taken possession of most of his country. This dynasty also has become feeble. Sl. Maḥmūd's ancestors also must have been cherished by Sl. Fīrūz Shāh; they became possessed of the Malwā country after his death.[1718]

Fifthly, there was Naṣrat Shāh[1719] in the country of Bengal. His father (Ḥusain Shāh), a sayyid styled `Alāu'u'd-dīn, had ruled in Bengal and Naṣrat Shāh attained to rule by inheritance. A surprising custom in Bengal is that hereditary succession is rare. The royal office is permanent and there are permanent offices of amīrs, wazīrs and manṣab-dārs (officials). It is the office that Bengalis regard with respect. Attached to each office is a body of obedient, subordinate retainers and servants. If the royal heart demand that a person should be dismissed [Sidenote: Fol. 271b.] and another be appointed to sit in his place, the whole body of subordinates attached to that office become the (new) office-holder's. There is indeed this peculiarity of the royal office itself that any person who kills the ruler (_pādshāh_) and seats himself on the throne, becomes ruler himself; amīrs, wazīrs, soldiers and peasants submit to him at once, obey him, and recognize him for the rightful ruler his predecessor in office had been.[1720] Bengalis say, "We are faithful to the throne; we loyally obey whoever occupies it." As for instance, before the reign of Naṣrat Shāh's father `Alāu'u'd-dīn, an Abyssinian (_Ḥabshī_, named Muz̤affar Shāh) had killed his sovereign (Maḥmūd Shāh _Ilyās_), mounted the throne and ruled for some time. `Alāu'u'd-dīn killed that Abyssinian, seated himself on the throne and became ruler. When he died, his son (Naṣrat) became ruler by inheritance. Another Bengali custom is to regard it as a disgraceful fault in a new ruler if he expend and consume the treasure of his predecessors. On coming to rule he must gather treasure of his own. To amass treasure Bengalis regard as a glorious distinction. Another custom in Bengal is that from ancient times _parganas_ have been assigned to meet the charges of the treasury, stables, and all royal expenditure and to defray these charges no impost is laid on other lands.

These five, mentioned above, were the great Musalmān rulers, honoured in Hindūstān, many-legioned, and broad-landed. Of the Pagans the greater both in territory and army, is the Rāja of Bījānagar.[1721] [Sidenote: Fol. 272.]

The second is Rānā Sangā who in these latter days had grown great by his own valour and sword. His original country was Chitūr; in the downfall from power of the Mandāū sulṯāns, he became possessed of many of their dependencies such as Rantanbūr, Sārangpūr, Bhīlsān and Chandīrī. Chandīrī I stormed in 934 AH. (1528 A.D.)[1722] and, by God's pleasure, took it in a few hours; in it was Rānā Sangā's great and trusted man Midnī Rāo; we made general massacre of the Pagans in it and, as will be narrated, converted what for many years had been a mansion of hostility, into a mansion of Islām.

There are very many rāīs and rājas on all sides and quarters of Hindūstān, some obedient to Islām, some, because of their remoteness or because their places are fastnesses, not subject to Musalmān rule.

(_c. Of Hindūstān._)

Hindūstān is of the first climate, the second climate, and the third climate; of the fourth climate it has none. It is a wonderful country. Compared with our countries it is a different world; its mountains, rivers, jungles and deserts, its towns, its cultivated lands, its animals and plants, its peoples and their tongues, its rains, and its winds, are all different. In some respects the hot-country (_garm-sīl_) that depends on Kābul, is like Hindūstān, but in others, it is different. Once the water of Sind is crossed, everything is in the Hindūstān way (_ṯāriq_) [Sidenote: Fol. 272b.] land, water, tree, rock, people and horde, opinion and custom.

(_d. Of the northern mountains._)

After crossing the Sind-river (eastwards), there are countries, in the northern mountains mentioned above, appertaining to Kashmīr and once included in it, although most of them, as for example, Paklī and Shahmang (?), do not now obey it. Beyond Kashmīr there are countless peoples and hordes, _parganas_ and cultivated lands, in the mountains. As far as Bengal, as far indeed as the shore of the great ocean, the peoples are without break. About this procession of men no-one has been able to give authentic information in reply to our enquiries and investigations. So far people have been saying that they call these hill-men Kas.[1723] It has struck me that as a Hindūstānī pronounces _shīn_ as _sīn_ (_i.e._ _sh_ as _s_), and as Kashmīr is the one respectable town in these mountains, no other indeed being heard of, Hindūstānīs might pronounce it Kasmīr.[1724] These people trade in musk-bags, _b:ḥrī-qūṯās_,[1725] saffron, lead and copper.

Hindīs call these mountains Sawālak-parbat. In the Hindī tongue _sawāī-lak_ means one lak and a quarter, that is, 125,000, and _parbat_ means a hill, which makes 125,000 hills.[1726] The snow on these mountains never lessens; it is seen white from many districts of Hind, as, for example, Lāhor, Sihrind and Saṃbal. The range, which in Kābul is known as Hindū-kush, comes from Kābul eastwards into Hindūstān, with slight inclination to the south. The Hindūstānāt[1727] are to the south of it. Tībet lies to the north of it and of that unknown horde called Kas. [Sidenote: Fol. 273.]

(_e. Of rivers._)

Many rivers rise in these mountains and flow through Hindūstān. Six rise north of Sihrind, namely Sind, Bahat (Jīlam), Chān-āb [_sic_], Rāwī, Bīāh, and Sutluj[1728]; all meet near Multān, flow westwards under the name of Sind, pass through the Tatta country and fall into the `Umān(-sea).

Besides these six there are others, such as Jūn (Jumna), Gang (Ganges), Rahap (Raptī?), Gūmtī, Gagar (Ghaggar), Sirū, Gandak, and many more; all unite with the Gang-daryā, flow east under its name, pass through the Bengal country, and are poured into the great ocean. They all rise in the Sawālak-parbat.

Many rivers rise in the Hindūstān hills, as, for instance, Chaṃbal, Banās, Bītwī, and Sūn (Son). There is no snow whatever on these mountains. Their waters also join the Gang-daryā.

(_f. Of the Arāvallī._)

Another Hindūstān range runs north and south. It begins in the Dihlī country at a small rocky hill on which is Fīrūz Shāh's residence, called Jahān-nāma,[1729] and, going on from there, appears near Dihlī in detached, very low, scattered here and there, rocky [Sidenote: Fol. 273b.] little hills.[1730] Beyond Mīwāt, it enters the Bīāna country. The hills of Sīkrī, Bārī and Dūlpūr are also part of this same including (tūtā) range. The hills of Gūālīār—they write it Gālīūr—although they do not connect with it, are off-sets of this range; so are the hills of Rantanbūr, Chitūr, Chandīrī, and Mandāū. They are cut off from it in some places by 7 to 8 _kurohs_ (14 to 16 m.). These hills are very low, rough, rocky and jungly. No snow whatever falls on them. They are the makers, in Hindūstān, of several rivers.

(_g. Irrigation._)

The greater part of the Hindūstān country is situated on level land. Many though its towns and cultivated lands are, it nowhere has running waters.[1731] Rivers and, in some places, standing-waters are its "running-waters" (_āqār-sūlār_). Even where, as for some towns, it is practicable to convey water by digging channels (_ārīq_), this is not done. For not doing it there may be several reasons, one being that water is not at all a necessity in cultivating crops and orchards. Autumn crops grow by the downpour of the rains themselves; and strange it is that spring crops grow even when no rain falls. To young trees water is made to flow by means of buckets or a wheel. They are given water constantly during two or three years; after which they need no more. Some vegetables are watered constantly.

In Lāhor, Dībālpūr and those parts, people water by means of a wheel. They make two circles of ropes long enough to suit the depth of the well, fix strips of wood between them, and on these fasten pitchers. The ropes with the wood and attached [Sidenote: Fol. 274.] pitchers are put over the well-wheel. At one end of the wheel-axle a second wheel is fixed, and close (_qāsh_) to it another on an upright axle. This last wheel the bullock turns; its teeth catch in the teeth of the second, and thus the wheel with the pitchers is turned. A trough is set where the water empties from the pitchers and from this the water is conveyed everywhere.

In Āgra, Chandwār, Bīāna and those parts, again, people water with a bucket; this is a laborious and filthy way. At the well-edge they set up a fork of wood, having a roller adjusted between the forks, tie a rope to a large bucket, put the rope over the roller, and tie its other end to the bullock. One person must drive the bullock, another empty the bucket. Every time the bullock turns after having drawn the bucket out of the well, that rope lies on the bullock-track, in pollution of urine and dung, before it descends again into the well. To some crops needing water, men and women carry it by repeated efforts in pitchers.[1732]

(_h. Other particulars about Hindūstān._)

The towns and country of Hindūstān are greatly wanting in charm. Its towns and lands are all of one sort; there are no walls to the orchards (_bāghāt_), and most places are on the dead level plain. Under the monsoon-rains the banks of some of its rivers and torrents are worn into deep channels, difficult and [Sidenote: Fol. 274b.] troublesome to pass through anywhere. In many parts of the plains thorny jungle grows, behind the good defence of which the people of the _pargana_ become stubbornly rebellious and pay no taxes.

Except for the rivers and here and there standing-waters, there is little "running-water". So much so is this that towns and countries subsist on the water of wells or on such as collects in tanks during the rains.

In Hindūstān hamlets and villages, towns indeed, are depopulated and set up in a moment! If the people of a large town, one inhabited for years even, flee from it, they do it in such a way that not a sign or trace of them remains in a day or a day and a half.[1733] On the other hand, if they fix their eyes on a place in which to settle, they need not dig water-courses or construct dams because their crops are all rain-grown,[1734] and as the population of Hindūstān is unlimited, it swarms in. They make a tank or dig a well; they need not build houses or set up walls—_khas_-grass (_Andropogon muricatum_) abounds, wood is unlimited, huts are made, and straightway there is a village or a town!

(_i. Fauna of Hindūstān:—Mammals._)

The elephant, which Hindūstānīs call _hāt(h)ī_, is one of the wild animals peculiar to Hindūstān. It inhabits the (western?) borders of the Kālpī country, and becomes more numerous in its wild state the further east one goes (in Kālpī?). From this tract it is that captured elephants are brought; in Karrah and [Sidenote: Fol. 275.] Mānikpūr elephant-catching is the work of 30 or 40 villages.[1735] People answer (_jawāb bīrūrlār_) for them direct to the exchequer.[1736] The elephant is an immense animal and very sagacious. If people speak to it, it understands; if they command anything from it, it does it. Its value is according to its size; it is sold by measure (_qārīlāb_); the larger it is, the higher its price. People rumour that it is heard of in some islands as 10 _qārī_[1737] high, but in this tract it[1738] is not seen above 4 or 5. It eats and drinks entirely with its trunk; if it lose the trunk, it cannot live. It has two great teeth (tusks) in its upper jaw, one on each side of its trunk; by setting these against walls and trees, it brings them down; with these it fights and does whatever hard tasks fall to it. People call these ivory (_`āj_, var. _ghāj_); they are highly valued by Hindūstānīs. The elephant has no hair.[1739] It is much relied on by Hindūstānīs, accompanying every troop of their armies. It has some useful qualities:—it crosses great rivers with ease, carrying a mass of baggage, and three or four have gone dragging without trouble the cart of the mortar (_qazān_) it takes four or five hundred men to haul.[1740] But its stomach is large; one elephant eats the corn (_būghūz_) of two strings (_qiṯār_) of camels.[1741]

The rhinoceros is another. This also is a large animal, equal [Sidenote: Fol. 275b.] in bulk to perhaps three buffaloes. The opinion current in those countries (Tramontana) that it can lift an elephant on its horn, seems mistaken. It has a single horn on its nose, more than nine inches (_qārīsh_) long; one of two _qārīsh_ is not seen.[1742] Out of one large horn were made a drinking-vessel[1743] and a dice-box, leaving over [the thickness of] 3 or 4 hands.[1744] The rhinoceros' hide is very thick; an arrow shot from a stiff bow, drawn with full strength right up to the arm-pit, if it pierce at all, might penetrate 4 inches (_aīlīk_, hands). From the sides (_qāsh_) of its fore and hind legs,[1745] folds hang which from a distance look like housings thrown over it. It resembles the horse more than it does any other animal.[1746] As the horse has a small stomach (appetite?), so has the rhinoceros; as in the horse a piece of bone (pastern?) grows in place of small bones (T. _āshūq_, Fr. _osselets_ (Zenker), knuckles), so one grows in the rhinoceros; as in the horse's hand (_aīlīk_, Pers. _dast_) there is _kūmūk_ (or _gūmūk_, a _tibia_, or marrow), so there is in the rhinoceros.[1747] It is more ferocious than the elephant and cannot be made obedient and submissive. There are masses of it in the Parashāwar and Hashnagar jungles, so too between the Sind-river and the jungles of the Bhīra country. Masses there are also on the banks of [Sidenote: Fol. 276.] the Sārū-river in Hindūstān. Some were killed in the Parashāwar and Hashnagar jungles in our moves on Hindūstān. It strikes powerfully with its horn; men and horses enough have been horned in those hunts.[1748] In one of them the horse of a _chuhra_ (brave) named Maqṣūd was tossed a spear's-length, for which reason the man was nick-named the rhino's aim (_maqṣūd-i-karg_).

The wild-buffalo[1749] is another. It is much larger than the (domestic) buffalo and its horns do not turn back in the same way.[1750] It is a mightily destructive and ferocious animal.

The _nīla-gāū_ (blue-bull)[1751] is another. It may stand as high as a horse but is somewhat lighter in build. The male is bluish-gray, hence, seemingly, people call it nīla-gāū. It has two rather small horns. On its throat is a tuft of hair, nine inches long; (in this) it resembles the yak.[1752] Its hoof is cleft (_aīrī_) like the hoof of cattle. The doe is of the colour of the _būghū-marāl_[1753]; she, for her part, has no horns and is plumper than the male.

The hog-deer (_kotah-pāīcha_) is another.[1754] It may be of the size of the white deer (_āq kiyīk_). It has short legs, hence its name, little-legged. Its horns are like a _būghū_'s but smaller; like the _būghū_ it casts them every year. Being rather a poor runner, it does not leave the jungle.

Another is a deer (_kiyīk_) after the fashion of the male deer (_aīrkākī hūna_) of the _jīrān_.[1755] Its back is black, its belly white, its horns longer than the _hūna's_, but more crooked. A Hindūstānī [Sidenote: Fol. 276b.] calls it _kalahara_,[1756] a word which may have been originally _kālā-haran_, black-buck, and which has been softened in pronunciation to _kalahara_. The doe is light-coloured. By means of this _kalahara_ people catch deer; they fasten a noose (_ḥalqa_) on its horns, hang a stone as large as a ball[1757] on one of its feet, so as to keep it from getting far away after it has brought about the capture of a deer, and set it opposite wild deer when these are seen. As these (_kalahara_) deer are singularly combative, advance to fight is made at once. The two deer strike with their horns and push one another backwards and forwards, during which the wild one's horns become entangled in the net that is fast to the tame one's. If the wild one would run away, the tame one does not go; it is impeded also by the stone on its foot. People take many deer in this way; after capture they tame them and use them in their turn to take others;[1758] they also set them to fight at home; the deer fight very well.

There is a smaller deer (_kiyīk_) on the Hindūstān hill-skirts, as large may-be as the one year's lamb of the _arqārghalcha_ (_Ovis poli_).

The _gīnī-cow_[1759] is another, a very small one, perhaps as large as the _qūchqār_ (ram) of those countries (Tramontana). Its flesh is very tender and savoury.

The monkey (_maimūn_) is another—a Hindūstānī calls it _bandar_. Of this too there are many kinds, one being what people [Sidenote: Fol. 277.] take to those countries. The jugglers (_lūlī_) teach them tricks. This kind is in the mountains of Nūr-dara, in the skirt-hills of Safīd-koh neighbouring on Khaibar, and from there downwards all through Hindūstān. It is not found higher up. Its hair is yellow, its face white, its tail not very long.—Another kind, not found in Bajaur, Sawād and those parts, is much larger than the one taken to those countries (Tramontana). Its tail is very long, its hair whitish, its face quite black. It is in the mountains and jungles of Hindūstān.[1760]—Yet another kind is distinguished (_būlā dūr_), quite black in hair, face and limbs.[1761]

The _nawal_ (_nūl_)[1762] is another. It may be somewhat smaller than the _kīsh_. It climbs trees. Some call it the _mūsh-i-khūrma_ (palm-rat). It is thought lucky.

A mouse (T. _sīchqān_) people call _galāhrī_ (squirrel) is another. It is just always in trees, running up and down with amazing alertness and speed.[1763]

(_j. Fauna of Hindūstān:—Birds._)[1764]

The peacock (Ar. _ṯāūs_) is one. It is a beautifully coloured and splendid animal. Its form (_andām_) is not equal to its colouring and beauty. Its body may be as large as the crane's (_tūrna_) but it is not so tall. On the head of both cock and hen are 20 to 30 feathers rising some 2 or 3 inches high. The hen has neither colour nor beauty. The head of the cock has an iridescent collar (_ṯauq sūsanī_); its neck is of a beautiful blue; [Sidenote: Fol. 277b.] below the neck, its back is painted in yellow, parrot-green, blue and violet colours. The flowers[1765] on its back are much the smaller; below the back as far as the tail-tips are [larger] flowers painted in the same colours. The tail of some peacocks grows to the length of a man's extended arms.[1766] It has a small tail under its flowered feathers, like the tail of other birds; this ordinary tail and its primaries[1767] are red. It is in Bajaur and Sawād and below them; it is not in Kunur [Kūnūr] and the Lamghānāt or any place above them. Its flight is feebler than the pheasant's (_qīrghāwal_); it cannot do more than make one or two short flights.[1768] On account of its feeble flight, it frequents the hills or jungles, which is curious, since jackals abound in the jungles it frequents. What damage might these jackals not do to birds that trail from jungle to jungle, tails as long as a man's stretch (_qūlāch_)! Hindūstānīs call the peacock _mor_. Its flesh is lawful food, according to the doctrine of Imām Abū Ḥanīfa; it is like that of the partridge and not unsavoury, but is eaten with instinctive aversion, in the way camel-flesh is.

The parrot (H. _ṯūṯī_) is another. This also is in Bajaur and countries lower down. It comes into Nīngnahār and the Lamghānāt in the heats when mulberries ripen; it is not there at other times. It is of many, many kinds. One sort is that which people carry into those (Tramontane) countries. They [Sidenote: Fol. 278.] make it speak words.—Another sort is smaller; this also they make speak words. They call it the jungle-parrot. It is numerous in Bajaur, Sawād and that neighbourhood, so much so that 5 or 6000 fly in one flock (_khail_). Between it and the one first-named the difference is in bulk; in colouring they are just one and the same.—Another sort is still smaller than the jungle-parrot. Its head is quite red, the top of its wings (_i.e._ the primaries) is red also; the tip of its tail for two hands'-thickness is lustrous.[1769] The head of some parrots of this kind is iridescent (_sūsanī_). It does not become a talker. People call it the Kashmīr parrot.—Another sort is rather smaller than the jungle-parrot; its beak is black; round its neck is a wide black collar; its primaries are red. It is an excellent learner of words.—We used to think that whatever a parrot or a _shārak_ (_mīna_) might say of words people had taught it, it could not speak of any matter out of its own head. At this juncture[1770] one of my immediate servants Abū'l-qāsim _Jalāīr_, reported a singular thing to me. A parrot of this sort whose cage must have been covered up, said, "Uncover my face; I am stifling." And another time when palkī bearers sat down to take breath, this parrot, presumably on hearing wayfarers pass by, said, "Men are going past, are you not going on?" Let credit rest with the narrator,[1771] but never-the-less, so long as a person has not heard with his own ears, he may not believe!—Another kind is of a beautiful [Sidenote: Fol. 278b.] full red; it has other colours also, but, as nothing is distinctly remembered about them, no description is made. It is a very beautiful bird, both in colour and form. People are understood to make this also speak words.[1772] Its defect is a most unpleasant, sharp voice, like the drawing of broken china on a copper plate.[1773]

The (P.) _shārak_[1774] is another. It is numerous in the Lamghānāt and abounds lower down, all over Hindūstān. Like the parrot, it is of many kinds.—The kind that is numerous in the Lamghānāt has a black head; its primaries (_qānāt_) are spotted, its body rather larger and thicker[1775] than that of the (T.) _chūghūr-chūq_.[1776] People teach it to speak words.—Another kind they call _p:ndāwalī_[1777]; they bring it from Bengal; it is black all over and of much greater bulk than the _shārak_ (here, house-_mīna_). Its bill and foot are yellow and on each ear are yellow wattles which hang down and have a bad appearance.[1778] It learns to speak well and clearly.—Another kind of _shārak_ is slenderer than the last and is red round the eyes. It does not learn to speak. People call it the wood-_shārak_.[1779] Again, at the time when (934 AH.) I had made a bridge over Gang (Ganges), crossed it, and put my adversaries to flight, a kind of _shārak_ was seen, in the neighbourhood of Laknau and Aūd (Oude), for the first time, which had a white breast, piebald head, and black back. This kind does not learn to speak.[1780]

The _lūja_[1781] is another. This bird they call (Ar.) _bū-qalamūn_ (chameleon) because, between head and tail, it has five or six changing colours, resplendent (_barrāq_) like a pigeon's throat. [Sidenote: Fol. 279.] It is about as large as the _kabg-i-darī_[1782] and seems to be the _kabg-i-darī_ of Hindūstān. As the _kabg-i-darī_ moves (_yūrūr_) on the heads (_kulah_) of mountains, so does this. It is in the Nijr-aū mountains of the countries of Kābul, and in the mountains lower down but it is not found higher up. People tell this wonderful thing about it:—When the birds, at the onset of winter, descend to the hill-skirts, if they come over a vineyard, they can fly no further and are taken. God knows the truth! The flesh of this bird is very savoury.

The partridge (_durrāj_)[1783] is another. This is not peculiar to Hindūstān but is also in the _Garm-sīr_ countries[1784]; as however some kinds are only in Hindūstān, particulars of them are given here. The _durrāj_ (_Francolinus vulgaris_) may be of the same bulk as the _kīklīk_[1785]; the cock's back is the colour of the hen-pheasant (_qīrghāwal-ning māda-sī_); its throat and breast are black, with quite white spots.[1786] A red line comes down on both sides of both eyes.[1787] It is named from its cry[1788] which is something like _Shir dāram shakrak_.[1789] It pronounces _shir_ short; _dāram shakrak_ it says distinctly. Astarābād partridges are said to cry _Bāt mīnī tūtīlār_ (Quick! they have caught me). The partridge of Arabia and those parts is understood to cry, _Bi'l_ _shakar tadawm al ni`am_ (with sugar pleasure endures)! The hen-bird has the colour of the young pheasant. These birds are found below Nijr-aū.—Another kind is called _kanjāl_. Its bulk may be that of the one already described. Its voice is very like that of the _kīklīk_ but much shriller. There is little [Sidenote: Fol. 279b.] difference in colour between the cock and hen. It is found in Parashāwar, Hashnagar and countries lower down, but not higher up.

The _p(h)ūl-paikār_[1790] is another. Its size may be that of the _kabg-i-darī_; its shape is that of the house-cock, its colour that of the hen. From forehead (_tūmāgh_) to throat it is of a beautiful colour, quite red. It is in the Hindūstān mountains.

The wild-fowl (_ṣaḥrāī-tāūgh_)[1791] is another. It flies like a pheasant, and is not of all colours as house-fowl are. It is in the mountains of Bajaur and lower down, but not higher up.

The _chīlsī_ (or _jīlsī_)[1792] is another. In bulk it equals the _p(h)ūl-paikār_ but the latter has the finer colouring. It is in the mountains of Bajaur.

The _shām_[1793] is another. It is about as large as a house-fowl; its colour is unique (_ghair mukarrar_).[1794] It also is in the mountains of Bajaur.

The quail (P. _būdana_) is another. It is not peculiar to Hindūstān but four or five kinds are so.—One is that which goes to our countries (Tramontana), larger and more spreading than the (Hindūstān) quail.[1795]—Another kind[1796] is smaller than the one first named. Its primaries and tail are reddish. It flies in flocks like the _chīr_ (_Phasianus Wallichii_).—Another kind is smaller than that which goes to our countries and is darker on throat [Sidenote: Fol. 280.] and breast.[1797]—Another kind goes in small numbers to Kābul; it is very small, perhaps a little larger than the yellow wag-tail (_qārcha_)[1798]; they call it _qūrātū_ in Kābul.

The Indian bustard (P. _kharchāl_)[1799] is another. It is about as large as the (T.) _tūghdāq_ (_Otis tarda_, the great bustard), and seems to be the _tūghdāq_ of Hindūstān.[1800] Its flesh is delicious; of some birds the leg is good, of others, the wing; of the bustard all the meat is delicious and excellent.

The florican (P. _charz_)[1801] is another. It is rather less than the _tūghdīrī_ (_houbara_)[1802]; the cock's back is like the _tūghdīrī's_, and its breast is black. The hen is of one colour.

The Hindūstān sand-grouse (T. _bāghrī-qarā_)[1803] is another. It is smaller and slenderer than the _bāghrī-qarā_ [_Pterocles arenarius_] of those countries (Tramontana). Also its cry is sharper.

Of the birds that frequent water and the banks of rivers, one is the _dīng_,[1804] an animal of great bulk, each wing measuring a _qūlāch_ (fathom). It has no plumage (_tūqī_) on head or neck; a thing like a bag hangs from its neck; its back is black; its breast is white. It goes sometimes to Kābul; one year people brought one they had caught. It became very tame; if meat were thrown to it, it never failed to catch it in its bill. Once it swallowed a six-nailed shoe, another time a whole fowl, wings [Sidenote: Fol. 280b.] and feathers, all right down.

The _sāras_ (_Grus antigone_) is another. Turks in Hindūstān call it _tīwa-tūrnā_ (camel-crane). It may be smaller than the _dīng_ but its neck is rather longer. Its head is quite red.[1805] People keep this bird at their houses; it becomes very tame.

The _mānek_[1806] is another. In stature it approaches the _sāras_, but its bulk is less. It resembles the _lag-lag_ (_Ciconia alba_, the white stork) but is much larger; its bill is larger and is black. Its head is iridescent, its neck white, its wings partly-coloured; the tips and border-feathers and under parts of the wings are white, their middle black.

Another stork (_lag-lag_) has a white neck and all other parts black. It goes to those countries (Tramontana). It is rather smaller than the _lag-lag_ (_Ciconia alba_). A Hindūstānī calls it _yak-rang_ (one colour?).

Another stork in colour and shape is exactly like the storks that go to those countries. Its bill is blacker and its bulk much less than the _lag-lag_'s (_Ciconia alba_).[1807]

Another bird resembles the grey heron (_aūqār_) and the _lag-lag_; but its bill is longer than the heron's and its body smaller than the white stork's (_lag-lag_).

Another is the large _buzak_[1808] (black ibis). In bulk it may equal the buzzard (Turkī, _sār_). The back of its wings is white. It has a loud cry.

The white _buzak_[1809] is another. Its head and bill are black. [Sidenote: Fol. 281.] It is much larger than the one that goes to those countries,[1810] but smaller than the Hindūstān _buzak_.[1811]

The _gharm-pāī_[1812] (spotted-billed duck) is another. It is larger than the _sūna būrchīn_[1813] (mallard). The drake and duck are of one colour. It is in Hashnagar at all seasons, sometimes it goes into the Lamghānāt. Its flesh is very savoury.

The _shāh-murgh_ (_Sarcidiornis melanonotus_, comb duck or _nukta_) is another. It may be a little smaller than a goose. It has a swelling on its bill; its back is black; its flesh is excellent eating.

The _zummaj_ is another. It is about as large as the _būrgūt_ (_Aquila chrysaetus_, the golden eagle).

The (T.) _ālā-qārgha_ of Hindūstān is another (_Corvus cornix_, the pied crow). This is slenderer and smaller than the _ālā-qārgha_ of those countries (Tramontana). Its neck is partly white.

Another Hindūstān bird resembles the crow (T. _qārcha_, _C. splendens_) and the magpie (Ar. _`aqqa_). In the Lamghānāt people call it the jungle-bird (P. _murgh-i-jangal_).[1814] Its head and breast are black; its wings and tail reddish; its eye quite red. Having a feeble flight, it does not come out of the jungle, whence its name.

The great bat (P. _shapara_)[1815] is another. People call it (Hindī) _chumgādur_. It is about as large as the owl (T. _yāpālāq_, _Otus brachyotus_), and has a head like a puppy's. When it is thinking of lodging for the night on a tree, it takes hold of a branch, turns head-downwards, and so remains. It has much singularity.

The magpie (Ar. _`aqqa_) is another. People call it (H.?) _matā_ (_Dendrocitta rufa_, the Indian tree-pie). It may be somewhat less than the _`aqqa_ (_Pica rustica_), which moreover is pied black and white, while the _matā_ is pied brown and black.[1816]

Another is a small bird, perhaps of the size of the (T.) _sāndūlāch_.[1817] [Sidenote: Fol. 281b.] It is of a beautiful red with a little black on its wings.

The _karcha_[1818] is another; it is after the fashion of a swallow (T. _qārlūghāch_), but much larger and quite black.

The _kūīl_[1819] (_Eudynamys orientalis_, the koel) is another. It may be as large as the crow (P. _zāg_) but is much slenderer. It has a kind of song and is understood to be the bulbul of Hindūstān. Its honour with Hindūstānīs is as great as is the bulbul's. It always stays in closely-wooded gardens.

Another bird is after the fashion of the (Ar.) _shiqarrāk_ (_Cissa chinensis_, the green-magpie). It clings to trees, is perhaps as large as the green-magpie, and is parrot-green (_Gecinus striolatus_, the little green-woodpecker?).

(_k. Fauna of Hindūstān:—Aquatic animals._)

One is the water-tiger (P. _shīr-ābī_, _Crocodilus palustris_).[1820] This is in the standing-waters. It is like a lizard (T. _gīlās_).[1821] People say it carries off men and even buffaloes.

The (P.) _siyāh-sār_ (black-head) is another. This also is like a lizard. It is in all rivers of Hindūstān. One that was taken and brought in was about 4-5 _qārī_ (_cir._ 13 feet) long and as thick perhaps as a sheep. It is said to grow still larger. Its snout is over half a yard long. It has rows of small teeth in its upper and lower jaws. It comes out of the water and sinks into the mud (_bātā_).

The (Sans.) _g[h]aṛīāl_ (_Gavialus gangeticus_) is another.[1822] It is said to grow large; many in the army saw it in the Sarū (Gogra) river. It is said to take people; while we were on that river's banks (934-935 A.H.), it took one or two slave-women (_dādūk_), and it took three or four camp-followers between Ghāzīpūr and Banāras. In that neighbourhood I saw one but from a distance only and not quite clearly.

The water-hog (P. _khūk-ābī_, _Platanista gangetica_, the porpoise) is another. This also is in all Hindūstān rivers. It comes up suddenly out of the water; its head appears and disappears; it [Sidenote: Fol. 282.] dives again and stays below, shewing its tail. Its snout is as long as the _siyāh-sār's_ and it has the same rows of small teeth. Its head and the rest of its body are fish-like. When at play in the water, it looks like a water-carrier's bag (_mashak_). Water-hogs, playing in the Sarū, leap right out of the water; like fish, they never leave it.

Again there is the _kalah_ (or _galah_)-fish [_bāligh_].[1823] Two bones each about 3 inches (_aīlīk_) long, come out in a line with its ears; these it shakes when taken, producing an extraordinary noise, whence, seemingly, people have called it _kalah_ [or _galah_].

The flesh of Hindūstān fishes is very savoury; they have no odour (_aīd_) or tiresomeness.[1824] They are surprisingly active. On one occasion when people coming, had flung a net across a stream, leaving its two edges half a yard above the water, most fish passed by leaping a yard above it. In many rivers are little fish which fling themselves a yard or more out of the water if there be harsh [Sidenote: Fol. 282b.] noise or sound of feet.

The frogs of Hindūstān, though otherwise like those others (Tramontane), run 6 or 7 yards on the face of the water.[1825]

(_l. Vegetable products of Hindūstān: Fruits._)

The mango (P. _anbah_) is one of the fruits peculiar to Hindūstān. Hindūstānīs pronounce the _b_ in its name as though no vowel followed it (_i.e._ Sans. _anb_);[1826] this being awkward to utter, some people call the fruit [P.] _naghzak_[1827] as Khwāja Khusrau does:—

_Naghzak-i mā_ [var. _khẉash_] _naghz-kun-i būstān, Naghztarīn mewa_ [var. _na`mat_]_-i-Hindūstān_.[1828]

Mangoes when good, are very good, but, many as are eaten, few are first-rate. They are usually plucked unripe and ripened in the house. Unripe, they make excellent condiments (_qātīq_), are good also preserved in syrup.[1829] Taking it altogether, the mango is the best fruit of Hindūstān. Some so praise it as to give it preference over all fruits except the musk-melon (T. _qāwūn_), but such praise outmatches it. It resembles the _kārdī_ peach.[1830] It ripens in the rains. It is eaten in two ways: one is to squeeze it to a pulp, make a hole in it, and suck out the juice,—the other, to peel and eat it like the _kārdī_ peach. Its tree grows very large[1831] and has a leaf somewhat resembling the peach-tree's. The trunk is ill-looking and ill-shaped, but in Bengāl and Gujrāt is heard of as growing handsome (_khūb_).[1832]

The plantain (Sans. _kelā_, _Musa sapientum_) is another.[1833] An [Sidenote: Fol. 283.] `Arab calls it _mauz_.[1834] Its tree is not very tall, indeed is not to be called a tree, since it is something between a grass and a tree. Its leaf is a little like that of the _amān-qarā_[1835] but grows about 2 yards (_qārī_) long and nearly one broad. Out of the middle of its leaves rises, heart-like, a bud which resembles a sheep's heart. As each leaf (petal) of this bud expands, there grows at its base a row of 6 or 7 flowers which become the plantains. These flowers become visible with the lengthening of the heart-like shoot and the opening of the petals of the bud. The tree is understood to flower once only.[1836] The fruit has two pleasant qualities, one that it peels easily, the other that it has neither stone nor fibre.[1837] It is rather longer and thinner than the egg-plant (P. _bādanjān_; _Solanum melongena_). It is not very sweet; the Bengāl plantain (_i.e._ _chīnī-champa_) is, however, said to be very sweet. The plantain is a very good-looking tree, its broad, broad, leaves of beautiful green having an excellent appearance.

The _anblī_ (H. _imlī_, _Tamarindus indica_, the tamarind) is another. By this name (_anblī_) people call the _khurmā-i-hind_ (Indian date-tree).[1838] It has finely-cut leaves (leaflets), precisely like those of the (T.) _būīā_, except that they are not so finely-cut.[1839] It is a very good-looking tree, giving dense shade. It grows wild in masses too.

The (Beng.) _mahuwā_ (_Bassia latifolia_) is another.[1840] People call it also (P.) _gul-chikān_ (or _chigān_, distilling-flower). This also is a very large tree. Most of the wood in the houses of Hindūstānīs [Sidenote: Fol. 283b.] is from it. Spirit (_`araq_) is distilled from its flowers,[1841] not only so, but they are dried and eaten like raisins, and from them thus dried, spirit is also extracted. The dried flowers taste just like _kishmish_;[1842] they have an ill-flavour. The flowers are not bad in their natural state[1843]; they are eatable. The _mahuwā_ grows wild also. Its fruit is tasteless, has rather a large seed with a thin husk, and from this seed, again,[1844] oil is extracted.

The mimusops (Sans. _khirnī_, _Mimusops kauki_) is another. Its tree, though not very large, is not small. The fruit is yellow and thinner than the red jujube (T. _chīkdā_, _Elæagnus angustifolia_). It has just the grape's flavour, but a rather bad after-taste; it is not bad, however, and is eatable. The husk of its stone is thin.

The (Sans.) _jāman_ (_Eugenia jambolana_)[1845] is another. Its leaf, except for being thicker and greener, is quite like the willow's (T. _tāl_). The tree does not want for beauty. Its fruit is like a black grape, is sourish, and not very good.

The (H.) _kamrak_ (Beng. _kamrunga_, _Averrhoa carambola_) is another. Its fruit is five-sided, about as large as the _`ain-ālū_[1846] and some 3 inches long. It ripens to yellow; gathered unripe, it is very bitter; gathered ripe, its bitterness has become sub-acid, not bad, not wanting in pleasantness.[1847]

The jack-fruit (H. _kadhil_, B. _kanthal_, _Artocarpus integrifolia_) is another.[1848] This is a fruit of singular form and flavour; it looks [Sidenote: Fol. 284.] like a sheep's stomach stuffed and made into a haggis (_gīpa_);[1849] and it is sickeningly-sweet. Inside it are filbert-like stones[1850] which, on the whole, resemble dates, but are round, not long, and have softer substance; these are eaten. The jack-fruit is very adhesive; for this reason people are said to oil mouth and hands before eating of it. It is heard of also as growing, not only on the branches of its tree, but on trunk and root too.[1851] One would say that the tree was all hung round with haggises.[1852]

The monkey-jack (H. _badhal_, B. _burhul_, _Artocarpus lacoocha_) is another. The fruit may be of the size of a quince (var. apple). Its smell is not bad.[1853] Unripe it is a singularly tasteless and empty[1854] thing; when ripe, it is not so bad. It ripens soft, can be pulled to pieces and eaten anywhere, tastes very much like a rotten quince, and has an excellent little austere flavour.

The lote-fruit (Sans. _ber_, _Zizyphus jujuba_) is another. Its Persian name is understood to be _kanār_.[1855] It is of several kinds: of one the fruit is larger than the plum (_ālūcha_)[1856]; another is shaped like the Ḥusainī grape. Most of them are not very good; we saw one in Bāndīr (Gūālīār) that was really good. The lote-tree sheds its leaves under the Signs _S̤aur_ and _Jauzā_ (Bull and Twins), burgeons under _Saraṯān_ and _Asad_ (Crab and Lion) which are the true rainy-season,—then becoming fresh and green, and it ripens its fruit under _Dalū_ and _Ḥaut_ (Bucket _i.e._ Aquarius, and Fish).

The (Sans.) _karaūndā_ (_Carissa carandas_, the corinda) is another. It grows in bushes after the fashion of the (T.) _chīka_ of our country.[1857] but the _chīka_ grows on mountains, the _karaūndā_ on the [Sidenote: Fol. 284b.] plains. In flavour it is like the rhubarb itself,[1858] but is sweeter and less juicy.

The (Sans.) _pānīyālā_ (_Flacourtia cataphracta_)[1859] is another. It is larger than the plum (_ālūcha_) and like the red-apple unripe.[1860] It is a little austere and is good. The tree is taller than the pomegranate's; its leaf is like that of the almond-tree but smaller.

The (H.) _gūlar_ (_Ficus glomerata_, the clustered fig)[1861] is another. The fruit grows out of the tree-trunk, resembles the fig (P. _anjīr_), but is singularly tasteless.

The (Sans.) _āmlā_ (_Phyllanthus emblica_, the myrobalan-tree) is another. This also is a five-sided fruit.[1862] It looks like the unblown cotton-pod. It is an astringent and ill-flavoured thing, but confiture made of it is not bad. It is a wholesome fruit. Its tree is of excellent form and has very minute leaves.

The (H.) _chirūnjī_ (_Buchanania latifolia_)[1863] is another. This tree had been understood to grow in the hills, but I knew later about it, because there were three or four clumps of it in our gardens. It is much like the _mahuwā_. Its kernel is not bad, a thing between the walnut and the almond, not bad! rather smaller than the pistachio and round; people put it in custards (P. _pālūda_) and sweetmeats (Ar. _ḥalwa_).

The date-palm (P. _khurmā_, _Phœnix dactylifera_) is another. This is not peculiar to Hindūstān, but is here described because it is not in those countries (Tramontana). It grows in Lamghān also.[1864] Its branches (_i.e._ leaves) grow from just one place at its top; its leaves (_i.e._ leaflets) grow on both sides of the branches (midribs) from neck (_būīn_) to tip; its trunk is rough and ill-coloured; [Sidenote: Fol. 285.] its fruit is like a bunch of grapes, but much larger. People say that the date-palm amongst vegetables resembles an animal in two respects: one is that, as, if an animal's head be cut off, its life is taken, so it is with the date-palm, if its head is cut off, it dries off; the other is that, as the offspring of animals is not produced without the male, so too with the date-palm, it gives no good fruit unless a branch of the male-tree be brought into touch with the female-tree. The truth of this last matter is not known (to me). The above-mentioned head of the date-palm is called its cheese. The tree so grows that where its leaves come out is cheese-white, the leaves becoming green as they lengthen. This white part, the so-called cheese, is tolerable eating, not bad, much like the walnut. People make a wound in the cheese, and into this wound insert a leaf(let), in such a way that all liquid flowing from the wound runs down it.[1865] The tip of the leaflet is set over the mouth of a pot suspended to the tree in such a way that it collects whatever liquor is yielded by the wound. This liquor is rather pleasant if drunk at once; if drunk after two or three days, people say it is quite exhilarating (_kaifīyat_). Once when I had gone to visit Bārī,[1866] and made an [Sidenote: Fol. 285b.] excursion to the villages on the bank of the Chaṃbal-river, we met in with people collecting this date-liquor in the valley-bottom. A good deal was drunk; no hilarity was felt; much must be drunk, seemingly, to produce a little cheer.

The coco-nut palm (P. _nārgīl_, _Cocos nucifera_) is another. An `Arab gives it Arabic form[1867] and says _nārjīl_; Hindūstān people say _nālīr_, seemingly by popular error.[1868] Its fruit is the Hindī-nut from which black spoons (_qarā qāshūq_) are made and the larger ones of which serve for guitar-bodies. The coco-palm has general resemblance to the date-palm, but has more, and more glistening leaves. Like the walnut, the coco-nut has a green outer husk; but its husk is of fibre on fibre. All ropes for ships and boats and also cord for sewing boat-seams are heard of as made from these husks. The nut, when stripped of its husk, near one end shews a triangle of hollows, two of which are solid, the third a nothing (_būsh_), easily pierced. Before the kernel forms, there is fluid inside; people pierce the soft hollow and drink this; it tastes like date-palm cheese in solution, and is not bad.

The (Sans.) _tāṛ_ (_Borassus flabelliformis_, the Palmyra-palm) is another. Its branches (_i.e._ leaves) also are quite at its top. Just as [Sidenote: Fol. 286.] with the date-palm, people hang a pot on it, take its juice and drink it. They call this liquor _tāṛī_;[1869] it is said to be more exhilarating than date liquor. For about a yard along its branches (_i.e._ leaf-stems)[1870] there are no leaves; above this, at the tip of the branch (stem), 30 or 40 open out like the spread palm of the hand, all from one place. These leaves approach a yard in length. People often write Hindī characters on them after the fashion of account rolls (_daftar yūsūnlūq_).

The orange (Ar. _nāranj_, _Citrus aurantium_) and orange-like fruits are others of Hindūstān.[1871] Oranges grow well in the Lamghānāt, Bajaur and Sawād. The Lamghānāt one is smallish, has a navel,[1872] is very agreeable, fragile and juicy. It is not at all like the orange of Khurāsān and those parts, being so fragile that many spoil before reaching Kābul from the Lamghānāt which may be 13-14 _yīghāch_ (65-70 miles), while the Astarābād orange, by reason of its thick skin and scant juice, carries with [Sidenote: Fol. 286b.] less damage from there to Samarkand, some 270-280 _yīghāch_.[1873] The Bajaur orange is about as large as a quince, very juicy and more acid than other oranges. Khwāja Kalān once said to me, "We counted the oranges gathered from a single tree of this sort in Bajaur and it mounted up to 7,000." It had been always in my mind that the word _nāranj_ was an Arabic form;[1874] it would seem to be really so, since every-one in Bajaur and Sawād says (P.) _nārang_.[1875]

The lime (B. _līmū_, _C. acida_) is another. It is very plentiful, about the size of a hen's egg, and of the same shape. If a person poisoned drink the water in which its fibres have been boiled, danger is averted.[1876]

The citron (P. _turunj_,[1877] _C. medica_) is another of the fruits resembling the orange. Bajaurīs and Sawādīs call it _bālang_ and hence give the name _bālang-marabbā_ to its marmalade (_marabbā_) confiture. In Hindūstān people call the _turunj bajaurī_.[1878] There are two kinds of _turunj_: one is sweet, flavourless and nauseating, of no use for eating but with peel that may be good for marmalade; it has the same sickening sweetness as the Lamghānāt _turunj_; the other, that of Hindūstān and Bajaur, is acid, quite deliciously acid, and makes excellent sherbet, well-flavoured, and wholesome drinking. Its size may be that of the Khusrawī melon; it has a thick skin, wrinkled and uneven, with one end thinner and beaked. It is of a deeper yellow than the orange (_nāranj_). Its tree has no trunk, is rather low, grows in bushes, and has a larger [Sidenote: Fol. 287.] leaf than the orange.

The _sangtāra_[1879] is another fruit resembling the orange (_nāranj_). It is like the citron (_turunj_) in colour and form, but has both ends of its skin level;[1880] also it is not rough and is somewhat the smaller fruit. Its tree is large, as large as the apricot (_aūrūq_), with a leaf like the orange's. It is a deliciously acid fruit, making a very pleasant and wholesome sherbet. Like the lime it is a powerful stomachic, but not weakening like the orange (_nāranj_).

The large lime which they call (H.) _gal-gal_[1881] in Hindūstān is another fruit resembling the orange. It has the shape of a goose's egg, but unlike that egg, does not taper to the ends. Its skin is smooth like the _sangtāra's_; it is remarkably juicy.

The (H.) _jānbīrī_ lime[1882] is another orange-like fruit. It is orange-shaped and, though yellow, not orange-yellow. It smells like the citron (_turunj_); it too is deliciously acid.

The (Sans.) _sadā-fal_ (_phal_)[1883] is another orange-like fruit. This is pear-shaped, colours like the quince, ripens sweet, but not to the sickly-sweetness of the orange (_nāranj_).

The _amrd-fal_ (sic. Ḥai. MS.—Sans. _amrit-phal_)[1884] is another orange-like fruit.

The lemon (H. _karnā_, _C. limonum_) is another fruit resembling the orange (_nāranj_); it may be as large as the _gal-gal_ and is also acid.

The (Sans.) _amal-bīd_[1885] is another fruit resembling the orange. After three years (in Hindūstān), it was first seen to-day.[1886] They say a needle melts away if put inside it,[1887] either from its acidity [Sidenote: Fol. 287b.] or some other property. It is as acid, perhaps, as the citron and lemon (_turunj_ and _līmū_).[1888]

(_m. Vegetable products of Hindūstān:—Flowers._)

In Hindūstān there is great variety of flowers. One is the (D.) _jāsūn_ (_Hibiscus rosa sinensis_), which some Hindūstānīs call (Hindī) _gaẕhal_.[1889] *It is not a grass (_giyāh_); its tree (is in stems like the bush of the red-rose; it) is rather taller than the bush of the red-rose.[1890]* The flower of the _jāsūn_ is fuller in colour than that of the pomegranate, and may be of the size of the red-rose, but, the red-rose, when its bud has grown, opens simply, whereas, when the _jāsūn_-bud opens, a stem on which other petals grow, is seen like a heart amongst its expanded petals. Though the two are parts of the one flower, yet the outcome of the lengthening and thinning of that stem-like heart of the first-opened petals gives the semblance of two flowers.[1891] It is not a common matter. The beautifully coloured flowers look very well on the tree, but they do not last long; they fade in just one day. The _jāsūn_ blossoms very well through the four months of the rains; it seems indeed to flower all through the year; with this profusion, however, it gives no perfume.

The (H.) _kanīr_ (_Nerium odorum_, the oleander)[1892] is another. It grows both red and white. Like the peach-flower, it is five petalled. It is like the peach-bloom (in colour?), but opens 14 or 15 flowers from one place, so that seen from a distance, they look like one great flower. The oleander-bush is taller than the rose-bush. The red oleander has a sort of scent, faint and agreeable. (Like the _jāsūn_,) it also blooms well and profusely in the [Sidenote: Fol. 288.] rains, and it also is had through most of the year.

The (H.) (_kīūrā_) (_Pandanus odoratissimus_, the screw-pine) is another.[1893] It has a very agreeable perfume.[1894] Musk has the defect of being dry; this may be called moist musk—a very agreeable perfume. The tree's singular appearance notwithstanding, it has flowers perhaps 1-1/2 to 2 _qārīsh_ (13-1/2 to 18 inches) long. It has long leaves having the character of the reed (P.) _gharau_[1895] and having spines. Of these leaves, while pressed together bud-like, the outer ones are the greener and more spiny; the inner ones are soft and white. In amongst these inner leaves grow things like what belongs to the middle of a flower, and from these things comes the excellent perfume. When the tree first comes up not yet shewing any trunk, it is like the bush (_būta_) of the male-reed,[1896] but with wider and more spiny leaves. What serves it for a trunk is very shapeless, its roots remaining shewn.

The (P.) _yāsman_ (jasmine) is another; the white they call (B.) _champa_.[1897] It is larger and more strongly scented than our _yāsman_-flower.

(_n. Seasons of the year._)

Again:—whereas there are four seasons in those countries,[1898] there are three in Hindūstān, namely, four months are summer; four are the rains; four are winter. The beginning of their months is from the welcome of the crescent-moons.[1899] Every three years they add a month to the year; if one had been added to the rainy season, the next is added, three years later, to the winter months, the next, in the same way, to the hot months. This is their mode of intercalation.[1900] (_Chait_, _Baisākh_, _Jeṭh_ and [Sidenote: Fol. 288b.] _Asāṛh_) are the hot months, corresponding with the Fish, (Ram, Bull and Twins; _Sāwan_, _Bhādoṅ_, _Kū,ār_ and _Kātik_) are the rainy months, corresponding with the Crab, (Lion, Virgin and Balance; _Aghan_, _Pūs_, _Māgh_ and _Phālgun_) are the cold months, corresponding with the Scorpion, (Archer, Capricorn, and Bucket or Aquarius).

The people of Hind, having thus divided the year into three seasons of four months each, divide each of those seasons by taking from each, the two months of the force of the heat, rain,[1901] and cold. Of the hot months the last two, _i.e. Jeṭh_ and _Asāṛh_ are the force of the heat; of the rainy months, the first two, _i.e. Sāwan_ and _Bhādoṅ_ are the force of the rains; of the cold season, the middle two, _i.e. Pūs_ and _Māgh_ are the force of the cold. By this classification there are six seasons in Hindūstān.

(_o. Days of the week._)

To the days also they have given names:—[1902] (_Sanīchar_ is Saturday; _Rabī-bār_ is Sunday; _Som-wār_ is Monday; _Mangal-wār_ is Tuesday; _Budh-bār_ is Wednesday; _Brihaspat-bār_ is Thursday; _Shukr-bār_ is Friday).

(_p. Divisions of time._)

[Sidenote: Fol. 289.] (_Author's note on the daqīqa._) The _daqīqa_ is about as long as six repetitions of the _Fātiḥa_ with the _Bismillāh_, so that a day-and-night is as long as 8640 repetitions of the _Fātiḥa_ with the _Bismillāh._

As in our countries what is known by the (Turkī) term _kīcha-gūndūz_ (a day-and-night, nycthemeron) is divided into 24 parts, each called an hour (Ar. _sā`at_), and the hour is divided into 60 parts, each called a minute (Ar. _daqīqa_), so that a day-and-night consists of 1440 minutes,—so the people of Hind divide the night-and-day into 60 parts, each called a (S.) _g'harī_.[1903] They also divide the night into four and the day into four, calling each part a (S.) _pahr_ (watch) which in Persian is a _pās_. A watch and watchman (_pās u pāsbān_) had been heard about (by us) in those countries (Transoxania), but without these particulars. Agreeing with the division into watches, a body of _g'harīālīs_[1904] is chosen and appointed in all considerable towns of Hindūstān. They cast a broad brass (plate-) thing,[1905] perhaps as large as a tray (_ṯabaq_) and about two hands'-thickness; this they call a _g'harīāl_ and hang up in a high place (_bīr buland yīr-dā_). Also they have a vessel perforated at the bottom like an hour-cup[1906] and filling in one _g'harī_ (_i.e._ 24 minutes). The _g'harīālīs_ put this into water and wait till it fills. For example, they will put the perforated [Sidenote: Fol. 289b.] cup into water at day-birth; when it fills the first time, they strike the gong once with their mallets; when a second time, twice, and so on till the end of the watch. They announce the end of a watch by several rapid blows of their mallets. After these they pause; then strike once more, if the first day-watch has ended, twice if the second, three times if the third, and four times if the fourth. After the fourth day-watch, when the night-watches begin, these are gone through in the same way. It used to be the rule to beat the sign of a watch only when the watch ended; so that sleepers chancing to wake in the night and hear the sound of a third or fourth _g'harī_, would not know whether it was of the second or third night-watch. I therefore ordered that at night or on a cloudy day the sign of the watch should be struck after that of the _g'harī_, for example, that after striking the third _g'harī_ of the first night-watch, the _g'harīālīs_ were to pause and then strike the sign of the watch, in order to make it known that this third _g'harī_ was of the first night-watch,—and that after striking four _g'harīs_ of the third night-watch, they should pause and then strike the sign of the third watch, in order to make it known that this fourth _g'harī_ was of the third night-watch. It did very well; anyone happening to wake in the night and hear the gong, would know what _g'harī_ of what watch of night it was.

Again, they divide the _g'harī_ into 60 parts, each part being called a _pal_;[1907] by this each night-and-day will consist of 3,500 _pals_. [Sidenote: Fol. 290.]

(_Author's note on the pal._) They say the length of a _pal_ is the shutting and opening of the eyelids 60 times, which in a night-and-day would be 216,000 shuttings and openings of the eyes. Experiment shews that a _pal_ is about equal to 8 repetitions of the _Qul-huwa-allāh_[1908] and _Bismillāh_; this would be 28,000 repetitions in a night-and-day.

(_q. Measures._)

The people of Hind have also well-arranged measures:—[1909] 8 _ratīs_ = 1 _māsha_; 4 _māsha_ = 1 _tānk_ = 32 _ratīs_; 5 _māsha_ = 1 _miṣqāl_ = 40 _ratīs_; 12 _māsha_ = 1 _tūla_ = 96 _ratīs_; 14 _tūla_ = 1 _ser_.

This is everywhere fixed:—40 _ser_ = 1 _mānbān_; 12 _mānbān_ = 1 _mānī_; 100 _mānī_ they call a _mīnāsa_.[1910]

Pearls and jewels they weigh by the _tānk_.

(_r. Modes of reckoning._)

The people of Hind have also an excellent mode of reckoning: 100,000 they call a _lak_; 100 _laks_, a _krūr_; 100 _krūrs_, an _arb_; 100 _arbs_, 1 _karb_; 100 _karb's_, 1 _nīl_; 100 _nīls_, 1 _padam_; 100 _padams_, 1 _sāng_. The fixing of such high reckonings as these is proof of the great amount of wealth in Hindūstān.

(_s. Hindū inhabitants of Hindūstān._)

Most of the inhabitants of Hindūstān are pagans; they call a pagan a Hindū. Most Hindūs believe in the transmigration of souls. All artisans, wage-earners, and officials are Hindūs. In our countries dwellers in the wilds (_i.e._ nomads) get tribal names; [Sidenote: Fol. 290b.] here the settled people of the cultivated lands and villages get tribal names.[1911] Again:—every artisan there is follows the trade that has come down to him from forefather to forefather.

(_t. Defects of Hindūstān._)

Hindūstān is a country of few charms. Its people have no good looks; of social intercourse, paying and receiving visits there is none; of genius and capacity none; of manners none; in handicraft and work there is no form or symmetry, method or quality; there are no good horses, no good dogs, no grapes, musk-melons or first-rate fruits, no ice or cold water, no good bread or cooked food in the _bāzārs_, no Hot-baths, no Colleges, no candles, torches or candlesticks.

In place of candle and torch they have a great dirty gang they call lamp-men (_diwatī_), who in the left hand hold a smallish wooden tripod to one corner of which a thing like the top of a candlestick is fixed, having a wick in it about as thick as the thumb. In the right hand they hold a gourd, through a narrow slit made in which, oil is let trickle in a thin thread when the wick needs it. Great people keep a hundred or two of these lamp-men. This is the Hindūstān substitute for lamps and candlesticks! If their rulers and begs have work at night needing candles, these dirty lamp-men bring these lamps, go close up and [Sidenote: Fol. 291.] there stand.

Except their large rivers and their standing-waters which flow in ravines or hollows (there are no waters). There are no running-waters in their gardens or residences (_`imāratlār_).[1912] These residences have no charm, air (_hawā_), regularity or symmetry.

Peasants and people of low standing go about naked. They tie on a thing called _lungūtā_,[1913] a decency-clout which hangs two spans below the navel. From the tie of this pendant decency-clout, another clout is passed between the thighs and made fast behind. Women also tie on a cloth (_lung_), one-half of which goes round the waist, the other is thrown over the head.

(_u. Advantages of Hindūstān._)

Pleasant things of Hindūstān are that it is a large country and has masses of gold and silver. Its air in the Rains is very fine. Sometimes it rains 10, 15 or 20 times a day; torrents pour down all at once and rivers flow where no water had been. While it rains and through the Rains, the air is remarkably fine, not to be surpassed for healthiness and charm. The fault is that the air becomes very soft and damp. A bow of those (Transoxanian) countries after going through the Rains in Hindūstān, may not be drawn even; it is ruined; not only the bow, everything is [Sidenote: Fol. 291b.] affected, armour, book, cloth, and utensils all; a house even does not last long. Not only in the Rains but also in the cold and the hot seasons, the airs are excellent; at these times, however, the north-west wind constantly gets up laden with dust and earth. It gets up in great strength every year in the heats, under the Bull and Twins when the Rains are near; so strong and carrying so much dust and earth that there is no seeing one another. People call this wind Darkener of the Sky (H. _āndhī_). The weather is hot under the Bull and Twins, but not intolerably so, not so hot as in Balkh and Qandahār and not for half so long.

Another good thing in Hindūstān is that it has unnumbered and endless workmen of every kind. There is a fixed caste (_jam`ī_) for every sort of work and for every thing, which has done that work or that thing from father to son till now. Mullā Sharaf, writing in the _Z̤afar-nāma_ about the building of Tīmūr Beg's Stone Mosque, lays stress on the fact that on it 200 stone-cutters worked, from Āẕarbāījān, Fars, Hindūstān and other countries. But 680 men worked daily on my buildings in Āgra and of Āgra stone-cutters only; while 1491 stone-cutters worked daily on my buildings in Āgra, Sīkrī, Bīāna, Dūlpūr, Gūālīār and Kūīl. In [Sidenote: Fol. 292.] the same way there are numberless artisans and workmen of every sort in Hindūstān.

(_v. Revenues of Hindūstān._)

The revenue of the countries now held by me (935 AH.-1528 AD.) from Bhīra to Bihār is 52 _krūrs_,[1914] as will be known in detail from the following summary.[1915] Eight or nine _krūrs_ of this are from parganas of rāīs and rājas who, as obedient from of old, receive allowance and maintenance.

REVENUES OF HINDŪSTĀN FROM WHAT HAS SO FAR COME UNDER THE VICTORIOUS STANDARDS

--------------------------------+---------+-----+---------- Sarkārs. | Krūrs. |Laks.| Tankas. --------------------------------+---------+-----+---------- Trans-sutluj:--Bhīra, | | | Lāhūr, Sīālkūt, | | | Dībālpūr, etc. | 3 | 33 |15,989 Sihrind | 1 | 29 |31,985 Ḥiṣār-fīrūza | 1 | 30 |75,174 The capital Dihlī and | | | Mīān-dū-āb | 3 | 69 |50,254 Mīwāt, not included in | | | Sikandar's time | 1 | 69 |81,000 Bīāna | 1 | 44 |14,930 [Sidenote: Āgra | | 29 |76,919 Fol. 292b.] Mīān-wilāyat (Midlands) | 2 | 91 | 19 Gūālīār | 2 | 23 |57,450 Kālpī and Seho[n.]da | | | (Seondhā) | 4 | 28 |55,950 Qanauj | 1 | 36 |63,358 Saṃbhal | 1 | 38 |44,000 Laknūr and Baksar | 1 | 39 |82,433 Khairābād | | 12 |65,000 Aūd (Oude) and Bahraj | | | (Baraich) | 1 | 17 | 1,369 [Sidenote: Jūnpūr | 4 | ·0 |88,333 Fol. 293.] Karra and Mānikpūr | 1 | 63 |27,282 Bihār | 4 | 5 |60,000 Sarwār | 1 | 55 |17,506-1/2 Sāran | 1 | 10 |18,373 Champāran | 1 | 90 |86,060 Kandla | | 43 |30,300 Tirhut from Rāja | | | Rup-narāīn's tribute, | | | silver | | 2 |55,000 black (i.e. copper) | | 27 |50,000 Rantanbhūr from Būlī, | | | Chātsū, and Malarna | | 20 |?00,000 Nagūr | -- | -- | -- Rāja Bikrāmajīt in | | | Rantanbhūr | -- | -- | -- Kalanjarī | -- | -- | -- Rāja Bīr-sang-deo (or, | | | Sang only) | -- | -- | -- Rāja Bikam-deo | -- | -- | -- Rāja Bikam-chand | -- | -- | -- --------------------------------+---------+-----+----------

[1916] So far as particulars and details about the land and people of the country of Hindūstān have become definitely known, they have been narrated and described; whatever matters worthy of record may come to view hereafter, I shall write down.

HISTORICAL NARRATIVE RESUMED.

(_a. Distribution of treasure in Āgra._)[1917]

(_May 12th_) On Saturday the 29th[1918] of Rajab the examination and distribution of the treasure were begun. To Humāyūn were given 70 laks from the Treasury, and, over and above this, a treasure house was bestowed on him just as it was, without ascertaining and writing down its contents. To some begs 10 laks were given, 8, 7, or 6 to others.[1919] Suitable money-gifts were bestowed from the Treasury on the whole army, to every tribe there was, Afghān, Hazāra, `Arab, Bīlūch _etc._ to each according to its position. Every trader and student, indeed every man who had come with the army, took ample portion and share of bounteous gift and largess. To those not with the army went a mass of treasure in gift and largess, as for instance, 17 laks to Kāmran, 15 laks to Muḥammad-i-zamān Mīrzā, while to `Askarī, Hindāl and indeed to the whole various train of relations and younger children[1920] went masses of red and white (gold and silver), of plenishing, jewels and slaves.[1921] Many gifts went to the begs and soldiery on that side (Tramontana). Valuable gifts (_saughāt_) [Sidenote: Fol. 294.] were sent for the various relations in Samarkand, Khurāsān, Kāshghar and `Irāq. To holy men belonging to Samarkand and Khurāsān went offerings vowed to God (_nuẕūr_); so too to Makka and Madīna. We gave one _shāhrukhi_ for every soul in the country of Kābul and the valley-side[1922] of Varsak, man and woman, bond and free, of age or non-age.[1923]

(_b. Disaffection to Bābur._)

On our first coming to Āgra, there was remarkable dislike and hostility between its people and mine, the peasantry and soldiers running away in fear of our men. Dilhī and Āgra excepted, not a fortified town but strengthened its defences and neither was in obedience nor submitted. Qāsim Saṃbhalī was in Saṃbhal; Niẕām Khān was in Bīāna; in Mīwāt was Ḥasan Khān Mīwātī himself, impious mannikin! who was the sole leader of the trouble and mischief.[1924] Muḥammad _Zaitun_ was in Dūlpūr; Tātār Khān _Sārang-khānī_[1925] was in Gūālīār; Ḥusain Khān _Nuḥānī_ was in Rāprī; Quṯb Khān was in Itāwa (Etāwa); `Ālam Khān (_Kālpī_) was in Kālpī. Qanauj and the other side of Gang (Ganges) was all held by Afghāns in independent hostility,[1926] such as Naṣīr Khān _Nuḥānī_, Ma`rūf _Farmūlī_ and a crowd of other amīrs. These had been in rebellion for three or four years before Ibrāhīm's death and when I defeated him, were holding Qanauj and the whole country beyond it. At the present time they were lying two or three marches on our side of Qanauj and had made Bihār Khān the son of Daryā Khān _Nuḥānī_ their _pādshāh_, under the style Sulṯān Muḥammad. [Sidenote: Fol. 294b.] Marghūb the slave was in Mahāwīn (_Muttra_?); he remained there, thus close, for some time but came no nearer.

(_c. Discontent in Bābur's army._)

It was the hot-season when we came to Āgra. All the inhabitants (_khalāīq_) had run away in terror. Neither grain for ourselves nor corn for our horses was to be had. The villages, out of hostility and hatred to us had taken to thieving and highway-robbery; there was no moving on the roads. There had been no chance since the treasure was distributed to send men in strength into the parganas and elsewhere. Moreover the year was a very hot one; violent pestilential winds struck people down in heaps together; masses began to die off.

On these accounts the greater part of the begs and best braves became unwilling to stay in Hindūstān, indeed set their faces for leaving it. It is no reproach to old and experienced begs if they speak of such matters; even if they do so, this man (Bābur) has enough sense and reason to get at what is honest or what is mutinous in their representations, to distinguish between loss and gain. But as this man had seen his task whole, for himself, when he resolved on it, what taste was there in their reiterating that things should be done differently? What recommends the expression of distasteful opinions by men of little standing [Sidenote: Fol. 295.] (_kīchīk karīm_)? Here is a curious thing:—This last time of our riding out from Kābul, a few men of little standing had just been made begs; what I looked for from them was that if I went through fire and water and came out again, they would have gone in with me unhesitatingly, and with me have come out, that wherever I went, there at my side would they be,—not that they would speak against my fixed purpose, not that they would turn back from any task or great affair on which, all counselling, all consenting, we had resolved, so long as that counsel was not abandoned. Badly as these new begs behaved, Secretary Aḥmadī and Treasurer Walī behaved still worse. Khwāja Kalān had done well in the march out from Kābul, in Ibrāhīm's defeat and until Āgra was occupied; he had spoken bold words and shewn ambitious views. But a few days after the capture of Āgra, all his views changed,—the one zealous for departure at any price was Khwāja Kalān.[1927]

(_d. Bābur calls a council._)

When I knew of this unsteadiness amongst (my) people, I summoned all the begs and took counsel. Said I, "There is no supremacy and grip on the world without means and resources; without lands and retainers sovereignty and command (_pādshāhlīq u amīrlīq_) are impossible. By the labours of several years, by encountering hardship, by long travel, by flinging myself and the army into battle, and by deadly slaughter, we, through God's [Sidenote: Fol. 295b.] grace, beat these masses of enemies in order that we might take their broad lands. And now what force compels us, what necessity has arisen that we should, without cause, abandon countries taken at such risk of life? Was it for us to remain in Kābul, the sport of harsh poverty? Henceforth, let no well-wisher of mine speak of such things! But let not those turn back from going who, weak in strong persistence, have set their faces to depart!" By these words, which recalled just and reasonable views to their minds, I made them, willy-nilly, quit their fears.

(_e. Khwāja Kalān decides to leave Hindūstān._)

As Khwāja Kalān had no heart to stay in Hindūstān, matters were settled in this way:—As he had many retainers, he was to convoy the gifts, and, as there were few men in Kābul and Ghaznī, was to keep these places guarded and victualled. I bestowed on him Ghaznī, Girdīz and the Sulṯān Mas`ūdī Hazāra, gave also the Hindūstān _pargana_ of G'hūram,[1928] worth 3 or 4 _laks_. It was settled for Khwāja Mīr-i-mīrān also to go to Kābul; the gifts were put into his immediate charge, under the custody of Mullā Ḥasan the banker (_ṣarrāf_) and Tūka[1929] _Hindū_.

Loathing Hindūstān, Khwāja Kalān, when on his way, had the following couplet inscribed on the wall of his residence [Sidenote: Fol. 296.] (_`imāratī_) in Dihlī:—

If safe and sound I cross the Sind, Blacken my face ere I wish for Hind!

It was ill-mannered in him to compose and write up this partly-jesting verse while I still stayed in Hind. If his departure

caused me one vexation, such a jest doubled it.[1930] I composed the following off-hand verse, wrote it down and sent it to him:—

Give a hundred thanks, Bābur, that the generous Pardoner Has given thee Sind and Hind and many a kingdom. If thou (_i.e._ the Khwāja) have not the strength for their heats, If thou say, "Let me see the cold side (_yūz_)," Ghaznī is there.[1931]

(_f. Accretions to Bābur's force._)

At this juncture, Mullā Apāq was sent into Kūl with royal letters of favour for the soldiers and quiver-wearers (_tarkash-band_) of that neighbourhood. Shaikh Gūran (G'hūran)[1932] came trustfully and loyally to do obeisance, bringing with him from 2 to 3,000 soldiers and quiver-wearers from Between-two-waters (_Mīān-dū-āb_).

(_Author's note on Mullā Apāq._) Formerly he had been in a very low position indeed, but two or three years before this time, had gathered his elder and younger brethren into a compact body and had brought them in (to me), together with the Aūrūq-zāī and other Afghāns of the banks of the Sind.

Yūnas-i-`alī when on his way from Dihlī to Āgra[1933] had lost his way a little and got separated from Humāyūn; he then met in with `Alī Khān _Farmūlī's_ sons and train,[1934] had a small affair with them, took them prisoners and brought them in. Taking advantage of this, one of the sons thus captured was sent to his [Sidenote: Fol. 296b.] father in company with Daulat-qadam _Turk's_ son Mīrzā _Mughūl_ who conveyed royal letters of favour to `Alī Khān. At this time of break-up, `Alī Khān had gone to Mīwāt; he came to me when Mīrzā _Mughūl_ returned, was promoted, and given valid(?) _parganas_[1935] worth 25 laks.

(_g. Action against the rebels of the East._)

Sl. Ibrāhīm had appointed several amīrs under Muṣṯafa _Farmūlī_ and Fīrūz Khān _Sārang-khānī_, to act against the rebel amīrs of the East (_Pūrab_). Muṣṯafa had fought them and thoroughly drubbed them, giving them more than one good beating. He dying before Ibrāhīm's defeat, his younger brother Shaikh Bāyazīd—Ibrāhīm being occupied with a momentous matter[1936]—had led and watched over his elder brother's men. He now came to serve me, together with Fīrūz Khān, Maḥmūd Khān _Nuḥānī_ and Qāẓī Jīā. I shewed them greater kindness and favour than was their claim; giving to Fīrūz Khān 1 _krūr_, 46 _laks_ and 5000 _tankas_ from Jūnpūr, to Shaikh Bāyazīd 1 _krūr_, 48 _laks_ and 50,000 _tankas_ from Aūd (Oude), to Maḥmūd Khān 90 _laks_ and 35,000 _tankas_ from Ghāzīpūr, and to Qāẓī Jīā 20 _laks_.[1937]

(_h. Gifts made to various officers._)

It was a few days after the `Īd of Shawwāl[1938] that a large party was held in the pillared-porch of the domed building standing in the middle of Sl. Ibrāhīm's private apartments. At this party there were bestowed on Humāyūn a _chār-qab_,[1939] a sword-belt,[1940] a _tīpūchāq_ horse with saddle mounted in gold; on Chīn-tīmūr Sulṯān, Mahdī Khwāja and Muḥammad Sl. Mīrzā _chār-qabs_, sword-belts and dagger-belts; and to the begs and [Sidenote: Fol. 297.] braves, to each according to his rank, were given sword-belts, dagger-belts, and dresses of honour, in all to the number specified below:—

2 items (_rā's_) of _tīpūchāq_ horses with saddles. 16 items (_qabẓa_) of poinards, set with jewels, etc. 8 items (_qabẓa_) of purpet over-garments. 2 items (_tob_) of jewelled sword-belts. —— items (_qabẓa_) of broad daggers (_jamd'kar_) set with jewels. 25 items of jewelled hangers (_khanjar_). —— items of gold-hilted Hindī knives (_kārd_). 51 pieces of purpet.

On the day of this party it rained amazingly, rain falling thirteen times. As outside places had been assigned to a good many people, they were drowned out (_gharaq_).

(_i. Of various forts and postings._)

Samāna (in Patīāla) had been given to Muḥammadī Kūkūldāsh and it had been arranged for him to make swift descent on Saṃbal (Saṃbhal), but Saṃbal was now bestowed on Humāyūn, in addition to his guerdon of Ḥiṣār-fīrūza, and in his service was Hindū Beg. To suit this, therefore, Hindū Beg was sent to make the incursion in Muḥammadī's place, and with him Kitta Beg, Bābā _Qashqa's_ (brother) Malik Qāsim and his elder and younger brethren, Mullā Apāq and Shaikh Gūran (G'hūran) with the quiver-wearers from Between-two-waters (_Mīān-dū-āb_). [Sidenote: Fol. 297b.] Three or four times a person had come from Qāsim _Saṃbalī_, saying, "The renegade Bīban is besieging Saṃbal and has brought it to extremity; come quickly." Bīban, with the array and the preparation (_hayāt_) with which he had deserted us,[1941] had gone skirting the hills and gathering up Afghān and Hindūstānī deserters, until, finding Saṃbal at this juncture ill-garrisoned, he laid siege to it. Hindū Beg and Kitta Beg and the rest of those appointed to make the incursion, got to the Ahār-passage[1942] and from there sent ahead Bābā _Qashqa's_ Malik Qāsim with his elder and younger brethren, while they themselves were getting over the water. Malik Qāsim crossed, advanced swiftly with from 100 to 150 men—his own and his brethren's—and reached Saṃbal by the Mid-day Prayer. Bīban for his part came out of his camp in array. Malik Qāsim and his troop moved rapidly forward, got the fort in their rear, and came to grips. Bīban could make no stand; he fled. Malik Qāsim cut off the heads of part of his force, took many horses, a few elephants and a mass of booty. Next day when the other begs arrived, Qāsim _Saṃbalī_ came out and saw them, but not liking to surrender the fort, made them false pretences. One day Shaikh Gūran (G'hūran) and Hindū Beg having talked the matter over with them, got Qāsim _Saṃbalī_ out to the presence of the begs, and took men of ours into the fort. They brought Qāsim's wife and dependents safely out, and sent Qāsim (to Court).[1943]

Qalandar the foot-man was sent to Niẕām Khān in Bīāna with royal letters of promise and threat; with these was sent [Sidenote: Fol. 298.] also the following little off-hand (Persian) verse:—[1944]

Strive not with the Turk, o Mīr of Bīāna! His skill and his courage are obvious. If thou come not soon, nor give ear to counsel,— What need to detail (_bayān_) what is obvious?

Bīāna being one of the famous forts of Hindūstān, the senseless mannikin, relying on its strength, demanded what not even its strength could enforce. Not giving him a good answer, we ordered siege apparatus to be looked to.

Bābā Qulī Beg was sent with royal letters of promise and threat to Muḥammad _Zaitūn_ (in Dūlpūr); Muḥammad _Zaitūn_ also made false excuses.

While we were still in Kābul, Rānā Sangā had sent an envoy to testify to his good wishes and to propose this plan: "If the honoured Pādshāh will come to near Dihlī from that side, I from this will move on Āgra." But I beat Ibrāhīm, I took Dihlī and Āgra, and up to now that Pagan has given no sign soever of moving. After a while he went and laid siege to Kandār[1945] a fort in which was Makan's son, Ḥasan by name. This Ḥasan-of-Makan had sent a person to me several times, but had not shewn himself. We had not been able to detach [Sidenote: Fol. 298b.] reinforcement for him because, as the forts round-about—Atāwa (Etāwa), Dūlpūr, and Bīāna—had not yet surrendered, and the Eastern Afghāns were seated with their army in obstinate rebellion two or three marches on the Āgra side of Qanūj, my mind was not quite free from the whirl and strain of things close at hand. Makan's Ḥasan therefore, becoming helpless, had surrendered Kandār two or three months ago.

Ḥusain Khān (_Nuḥānī_) became afraid in Rāprī, and he abandoning it, it was given to Muḥammad `Alī _Jang-jang_.

To Quṯb Khān in Etāwa royal letters of promise and threat had been sent several times, but as he neither came and saw me, nor abandoned Etāwa and got away, it was given to Mahdī Khwāja and he was sent against it with a strong reinforcement of begs and household troops under the command of Muḥammad Sl. Mīrzā, Sl. Muḥammad _Dūldāī_, Muḥammad `Alī _Jang-jang_ and `Abdu'l-`azīz the Master of the Horse. Qanūj was given to Sl. Muḥammad _Dūldāī_; he was also (as mentioned) appointed against Etāwa; so too were Fīrūz Khān, Maḥmūd Khān, Shaikh Bāyazīd and Qāẓī Jīā, highly favoured commanders to whom Eastern _parganas_ had been given.

[Sidenote: Fol. 299.] Muḥammad _Zaitūn_, who was seated in Dūlpūr, deceived us and did not come. We gave Dūlpūr to Sl. Junaid _Barlās_ and reinforced him by appointing `Ādil Sulṯān, Muḥammadī Kūkūldāsh, Shāh Manṣūr _Barlās_, Qūtlūq-qadam, Treasurer Walī, Jān Beg, `Abdu'l-lāh, Pīr-qulī, and Shāh Ḥasan _Yāragī_ (or _Bāragī_), who were to attack Dūlpūr, take it, make it over to Sl. Junaid _Barlās_ and advance on Bīāna.

(_j. Plan of operations adopted._)

These armies appointed, we summoned the Turk amīrs[1946] and the Hindūstān amīrs, and tossed the following matters in amongst them:—The various rebel amīrs of the East, that is to say, those under Nāṣir Khān _Nuḥānī_ and Ma`rūf _Farmūlī_, have crossed Gang (Ganges) with 40 to 50,000 men, taken Qanūj, and now lie some three miles on our side of the river. The Pagan Rānā Sangā has captured Kandār and is in a hostile and mischievous attitude. The end of the Rains is near. It seems expedient to move either against the rebels or the Pagan, since the task of the forts near-by is easy; when the great foes are got rid of, what road will remain open for the rest? Rānā Sangā is thought not to be the equal of the rebels.

To this all replied unanimously, "Rānā Sangā is the most distant, and it is not known that he will come nearer; the enemy who is closest at hand must first be got rid of. We are for riding against the rebels." Humāyūn then represented, [Sidenote: Fol. 299b.] "What need is there for the Pādshāh to ride out? This service I will do." This came as a pleasure to every-one; the Turk and Hind amīrs gladly accepted his views; he was appointed for the East. A Kābulī of Aḥmad-i-qāsim's was sent galloping off to tell the armies that had been despatched against Dūlpūr to join Humāyūn at Chandwār;[1947] also those sent against Etāwa under Mahdī Khwāja and Muḥammad Sl. M. were ordered to join him.

(_August 21st_) Humāyūn set out on Thursday the 13th of Ẕū'l-qa´da, dismounted at a little village called Jilīsīr (Jalesar) some 3 _kurohs_ from Āgra, there stayed one night, then moved forward march by march.

(_k. Khwāja Kalān's departure._)

(_August 28th_) On Thursday the 20th of this same month, Khwāja Kalān started for Kābul.

(_l. Of gardens and pleasaunces._)

One of the great defects of Hindūstān being its lack of running-waters,[1948] it kept coming to my mind that waters should be made to flow by means of wheels erected wherever I might settle down, also that grounds should be laid out in an orderly and symmetrical way. With this object in view, we crossed the Jūn-water to look at garden-grounds a few days after entering Āgra. Those grounds were so bad and unattractive that we traversed them with a hundred disgusts and repulsions. So ugly and displeasing were they, that the idea of making a [Sidenote: Fol. 300.] Chār-bāgh in them passed from my mind, but needs must! as there was no other land near Āgra, that same ground was taken in hand a few days later.

The beginning was made with the large well from which water comes for the Hot-bath, and also with the piece of ground where the tamarind-trees and the octagonal tank now are. After that came the large tank with its enclosure; after that the tank and _tālār_[1949] in front of the outer(?) residence[1950]; after that the private-house (_khilwat-khāna_) with its garden and various dwellings; after that the Hot-bath. Then in that charmless and disorderly Hind, plots of garden[1951] were seen laid out with order and symmetry, with suitable borders and parterres in every corner, and in every border rose and narcissus in perfect arrangement.

(_m. Construction of a chambered-well._)

Three things oppressed us in Hindūstān, its heat, its violent winds, its dust. Against all three the Bath is a protection, for in it, what is known of dust and wind? and in the heats it is so chilly that one is almost cold. The bath-room in which the heated tank is, is altogether of stone, the whole, except for the _īzāra_ (dado?) of white stone, being, pavement and roofing, of red Bīāna stone.

Khalīfa also and Shaikh Zain, Yūnas-i-`alī and whoever got [Sidenote: Fol. 300b.] land on that other bank of the river laid out regular and orderly gardens with tanks, made running-waters also by setting up wheels like those in Dīpālpūr and Lāhor. The people of Hind who had never seen grounds planned so symmetrically and thus laid out, called the side of the Jūn where (our) residences were, Kābul.

In an empty space inside the fort, which was between Ibrāhīm's residence and the ramparts, I ordered a large chambered-well (_wāīn_) to be made, measuring 10 by 10,[1952] a large well with a flight of steps, which in Hindūstān is called a _wāīn_.[1953] This well was begun before the Chār-bāgh[1954]; they were busy digging it in the true Rains (_`aīn bīshkāl_, Sāwan and Bhadon); it fell in several times and buried the hired workmen; it was finished after the Holy Battle with Rānā Sangā, as is stated in the inscription on the stone that bears the chronogram of its completion. It is a complete _wāīn_, having a three-storeyed house in it. The lowest storey consists of three rooms, each of which opens on the descending steps, at intervals of three steps from one another. When the water is at its lowest, it is one step below the bottom chamber; when it rises in the Rains, it sometimes goes into the top storey. In the middle storey an inner chamber has been excavated which connects with the domed building in which the bullock turns the well-wheel. The [Sidenote: Fol. 301.] top storey is a single room, reached from two sides by 5 or 6 steps which lead down to it from the enclosure overlooked from the well-head. Facing the right-hand way down, is the stone inscribed with the date of completion. At the side of this well is another the bottom of which may be at half the depth of the first, and into which water comes from that first one when the bullock turns the wheel in the domed building afore-mentioned. This second well also is fitted with a wheel, by means of which water is carried along the ramparts to the high-garden. A stone building (_tāshdīn `imārat_) stands at the mouth of the well and there is an outer(?) mosque[1955] outside (_tāshqārī_) the enclosure in which the well is. The mosque is not well done; it is in the Hindūstānī fashion.

(_n. Humāyūn's campaign._)

At the time Humāyūn got to horse, the rebel amīrs under Naṣīr Khān _Nuḥānī_ and Ma`rūf _Farmūlī_ were assembled at Jājmāū.[1956] Arrived within 20 to 30 miles of them, he sent out Mūmin Ātāka for news; it became a raid for loot; Mūmin Ātāka was not able to bring even the least useful information. The rebels heard about him however, made no stay but fled and got away. After Mūmin Ātāka, Qusm-nāī(?) was sent for news, with Bābā Chuhra[1957] and Būjka; they brought it of the breaking-up and flight of the rebels. Humāyūn advancing, took Jājmāū [Sidenote: Fol. 301b.] and passed on. Near Dilmāū[1958] Fatḥ Khān _Sarwānī_ came and saw him, and was sent to me with Mahdī Khwāja and Muḥammad Sl. Mīrzā.

(_o. News of the Aūzbegs._)

This year 'Ubaidu'l-lāh Khān (_Aūzbeg_) led an army out of Bukhārā against Marv. In the citadel of Marv were perhaps 10 to 15 peasants whom he overcame and killed; then having taken the revenues of Marv in 40 or 50 days,[1959] he went on to Sarakhs. In Sarakhs were some 30 to 40 Red-heads (_Qīzīl-bāsh_) who did not surrender, but shut the Gate; the peasantry however scattered them and opened the Gate to the Aūzbeg who entering, killed the Red-heads. Sarakhs taken, he went against T̤ūs and Mashhad. The inhabitants of Mashhad being helpless, let him in. T̤ūs he besieged for 8 months, took possession of on terms, did not keep those terms, but killed every man of name and made their women captive.

(_p. Affairs of Gujrāt._)

In this year Bahādur Khān,—he who now rules in Gujrāt in the place of his father Sl. Muz̤affar _Gujrātī_—having gone to Sl. Ibrāhīm after quarrel with his father, had been received without honour. He had sent dutiful letters to me while I was near Pānī-pat; I had replied by royal letters of favour and kindness summoning him to me. He had thought of coming, but changing his mind, drew off from Ibrāhīm's army towards Gujrāt. Meantime his father Sl. Muz̤affar had died (Friday Jumāda II. 2nd AH.-March 16th 1526 AD.); his elder brother Sikandar Shāh who was Sl. Muz̤affar's eldest son, had become ruler in their father's place and, owing to his evil disposition, [Sidenote: Fol. 302.] had been strangled by his slave `Imādu'l-mulk, acting with others (Sha`ban 14th—May 25th). Bahādur Khān, while he was on his road for Gujrāt, was invited and escorted to sit in his father's place under the style Bahādur Shāh (Ramẓān 26th—July 6th). He for his part did well; he retaliated by death on `Imādu'l-mulk for his treachery to his salt, and killed some others of his father's begs.[1960] People point at him as a dreadnaught (_bī bāk_) youth and a shedder of much blood.

933 AH.-OCT. 8TH 1526 TO SEP. 27TH 1527 AD.[1961]

(_a. Announcement of the birth of a son._)

In Muḥarram Beg Wais brought the news of Fārūq's birth; though a foot-man had brought it already, he came this month for the gift to the messenger of good tidings.[1962] The birth must have been on Friday eve, Shawwāl 23rd (932 AH.-August 2nd 1526 AD.); the name given was Fārūq.

(_b. Casting of a mortar._)

(_October 22nd-Muḥarram 15th_) Ustād `Alī-qulī had been ordered to cast a large mortar for use against Bīāna and other forts which had not yet submitted. When all the furnaces and materials were ready, he sent a person to me and, on Monday the 15th of the month, we went to see the mortar cast. Round the mortar-mould he had had eight furnaces made in which [Sidenote: Fol. 302b.] were the molten materials. From below each furnace a channel went direct to the mould. When he opened the furnace-holes on our arrival, the molten metal poured like water through all these channels into the mould. After awhile and before the mould was full, the flow stopped from one furnace after another. Ustād `Alī-qulī must have made some miscalculation either as to the furnaces or the materials. In his great distress, he was for throwing himself into the mould of molten metal, but we comforted him, put a robe of honour on him, and so brought him out of his shame. The mould was left a day or two to cool; when it was opened, Ustād `Alī-qulī with great delight sent to say, "The stone-chamber (_tāsh-awī_) is without defect; to cast the powder-compartment (_dārū-khāna_) is easy." He got the stone-chamber out and told off a body of men to accoutre[1963] it, while he busied himself with casting the powder-compartment.

(_c. Varia._)

Mahdī Khwāja arrived bringing Fatḥ Khān _Sarwānī_ from Humāyūn's presence, they having parted from him in Dilmāū. I looked with favour on Fatḥ Khān, gave him the _parganas_ that had been his father `Aẕam-humāyūn's, and other lands also, one _pargana_ given being worth a _krūr_ and 60 _laks_.[1964]

In Hindūstān they give permanent titles [_muqarrarī khiṯāblār_] to highly-favoured amīrs, one such being `Aẕam-humāyūn (_August Might_), one Khān-i-jahān (Khan-of-the-world), another [Sidenote: Fol. 303.] Khān-i-khānān (Khān-of-khāns). Fatḥ Khān's father's title was `Aẕam-humāyūn but I set this aside because on account of Humāyūn it was not seemly for any person to bear it, and I gave Fatḥ Khān _Sarwānī_ the title of Khān-i-jahān.

(_November 14th_) On Wednesday the 8th of Ṣafar[1965] awnings were set up (in the Chār-bāgh) at the edge of the large tank beyond the tamarind-trees, and an entertainment was prepared there. We invited Fatḥ Khān _Sarwānī_ to a wine-party, gave him wine, bestowed on him a turban and head-to-foot of my own wearing, uplifted his head with kindness and favour[1966] and allowed him to go to his own districts. It was arranged for his son Maḥmūd to remain always in waiting.

(_d. Various military matters._)

(_November 30th_) On Wednesday the 24th of Muḥarram[1967] Muḥammad `Alī (son of Mihtar) Ḥaidar the stirrup-holder was sent (to Humāyūn) with this injunction, "As—thanks be to God!—the rebels have fled, do you, as soon as this messenger arrives, appoint a few suitable begs to Jūnpūr, and come quickly to us yourself, for Rānā Sangā the Pagan is conveniently close; let us think first of him!"

After (Humāyūn's) army had gone to the East, we appointed, to make a plundering excursion into the Bīāna neighbourhood, Tardī Beg (brother) of Qūj Beg with his elder brother Sher-afgan, Muḥammad Khalīl the master-gelder (_akhta-begī_) with his brethren and the gelders (_akhtachīlār_),[1968] Rustam _Turkmān_ with his brethren, and also, of the Hindūstānī people, Daud _Sarwānī_. [Sidenote: Fol. 303b.] If they, by promise and persuasion, could make the Bīāna garrison look towards us, they were to do so; if not, they were to weaken the enemy by raid and plunder.

In the fort of Tahangar[1969] was `Ālam Khān the elder brother of that same Niẕām Khān of Bīāna. People of his had come again and again to set forth his obedience and well-wishing; he now took it on himself to say, "If the Pādshāh appoint an army, it will be my part by promise and persuasion to bring in the quiver-weavers of Bīāna and to effect the capture of that fort." This being so, the following orders were given to the braves of Tardī Beg's expedition, "As `Ālam Khān, a local man, has taken it on himself to serve and submit in this manner, act you with him and in the way he approves in this matter of Bīāna." Swordsmen though some Hindūstānīs may be, most of them are ignorant and unskilled in military move and stand (_yūrūsh u tūrūsh_), in soldierly counsel and procedure. When our expedition joined `Ālam Khān, he paid no attention to what any-one else said, did not consider whether his action was good or bad, but went close up to Bīāna, taking our men with him. Our expedition numbered from 250 to 300 Turks with somewhat over 2000 Hindūstānīs and local people, while Niẕām Khān of Bīāna's Afghāns and _sipāhīs[1970]_ were an army of over 4000 horse and of [Sidenote: Fol. 304.] foot-men themselves again, more than 10,000. Niẕām Khān looked his opponents over, sallied suddenly out and, his massed horse charging down, put our expeditionary force to flight. His men unhorsed his elder brother `Ālam Khān, took 5 or 6 others prisoner and contrived to capture part of the baggage. As we had already made encouraging promises to Niẕām Khān, we now, spite of this last impropriety, pardoned all earlier and this later fault, and sent him royal letters. As he heard of Rānā Sangā's rapid advance, he had no resource but to call on Sayyid Rafī`[1971] for mediation, surrender the fort to our men, and come in with Sayyid Rafī`, when he was exalted to the felicity of an interview.[1972] I bestowed on him a pargana in Mīān-dū-āb worth 20 _laks_.[1973] Dost, Lord-of-the-gate was sent for a time to Bīāna, but a few days later it was bestowed on Madhī Khwāja with a fixed allowance of 70 _laks_,[1974] and he was given leave to go there.

Tātār Khān _Sārang-khānī_, who was in Gūālīār, had been sending constantly to assure us of his obedience and good-wishes. After the pagan took Kandār and was close to Bīāna, Dharmankat, one of the Gūālīār rājas, and another pagan styled Khān-i-jahān, went into the Gūālīār neighbourhood and, coveting the fort, began to stir trouble and tumult. Tātār Khān, thus placed in difficulty, was for surrendering Gūālīār (to us). Most of our begs, household and best braves being away with (Humāyūn's) army or on various raids, we joined to Raḥīm-dād [Sidenote: Fol. 304b.] a few Bhīra men and Lāhorīs with Hastachī[1975] _tūnqiṯār_ and his brethren. We assigned _parganas_ in Gūālīār itself to all those mentioned above. Mullā Apāq and Shaikh Gurān (G'hurān) went also with them, they to return after Raḥīm-dād was established in Gūālīār. By the time they were near Gūālīār however, Tātār Khān's views had changed, and he did not invite them into the fort. Meantime Shaikh Muḥammad _Ghaus̤_ (Helper), a darwīsh-like man, not only very learned but with a large following of students and disciples, sent from inside the fort to say to Raḥīm-dād, "Get yourselves into the fort somehow, for the views of this person (Tātār Khān) have changed, and he has evil in his mind." Hearing this, Raḥīm-dād sent to say to Tātār Khān, "There is danger from the Pagan to those outside; let me bring a few men into the fort and let the rest stay outside." Under insistence, Tātār Khān agreed to this, and Raḥīm-dād went in with rather few men. Said he, "Let our people stay near this Gate," posted them near the Hātī-pul (Elephant-gate) and through that Gate during that same night brought in the whole of his troop. Next day, Tātār Khān, reduced to helplessness, willy-nilly, made over the fort, and set out to come and wait on me in Āgra. A subsistence allowance of 20 _laks_ was assigned to him on Bīānwān _pargana_.[1976]

[Sidenote: Fol. 305.] Muḥammad _Zaitūn_ also took the only course open to him by surrendering Dūlpūr and coming to wait on me. A _pargana_ worth a few _laks_ was bestowed on him. Dūlpūr was made a royal domain (_khālṣa_) with Abū'l-fatḥ _Turkmān_[1977] as its military-collector (_shiqdār_).

In the Ḥiṣār-fīrūza neighbourhood Ḥamīd Khān _Sārang-khānī_ with a body of his own Afghāns and of the Panī Afghāns he had collected—from 3 to 4,000 in all—was in a hostile and troublesome attitude. On Wednesday the 15th Ṣafar (Nov. 21st) we appointed against him Chīn-tīmūr Sl. (_Chaghatāī_) with the commanders Secretary Aḥmadī, Abū'l-fatḥ _Turkmān_, Malik Dād _Kararānī_[1978] and Mujāhid Khān of Multān. These going, fell suddenly on him from a distance, beat his Afghāns well, killed a mass of them and sent in many heads.

(_e. Embassy from Persia._)

In the last days of Ṣafar, Khwājagī Asad who had been sent to Shāh-zāda T̤ahmāsp[1979] in `Irāq, returned with a Turkmān named Sulaimān who amongst other gifts brought two Circassian girls (_qīzlār_).

(_f. Attempt to poison Bābur._)

(_Dec. 21st_) On Friday the 16th of the first Rabī` a strange event occurred which was detailed in a letter written to Kābul. That letter is inserted here just as it was written, without addition or taking-away, and is as follows:—[1980]

"The details of the momentous event of Friday the 16th of the first Rabī` in the date 933 [Dec. 21st 1526 AD.] are as follows:—The ill-omened old woman[1981] Ibrāhim's mother heard [Sidenote: Fol. 305b.] that I ate things from the hands of Hindūstānīs—the thing being that three or four months earlier, as I had not seen Hindūstānī dishes, I had ordered Ibrāhīm's cooks to be brought and out of 50 or 60 had kept four. Of this she heard, sent to Atāwa (Etāwa) for Aḥmad the _chāshnīgīr_—in Hindūstān they call a taster (_bakāwal_) a _chāshnīgīr_—and, having got him,[1982] gave a _tūla_ of poison, wrapped in a square of paper,—as has been mentioned a _tūla_ is rather more than 2 _mis̤qāls_[1983]—into the hand of a slave-woman who was to give it to him. That poison Aḥmad gave to the Hindūstānī cooks in our kitchen, promising them four _parganas_ if they would get it somehow into the food. Following the first slave-woman that ill-omened old woman sent a second to see if the first did or did not give the poison she had received to Aḥmad. Well was it that Aḥmad put the poison not into the cooking-pot but on a dish! He did not put it into the pot because I had strictly ordered the tasters to compel any Hindūstānīs who were present while food was cooking in the pots, to taste that food.[1984] Our graceless tasters were neglectful when the food _(āsh_) was being dished up. Thin slices of bread were put on a porcelain dish; on these less than half of the paper packet of poison was sprinkled, and over this buttered [Sidenote: Fol. 306.] fritters were laid. It would have been bad if the poison had been strewn on the fritters or thrown into the pot. In his confusion, the man threw the larger half into the fire-place."

"On Friday, late after the Afternoon Prayer, when the cooked meats were set out, I ate a good deal of a dish of hare and also much fried carrot, took a few mouthfuls of the poisoned Hindūstānī food without noticing any unpleasant flavour, took also a mouthful or two of dried-meat (_qāq_). Then I felt sick. As some dried meat eaten on the previous day had had an unpleasant taste, I thought my nausea due to the dried-meat. Again and again my heart rose; after retching two or three times I was near vomiting on the table-cloth. At last I saw it would not do, got up, went retching every moment of the way to the water-closet (_āb-khāna_) and on reaching it vomited much. Never had I vomited after food, used not to do so indeed while drinking. I became suspicious; I had the cooks put in ward and ordered some of the vomit given to a dog and the dog to be watched. It was somewhat out-of-sorts near the first watch of the next day; its belly was swollen and however much people threw stones at it and turned it over, it did not get up. In that state it remained till mid-day; it then got up; it did not die. [Sidenote: Fol. 306b.] One or two of the braves who also had eaten of that dish, vomited a good deal next day; one was in a very bad state. In the end all escaped. (_Persian_) 'An evil arrived but happily passed on!' God gave me new-birth! I am coming from that other world; I am born today of my mother; I was sick; I live; through God, I know today the worth of life!"[1985]

"I ordered Pay-master Sl. Muḥammad to watch the cook; when he was taken for torture (_qīn_), he related the above particulars one after another."

"Monday being Court-day, I ordered the grandees and notables, amīrs and wazīrs to be present and that those two men and two women should be brought and questioned. They there related the particulars of the affair. That taster I had cut in pieces, that cook skinned alive; one of those women I had thrown under an elephant, the other shot with a match-lock. The old woman (_būā_) I had kept under guard; she will meet her doom, the captive of her own act."[1986]

"On Saturday I drank a bowl of milk, on Sunday _`araq_ in which stamped-clay was dissolved.[1987] On Monday I drank milk in which were dissolved stamped-clay and the best theriac,[1988] a strong purge. As on the first day, Saturday, something very dark like parched bile was voided."

"Thanks be to God! no harm has been done. Till now I had not known so well how sweet a thing life can seem! As the line has it, 'He who has been near to death knows the worth of life.' Spite of myself, I am all upset whenever the dreadful [Sidenote: Fol. 307.] occurrence comes back to my mind. It must have been God's favour gave me life anew; with what words can I thank him?"

"Although the terror of the occurrence was too great for words, I have written all that happened, with detail and circumstance, because I said to myself, 'Don't let their hearts be kept in anxiety!' Thanks be to God! there may be other days yet to see! All has passed off well and for good; have no fear or anxiety in your minds."

"This was written on Tuesday the 20th of the first Rabī`, I being then in the Chār-bāgh."

When we were free from the anxiety of these occurrences, the above letter was written and sent to Kābul.

(_g. Dealings with Ibrāhīm's family._)

As this great crime had raised its head through that ill-omened old woman (_būā-i-bad-bakht_), she was given over to Yūnas-i-`alī and Khwājagī Asad who after taking her money and goods, slaves and slave-women (_dādūk_), made her over for careful watch to `Abdu'r-raḥīm _shaghāwal_.[1989] Her grandson, Ibrāhīm's son had been cared for with much respect and delicacy, but as the attempt on my life had been made, clearly, by that family, it did not seem advisable to keep him in Agra; he was joined therefore to Mullā Sarsān—who had come from Kāmrān on important business—and was started off with the Mullā to Kāmrān on Thursday Rabī` I. 29th (Jan. 3rd 1527 AD.).[1990]

(_h. Humāyūn's campaign._)

[Sidenote: Fol. 307b.] Humāyūn, acting against the Eastern rebels[1991] took Jūna-pūr (_sic_), went swiftly against Naṣīr Khān (_Nūḥānī_) in Ghāzī-pūr and found that he had gone across the Gang-river, presumably on news* of Humāyūn's approach. From Ghāzī-pūr Humāyūn went against Kharīd[1992] but the Afghāns of the place had crossed the Sārū-water (Gogra) presumably on the news* of his coming. Kharīd was plundered and the army turned back.

Humāyūn, in accordance with my arrangements, left Shāh Mīr Ḥusain and Sl. Junaid with a body of effective braves in Jūna-pūr, posted Qāẓī Jīā with them, and placed Shaikh Bāyazīd [_Farmūlī_] in Aude (Oude). These important matters settled, he crossed Gang from near Karrah-Mānikpūr and took the Kālpī road. When he came opposite Kālpī, in which was Jalāl Khān _Jik-hat's_ (son) `Ālam Khān who had sent me dutiful letters but had not waited on me himself, he sent some-one to chase fear from `Ālam Khān's heart and so brought him along (to Āgra).

Humāyūn arrived and waited on me in the Garden of Eight-paradises[1993] on Sunday the 3rd of the 2nd Rabī` (Jan. 6th 1527 AD.). On the same day Khwāja Dost-i-khāwand arrived from Kābul.

(_i. Rānā Sangā's approach._)[1994]

Meantime Mahdī Khwāja's people began to come in, treading on one another's heels and saying, "The Rānā's advance is certain. Ḥasan Khān _Mīwātī_ is heard of also as likely to join him. They must be thought about above all else. It would favour our fortune, if a troop came ahead of the army to reinforce Bīāna." [Sidenote: Fol. 308.]

Deciding to get to horse, we sent on, to ride light to Bīāna, the commanders Muḥammad Sl. Mīrzā, Yūnas-i-`alī, Shāh Manṣūr _Barlās_, Kitta Beg, Qismatī[1995] and Būjka.

In the fight with Ibrāhīm, Ḥasan Khān _Mīwātī's_ son Nāhar Khān had fallen into our hands; we had kept him as an hostage and, ostensibly on his account, his father had been making comings-and-goings with us, constantly asking for him. It now occurred to several people that if Ḥasan Khān were conciliated by sending him his son, he would thereby be the more favourably disposed and his waiting on me might be the better brought about. Accordingly Nāhar Khān was dressed in a robe of honour; promises were made to him for his father, and he was given leave to go. That hypocritical mannikin [Ḥasan Khān] must have waited just till his son had leave from me to go, for on hearing of this and while his son as yet had not joined him, he came out of Alūr (Alwar) and at once joined Rānā Sangā in Toda(bhīm, Āgra District). It must have been ill-judged to let his son go just then.

Meantime much rain was falling; parties were frequent; even Humāyūn was present at them and, abhorrent though it was to him, sinned[1996] every few days.

(_j. Tramontane affairs._)

One of the strange events in these days of respite[1997] was this:—When Humāyūn was coming from Fort Victory. (Qila`-i-ẕafar) to join the Hindūstān army, (Muḥ. 932 AH.-Oct. 1525 AD.) [Sidenote: Fol. 308b.] Mullā Bābā of Pashāghar (_Chaghatāī_) and his younger brother Bābā Shaikh deserted on the way, and went to Kītīn-qarā Sl. (_Aūzbeg_), into whose hands Balkh had fallen through the enfeeblement of its garrison.[1998] This hollow mannikin and his younger brother having taken the labours of this side (Cis-Balkh?) on their own necks, come into the neighbourhood of Aībak, Khurram and Sār-bāgh.[1999]

Shāh Sikandar—his footing in Ghūrī lost through the surrender of Balkh—is about to make over that fort to the Aūzbeg, when Mullā Bābā and Bābā Shaikh, coming with a few Aūzbegs, take possession of it. Mīr Hamah, as his fort is close by, has no help for it; he is for submitting to the Aūzbeg, but a few days later Mullā Bābā and Bābā Shaikh come with a few Aūzbegs to Mīr Hamah's fort, purposing to make the Mīr and his troop march out and to take them towards Balkh. Mīr Hamah makes Bābā Shaikh dismount inside the fort, and gives the rest felt huts (_aūtāq_) here and there. He slashes at Bābā Shaikh, puts him and some others in bonds, and sends a man galloping off to Tīngrī-bīrdī (_Qūchīn_, in Qūndūz). Tīngrī-bīrdī sends off Yār-i-`alī and `Abdu'l-laṯīf with a few effective braves, but before they reach Mīr Hamah's fort, Mullā Bābā has arrived there with his Aūzbegs; he had thought of a hand-to-hand fight (_aūrūsh-mūrūsh_), but he can do nothing. Mīr Hamah and his men joined Tīngrī-bīrdī's and came to Qūndūz. Bābā Shaikh's wound must have been severe; they cut his head off and Mīr Hamah brought [Sidenote: Fol. 309.] it (to Āgra) in these same days of respite. I uplifted his head with favour and kindness, distinguishing him amongst his fellows and equals. When Bāqī _shaghāwal_ went [to Balkh][2000] I promised him a _ser_ of gold for the head of each of the ill-conditioned old couple; one _ser_ of gold was now given to Mīr Hamah for Bābā Shaikh's head, over and above the favours referred to above.[2001]

(_k. Action of part of the Bīāna reinforcement._)

Qismatī who had ridden light for Bīāna, brought back several heads he had cut off; when he and Būjka had gone with a few braves to get news, they had beaten two of the Pagan's scouting-parties and had made 70 to 80 prisoners. Qismatī brought news that Ḥasan Khān _Mīwātī_ really had joined Rānā Sangā.

(_l. Trial-test of the large mortar of f. 302._)

(_Feb. 10th_) On Sunday the 8th of the month (Jumāda I.), I went to see Ustād `Alī-qulī discharge stones from that large mortar of his in casting which the stone-chamber was without defect and which he had completed afterwards by casting the powder-compartment. It was discharged at the Afternoon Prayer; the throw of the stone was 1600 paces. A gift was made to the Master of a sword-belt, robe of honour, and _tīpūchāq_ (horse).

(_m. Bābur leaves Āgra against Rānā Sangā._)

(_Feb. 11th_) On Monday the 9th of the first Jumāda, we got out of the suburbs of Āgra, on our journey (_safar_) for the Holy War, and dismounted in the open country, where we remained three or four days to collect our army and be its rallying-point.[2002] As little confidence was placed in Hindūstānī people, the Hindūstān amīrs were inscribed for expeditions to this or to that side:—`Ālam Khān (_Tahangarī_) was sent hastily to Gūālīār to [Sidenote: Fol. 309b.] reinforce Raḥīm-dād; Makan, Qāsim Beg _Sanbalī_ (_Saṃbhalī_), Ḥamīd with his elder and younger brethren and Muḥammad _Zaitūn_ were inscribed to go swiftly to Sanbal.

(_n. Defeat of the advance-force._)

Into this same camp came the news that owing to Rānā Sangā's swift advance with all his army,[2003] our scouts were able neither to get into the fort (Bīāna) themselves nor to send news into it. The Bīāna garrison made a rather incautious sally too far out; the enemy fell on them in some force and put them to rout.[2004] There Sangur Khān _Janjūha_ became a martyr. Kitta Beg had galloped into the pell-mell without his cuirass; he got one pagan afoot (_yāyāglātīb_) and was overcoming him, when the pagan snatched a sword from one of Kitta Beg's own servants and slashed the Beg across the shoulder. Kitta Beg suffered great pain; he could not come into the Holy-battle with Rānā Sangā, was long in recovering and always remained blemished.

Whether because they were themselves afraid, or whether to frighten others is not known but Qismatī, Shāh Manṣūr _Barlās_ and all from Bīāna praised and lauded the fierceness and valour of the pagan army.

Qāsim Master-of-the-horse was sent from the starting-ground (_safar qīlghān yūrt_) with his spadesmen, to dig many wells where the army was next to dismount in the Madhākūr _pargana_.

(_Feb. 16th_) Marching out of Āgra on Saturday the 14th of the first Jumāda, dismount was made where the wells had been [Sidenote: Fol. 310.] dug. We marched on next day. It crossed my mind that the well-watered ground for a large camp was at Sīkrī.[2005] It being possible that the Pagan was encamped there and in possession of the water, we arrayed precisely, in right, left and centre. As Qismatī and Darwīsh-i-muḥammad _Sārbān_ in their comings and goings had seen and got to know all sides of Bīāna, they were sent ahead to look for camping-ground on the bank of the Sīkrī-lake (_kūl_). When we reached the (Madhākūr) camp, persons were sent galloping off to tell Mahdī Khwāja and the Bīāna garrison to join me without delay. Humāyūn's servant Beg Mīrak _Mughūl_ was sent out with a few braves to get news of the Pagan. They started that night, and next morning brought word that he was heard of as having arrived and dismounted at a place one _kuroh_ (2 miles) on our side (_aīlkārāk_) of Basāwar.[2006] On this same day Mahdī Khwāja and Muḥammad Sl. Mīrzā rejoined us with the troops that had ridden light to Bīāna.

(_o. Discomfiture of a reconnoitring party._)

The begs were appointed in turns for scouting-duty. When it was `Abdu'l-`azīz's turn, he went out of Sīkrī, looking neither before nor behind, right out along the road to Kanwā which is 5 _kuroh_ (10 m.) away. The Rānā must have been marching forward; he heard of our men's moving out in their reinless (_jalāū-sīz_) way, and made 4 or 5,000 of his own fall suddenly on them. With `Abdu'l-`azīz and Mullā Apāq may have been 1000 to 1500 men; they took no stock of their opponents but just [Sidenote: Fol. 310b.] got to grips; they were hurried off at once, many of them being made prisoner.

On news of this, we despatched Khalīfa's Muḥibb-i-`alī with Khalīfa's retainers. Mullā Ḥusain and some others _aūbrūqsūbrūq_[2007]* were sent to support them,[2008] and Muḥammad `Alī _Jang-jang_ also. Presumably it was before the arrival of this first, Muḥibb-i-`alī's, reinforcement that the Pagan had hurried off `Abdu'l-`azīz and his men, taken his standard, martyred Mullā Ni`mat, Mullā Dāūd and the younger brother of Mullā Apāq, with several more. Directly the reinforcement arrived the pagans overcame T̤āhir-tibrī, the maternal uncle of Khalīfa's Muḥibb-i-`alī, who had not got up with the hurrying reinforcement[?].[2009] Meantime Muḥibb-i-`alī even had been thrown down, but Bāltū getting in from the rear, brought him out. The enemy pursued for over a _kuroh_ (2 m.), stopped however at the sight of the black mass of Muḥ. `Alī _Jang-jang's_ troops.

Foot upon foot news came that the foe had come near and nearer. We put on our armour and our horses' mail, took our arms and, ordering the carts to be dragged after us, rode out at the gallop. We advanced one _kuroh_. The foe must have turned aside.

(_p. Bābur fortifies his camp._)

For the sake of water, we dismounted with a large lake (_kūl_) on one side of us. Our front was defended by carts chained together*, the space between each two, across which the chains stretched, being 7 or 8 _qārī_ (_circa_ yards). Musṯafa _Rūmī_ had [Sidenote: Fol. 311.] had the carts made in the Rūmī way, excellent carts, very strong and suitable.[2010] As Ustād `Alī-qulī was jealous of him, Musṯafa was posted to the right, in front of Humāyūn. Where the carts did not reach to, Khurāsānī and Hindūstānī spadesmen and miners were made to dig a ditch.

Owing to the Pagan's rapid advance, to the fighting-work in Bīāna and to the praise and laud of the pagans made by Shāh Manṣūr, Qismatī and the rest from Bīāna, people in the army shewed sign of want of heart. On the top of all this came the defeat of `Abdu'l-`azīz. In order to hearten our men, and give a look of strength to the army, the camp was defended and shut in where there were no carts, by stretching ropes of raw hide on wooden tripods, set 7 or 8 _qārī_ apart. Time had drawn out to 20 or 25 days before these appliances and materials were fully ready.[2011]

(_q. A reinforcement from Kābul._)

Just at this time there arrived from Kābul Qāsim-i-ḥusain Sl. (_Aūzbeg Shaibān_) who is the son of a daughter of Sl. Ḥusain M. (_Bāī-qarā_), and with him Aḥmad-i-yūsuf (_Aūghlāqchī_), Qawwām-i-aūrdū Shāh and also several single friends of mine, counting up in all to 500 men. Muḥammad Sharīf, the astrologer of ill-augury, came with them too, so did Bābā Dost the water-bearer (_sūchī_) who, having gone to Kābul for wine, had there [Sidenote: Fol. 311b.] loaded three strings of camels with acceptable Ghaznī wines.

At a time such as this, when, as has been mentioned, the army was anxious and afraid by reason of past occurrences and vicissitudes, wild words and opinions, this Muḥammad Sharīf, the ill-augurer, though he had not a helpful word to say to me, kept insisting to all he met, "Mars is in the west in these days;[2012] who comes into the fight from this (east) side will be defeated." Timid people who questioned the ill-augurer, became the more shattered in heart. We gave no ear to his wild words, made no change in our operations, but got ready in earnest for the fight.

(_Feb. 24th_) On Sunday the 22nd (of Jumāda 1.) Shaikh Jamāl was sent to collect all available quiver-wearers from between the two waters (Ganges and Jumna) and from Dihlī, so that with this force he might over-run and plunder the Mīwāt villages, leaving nothing undone which could awaken the enemy's anxiety for that side. Mullā Tark-i-`alī, then on his way from Kābul, was ordered to join Shaikh Jamāl and to neglect nothing of ruin and plunder in Mīwāt; orders to the same purport were given also to Maghfūr the Dīwān. They went; they over-ran and raided a few villages in lonely corners (_būjqāq_); they took some prisoners; but their passage through did not arouse much anxiety!

(_r. Bābur renounces wine._)

On Monday the 23rd of the first Jumāda (Feb. 25th), when [Sidenote: Fol. 312.] I went out riding, I reflected, as I rode, that the wish to cease from sin had been always in my mind, and that my forbidden acts had set lasting stain upon my heart. Said I, "Oh! my soul!"

(_Persian_) "How long wilt thou draw savour from sin? Repentance is not without savour, taste it!"[2013]

(_Turkī_) Through years how many has sin defiled thee? How much of peace has transgression given thee? How much hast thou been thy passions' slave? How much of thy life flung away?

With the Ghāzī's resolve since now thou hast marched, Thou hast looked thine own death in the face! Who resolves to hold stubbornly fast to the death, Thou knowest what change he attains,

That far he removes him from all things forbidden, That from all his offences he cleanses himself. With my own gain before me, I vowed to obey, In this my transgression,[2014] the drinking of wine.[2015]

The flagons and cups of silver and gold, the vessels of feasting, I had them all brought; I had them all broken up[2016] then and there. Thus eased I my heart by renouncement of wine.

The fragments of the gold and silver vessels were shared out to deserving persons and to darwīshes. The first to agree in renouncing wine was `Asas;[2017] he had already agreed also about leaving his beard untrimmed.[2018] That night and next day some [Sidenote: Fol. 312b.] 300 begs and persons of the household, soldiers and not soldiers, renounced wine. What wine we had with us was poured on the ground; what Bābā Dost had brought was ordered salted to make vinegar. At the place where the wine was poured upon the ground, a well was ordered to be dug, built up with stone and having an almshouse beside it. It was already finished in Muḥarram 935 (AH.-Sep. 1528 AD.) at the time I went to Sīkrī from Dūlpūr on my way back from visiting Gūālīār.

(_s. Remission of a due._)

I had vowed already that, if I gained the victory over Sangā the pagan, I would remit the _tamghā_[2019] to all Musalmāns. Of this vow Darwīsh-i-muḥammad _Sārbān_ and Shaikh Zain reminded me at the time I renounced wine. Said I, "You do well to remind me."

*_The tamghā_ was remitted to all Musalmāns of the dominions I held.[2020] I sent for the clerks (_munshīlār_), and ordered them to write for their news-letters (_akhbar_) the _farmān_ concerning the two important acts that had been done. Shaikh Zain wrote the _farmān_ with his own elegance (_inshāsī bīla_) and his fine letter (_inshā_) was sent to all my dominions. It is as follows:—[2021]

FARMĀN ANNOUNCING BĀBUR'S RENUNCIATION OF WINE.[2022]

[2023] _Let us praise the Long-suffering One who loveth the penitent and who loveth the cleansers of themselves; and let thanks be rendered to the Gracious One who absolveth His debtors, and forgiveth those who seek forgiveness. Blessings be upon Muḥammad the Crown of Creatures, on the Holy family, on the pure Companions_, and on the mirrors of the glorious congregation, to wit, the Masters of Wisdom who are treasure-houses of the pearls of purity and who bear the impress of the sparkling jewels of this purport:—that the nature of man is prone to evil, and that the abandonment of sinful appetites is only feasible by Divine aid [Sidenote: Fol. 313.] and the help that cometh from on high. "_Every soul is prone unto evil_,"[2024] (and again) "_This is the bounty of God_; _He will give the same unto whom He pleaseth_; _and God is endued with great bounty_."[2025]

Our motive for these remarks and for repeating these statements is that, by reason of human frailty, of the customs of kings and of the great, all of us, from the Shāh to the sipāhī, in the heyday of our youth, have transgressed and done what we ought not to have done. After some days of sorrow and repentance, we abandoned evil practices one by one, and the gates of retrogression became closed. But the renunciation of wine, the greatest and most indispensable of renunciations, remained under a veil in the chamber of deeds _pledged to appear in due season_, and did not show its countenance until the glorious hour when we had put on the garb of the holy warrior and had encamped with the army of Islām over against the infidels in order to slay them. On this occasion I received a secret inspiration and heard an infallible voice say "_Is not the time yet come unto those who believe, that their hearts should humbly submit to the admonition of God, and that truth which hath been revealed?_"[2026] Thereupon we set ourselves to extirpate the things of wickedness, and we earnestly knocked at the gates of repentance. The Guide of Help assisted us, according to the saying "_Whoever knocks and re-knocks, to him it will be opened_", and an order was given that with the Holy War there should [Sidenote: Fol. 313b.] begin the still greater war which has to be waged against sensuality. In short, we declared with sincerity that _we would subjugate our passions_, and I engraved on the tablet of my heart "_I turn unto Thee with repentance, and I am the first of true believers_".[2027] And I made public the resolution to abstain from wine, which had been hidden in the treasury of my breast. The victorious servants, in accordance with the illustrious order, dashed upon the earth of contempt and destruction the flagons and the cups, and the other utensils in gold and silver, which in their number and their brilliance were like the stars of the firmament. They dashed them in pieces, as, God willing! soon will be dashed the gods of the idolaters,—and they distributed the fragments among the poor and needy. By the blessing of this acceptable repentance, many of the courtiers, by virtue of the saying that _men follow the religion of their kings_, embraced abstinence at the same assemblage, and entirely renounced the use of wine, and up till now crowds of our subjects hourly attain this auspicious happiness. I hope that in accordance with the saying "_He who incites to good deeds has the same reward as he who does them_" the benefit of this action will react on the royal fortune and increase it day by day by victories.

After carrying out this design an universal decree was issued that in the imperial dominions—May God protect them from [Sidenote: Fol. 314.] every danger and calamity—no-one shall partake of strong drink, or engage in its manufacture, nor sell it, nor buy it or possess it, nor convey it or fetch it. "_Beware of touching it._" "_Perchance this will give you prosperity._"[2028]

In thanks for these great victories,[2029] and as a thank-offering for God's acceptance of repentance and sorrow, the ocean of the royal munificence became commoved, and those waves of kindness, which are the cause of the civilization of the world and of the glory of the sons of Adam, were displayed,—and throughout all the territories the tax (_tamghā_) on Musalmāns was abolished,—though its yield was more than the dreams of avarice, and though it had been established and maintained by former rulers,—for it is a practice outside of the edicts of the Prince of Apostles (Muḥammad). So a decree was passed that in no city, town, road, ferry, pass, or port, should the tax be levied or exacted. No alteration whatsoever of this order is to be permitted. "_Whoever after hearing it makes any change therein, the sin of such change will be upon him._"[2030]

The proper course (_sabīl_) for all who shelter under the shade of the royal benevolence, whether they be Turk, Tājik, `Arab, Hindī, or Fārsī (Persian), peasants or soldiers, of every nation or tribe of the sons of Adam, is to strengthen themselves by the tenets of religion, and to be full of hope and prayer for the dynasty which is linked with eternity, and to adhere to these ordinances, and not in any way to transgress them. It behoves all to act according to this _farmān_; they are to accept it as authentic when it comes attested by the Sign-Manual.

Written by order of the Exalted one,—May his excellence endure for ever! on the 24th of Jumāda I. 933 (February 26th 1527).

(_t. Alarm in Bābur's camp._)

[Sidenote: Fol. 314b.] In these days, as has been mentioned, (our people) great and small, had been made very anxious and timid by past occurrences. No manly word or brave counsel was heard from any one soever. What bold speech was there from the wazīrs who are to speak out (_dīgūchī_), or from the amīrs who will devour the land (_wilāyat-yīghūchī_)?[2031] None had advice to give, none a bold plan of his own to expound. Khalīfa (however) did well in this campaign, neglecting nothing of control and supervision, painstaking and diligence.

At length after I had made enquiry concerning people's want of heart and had seen their slackness for myself, a plan occurred to me; I summoned all the begs and braves and said to them, "Begs and braves!

(_Persian_) Who comes into the world will die; What lasts and lives will be God.

(_Turkī_) He who hath entered the assembly of life, Drinketh at last of the cup of death.

He who hath come to the inn of life, Passeth at last from Earth's house of woe.

"Better than life with a bad name, is death with a good one.

(_Persian_) Well is it with me, if I die with good name! A good name must I have, since the body is death's.[2032]

"God the Most High has allotted to us such happiness and has created for us such good-fortune that we die as martyrs, we kill as avengers of His cause. Therefore must each of you take oath [Sidenote: Fol. 315.] upon His Holy Word that he will not think of turning his face from this foe, or withdraw from this deadly encounter so long as life is not rent from his body." All those present, beg and retainer, great and small, took the Holy Book joyfully into their hands and made vow and compact to this purport. The plan was perfect; it worked admirably for those near and afar, for seërs and hearers, for friend and foe.

(_u. Bābur's perilous position._)

In those same days trouble and disturbance arose on every side:—Ḥusain Khān _Nuḥānī_ went and took Rāprī; Quṯb Khān's man took Chandwār[2033]; a mannikin called Rustam Khān who had collected quiver-wearers from Between-the-two-waters (Ganges and Jamna), took Kūl (Koel) and made Kīchīk 'Alī prisoner; Khwāja Zāhid abandoned Saṃbal and went off; Sl. Muḥammad _Dūldāī_ came from Qanūj to me; the Gūālīār pagans laid siege to that fort; 'Ālam Khān when sent to reinforce it, did not go to Gūālīār but to his own district. Every day bad news came from every side. Desertion of many Hindūstānīs set in; Haibat Khān _Karg-andāz_[2034] deserted and went to Saṃbal; Ḥasan Khān of Bārī deserted and joined the Pagan. We gave attention to none of them but went straight on with our own affair.

(_v. Bābur advances to fight._)

The apparatus and appliances, the carts and wheeled tripods being ready, we arrayed in right, left and centre, and marched forward on New Year's Day,[2035] Tuesday, the 9th of the second [Sidenote: Fol. 315b.] Jumāda (March 13th), having the carts[2036] and wheeled tripods moving in front of us, with Ustād `Alī-qulī and all the matchlock-men ranged behind them in order that these men, being on foot, should not be left behind the array but should advance with it.

When the various divisions, right, left and centre, had gone each to its place, I galloped from one to another to give encouragement to begs, braves, and _sipāhīs_. After each man had had assigned to him his post and usual work with his company, we advanced, marshalled on the plan determined, for as much as one _kuroh_ (2 m.)[2037] and then dismounted.

The Pagan's men, for their part, were on the alert; they came from their side, one company after another.

The camp was laid out and strongly protected by ditch and carts. As we did not intend to fight that day, we sent a few unmailed braves ahead, who were to get to grips with the enemy and thus take an omen. They made a few pagans prisoner, cut off and brought in their heads. Malik Qāsim also cut off and brought in a few heads; he did well. By these successes the hearts of our men became very strong.

When we marched on next day, I had it in my mind to fight, but Khalīfa and other well-wishers represented that the camping-ground previously decided on was near and that it would favour our fortunes if we had a ditch and defences made there and went there direct. Khalīfa accordingly rode off to get [Sidenote: Fol. 316.] the ditch dug; he settled its position with the spades-men, appointed overseers of the work and returned to us. (_w. The battle of Kānwa._)[2038]

On Saturday the 13th of the second Jumāda (March 17th, 1527 AD.) we had the carts dragged in front of us (as before), made a _kuroh_ (2 m.) of road, arrayed in right, left and centre, and dismounted on the ground selected.

A few tents had been set up; a few were in setting up when news of the appearance of the enemy was brought. Mounting instantly, I ordered every man to his post and that our array should be protected with the carts.[2039]

*As the following Letter-of-victory (_Fatḥ-nāma_) which is what Shaikh Zain had indited, makes known particulars about the army of Islām, the great host of the pagans with the position of their arrayed ranks, and the encounters had between them and the army of Islām, it is inserted here without addition or deduction.[2040]

SHAIKH ZAIN'S LETTER-OF-VICTORY.

(_a. Introduction._)

_Praise be to God the Faithful Promiser, the Helper of His servants, the Supporter of His armies, the Scatterer of hostile hosts, the One alone without whom there is nothing._ [Sidenote: Fol. 316b.]

_O Thou the Exalter of the pillars of Islām, Helper of thy faithful minister, Overthrower of the pedestals of idols, Overcomer of rebellious foes, Exterminator to the uttermost of the followers of darkness!_

_Lauds be to God the Lord of the worlds, and may the blessing of God be upon the best of His creatures Muḥammad, Lord of ghāzīs and champions of the Faith, and upon his companions, the pointers of the way, until the Day of judgment._

The successive gifts of the Almighty are the cause of frequent praises and thanksgivings, and the number of these praises and thanksgivings is, in its turn, the cause of the constant succession of God's mercies. For every mercy a thanksgiving is due, and every thanksgiving is followed by a mercy. To render full thanks is beyond men's power; the mightiest are helpless to discharge their obligations. Above all, adequate thanks cannot be rendered for a benefit than which none is greater in the world and nothing is more blessed, in the world to come, to wit, victory over most powerful infidels and dominion over wealthiest heretics, "_these are the unbelievers_, _the wicked_."[2041] In the eyes of the judicious, no blessing can be greater than this. Thanks be to God! that this great blessing and mighty boon, which from the cradle until now has been the real object of this right-thinking mind (Bābur's), has now manifested itself by the graciousness of the King of the worlds; the Opener who dispenses his treasures without awaiting solicitation, hath opened them with a master-key before our victorious Nawāb (Bābur),[2042] so that the names of our[2043] conquering heroes have been emblazoned in the records of glorious _ghāzīs_. By the help of our victorious soldiers the [Sidenote: Fol. 317.] standards of Islām have been raised to the highest pinnacles. The account of this auspicious fortune is as follows:—

(_b. Rānā Sangā and his forces._)

When the flashing-swords of our Islām-guarded soldiers had illuminated the land of Hindūstān with rays of victory and conquest, as has been recorded in former letters-of-victory,[2044] the Divine favour caused our standards to be upreared in the territories of Dihlī, Āgra, Jūn-pūr, Kharīd,[2045] Bihār, _etc._, when many chiefs, both pagans and Muḥammadans submitted to our generals and shewed sincere obedience to our fortunate Nawāb. But Rānā Sangā the pagan who in earlier times breathed submissive to the Nawāb,[2046] now _was puffed up with pride and became of the number of unbelievers_.[2047] Satan-like he threw back his head and collected an army of accursed heretics, thus gathering a rabble-rout of whom some wore the accursed torque (_ṯauq_), the _zīnār_,[2048] on the neck, some had in the skirt the calamitous thorn of apostacy.[2049] Previous to the rising in Hindūstān of the Sun of dominion and the emergence there of the light of the Shāhanshāh's Khalīfate [_i.e._ Bābur's] the authority of that execrated pagan (Sangā)—_at the Judgment Day he shall have no friend_,[2050] was such that not one of all the exalted sovereigns of this wide realm, such as the Sulṯān of Dihlī, the [Sidenote: Fol. 317b.] Sulṯān of Gujrāt and the Sulṯān of Mandū, could cope with this evil-dispositioned one, without the help of other pagans; one and all they cajoled him and temporized with him; and he had this authority although the rājas and rāīs of high degree, who obeyed him in this battle, and the governors and commanders who were amongst his followers in this conflict, had not obeyed him in any earlier fight or, out of regard to their own dignity, been friendly with him. Infidel standards dominated some 200 towns in the territories of Islām; in them mosques and shrines fell into ruin; from them the wives and children of the Faithful were carried away captive. So greatly had his forces grown that, according to the Hindū calculation by which one _lak_ of revenue should yield 100 horsemen, and one _krūr_ of revenue, 10,000 horsemen, the territories subject to the Pagan (Sangā) yielding 10 _krūrs_, should yield him 100,000 horse. Many noted pagans who hitherto had not helped him in battle, now swelled his ranks out of hostility to the people of Islām. Ten powerful chiefs, each the leader of a pagan host, uprose in rebellion, as smoke rises, and linked themselves, as though [Sidenote: Fol. 318.] enchained, to that perverse one (Sangā); and this infidel decade who, unlike the blessed ten,[2051] uplifted misery-freighted standards which _denounce unto them excruciating punishment_,[2052] had many dependants, and troops, and wide-extended lands. As, for instance, Ṣalāḥu'd-dīn[2053] had territory yielding 30,000 horse, Rāwal Ūdai Sīngh of Bāgar had 12,000, Medinī Rāī had 12,000, Ḥasan Khān of Mīwāt had 12,000, Bār-mal of Īdr had 4,000, Narpat Hāra had 7,000, Satrvī of Kach (Cutch) had 6,000, Dharm-deo had 4,000, Bīr-sing-deo had 4,000, and Maḥmūd Khān, son of Sl. Sikandar, to whom, though he possessed neither district nor _pargana_, 10,000 horse had gathered in hope of his attaining supremacy. Thus, according to the calculation of Hind, 201,000 was the total of those sundered from salvation. In brief, that haughty pagan, inwardly blind, and hardened of heart, having joined with other pagans, dark-fated and doomed to perdition, advanced to contend with the followers of Islām and to destroy the foundations of the law of the Prince of Men (Muḥammad), on whom be God's blessing! The protagonists of the royal forces fell, like divine destiny, on that one-eyed Dajjāl[2054] who, to understanding men, shewed the truth of the saying, _When Fate arrives, the eye becomes blind_, and, setting before their eyes the scripture which saith, _Whosoever striveth to promote the true religion, striveth for the good of his own soul_,[2055] [Sidenote: Fol. 318b.] they acted on the precept to which obedience is due, _Fight against infidels and hypocrites_.

(_c. Military movements._)

(_March 17th, 1527_) On Saturday the 13th day of the second Jumāda of the date 933, a day blessed by the words, _God hath blessed your Saturday_, the army of Islām was encamped near the village of Kānwa, a dependency of Bīāna, hard by a hill which was 2 _kurohs_ (4 m.) from the enemies of the Faith. When those accursed infidel foes of Muḥammad's religion heard the reverberation of the armies of Islām, they arrayed their ill-starred forces and moved forward with one heart, relying on their mountain-like, demon-shaped elephants, as had relied the Lords of the Elephant[2056] who went to overthrow the sanctuary (_ka`ba_) of Islām.

"Having these elephants, the wretched Hindus Became proud, like the Lords of the Elephant; Yet were they odious and vile as is the evening of death, Blacker[2057] than night, outnumbering the stars, All such as fire is[2058] but their heads upraised In hate, as rises its smoke in the azure sky, Ant-like they come from right and from left, Thousands and thousands of horse and foot."

They advanced towards the victorious encampment, intending [Sidenote: Fol. 319.] to give battle. The holy warriors of Islām, trees in the garden of valour, moved forward in ranks straight as serried pines and, like pines uplift their crests to heaven, uplifting their helmet-crests which shone even as shine the hearts of those _that strive in the way of the Lord_; their array was like Alexander's iron-wall,[2059] and, as is the way of the Prophet's Law, straight and firm and strong, _as though they were a well-compacted building_;[2060] and they became fortunate and successful in accordance with the saying, _They are directed by their Lord, and they shall prosper_.[2061]

In that array no rent was frayed by timid souls; Firm was it as the Shāhanshāh's resolve, strong as the Faith; Their standards brushed against the sky; _Verily we have granted thee certain victory_.[2062]

Obeying the cautions of prudence, we imitated the _ghāzīs_ of Rūm[2063] by posting matchlockmen (_tufanchīān_) and cannoneers (_ra`d-andāzān_) along the line of carts which were chained to one another in front of us; in fact, Islām's army was so arrayed and so steadfast that primal Intelligence[2064] and the firmament (_`aql-i-pīr u charkh-i-as̤īr_) applauded the marshalling thereof. To effect this arrangement and organization, Niẕāmu'd-dīn `Alī Khalīfa, the pillar of the Imperial fortune, exerted himself strenuously; his efforts were in accord with Destiny, and were approved by his sovereign's luminous judgment.

(_d. Commanders of the centre._)

His Majesty's post was in the centre. In the right-hand of the centre were stationed the illustrious and most upright [Sidenote: Fol. 319b.] brother, the beloved friend of Destiny, the favoured of Him whose aid is entreated (_i.e._ God), Chīn-tīmūr Sulṯān,[2065]—the illustrious son, accepted in the sight of the revered Allāh, Sulaimān Shāh,[2066]—the reservoir of sanctity, the way-shower, Khwāja Kamālu'd-dīn (Perfect-in-the Faith) Dost-i-khāwand,—the trusted of the sulṯānate, the abider near the sublime threshold, the close companion, the cream of associates, Kamālu'd-dīn Yūnas-i-`alī,—the pillar of royal retainers, the perfect in friendship, Jalālu'd-dīn (Glory-of-the-Faith) Shāh Manṣūr _Barlās_,—the pillar of royal retainers, most excellent of servants, Niẕāmu'd-dīn (Upholder-of-the-Faith) Darwīsh-i-muḥammad _Sārbān_,—the pillars of royal retainers, the sincere in fidelity, Shihābu'd-dīn (Meteor-of-the-Faith) `Abdu'l-lāh the librarian and Nīẕāmu'd-dīn Dost Lord-of-the-Gate.

In the left-hand of the centre took each his post, the reservoir of sovereignty, ally of the Khalīfate, object of royal favour, Sulṯān `Alā'u'd-dīn `Ālam Khān son of Sl. Bahlūl _Lūdī_,—the intimate of illustrious Majesty, the high priest (_dastūr_) of _ṣadrs_ amongst men, the refuge of all people, the pillar of Islām, Shaikh Zain of Khawāf,[2067]—the pillar of the nobility, Kamālu'd-dīn Muḥibb-i-`alī, son of the intimate counsellor named above (_i.e._ Khalīfa),—the pillar of royal retainers, Niẕāmu'd-dīn Tardī Beg brother of Qūj (son of) Aḥmad, whom God hath taken into His mercy,—Shīrafgan [Sidenote: Fol. 320.] son of the above-named Qūj Beg deceased,—the pillar of great ones, the mighty khān, Ārāīsh Khān,[2068]—the wazīr, greatest of wazīrs amongst men, Khwāja Kamālu'd-dīn Ḥusain,—and a number of other attendants at Court (_dīwanīān_).

(_e. Commanders of the right wing._)

In the right wing was the exalted son, honourable and fortunate, the befriended of Destiny, the Star of the Sign of sovereignty and success, Sun of the sphere of the Khalīfate, lauded of slave and free, Muḥammad Humāyūn Bahādur. On that exalted prince's right hand there were, one whose rank approximates to royalty and who is distinguished by the favour of the royal giver of gifts, Qāsim-i-ḥusain Sulṯān,—the pillar of the nobility Niẕāmu'd-dīn Aḥmad-ī-yūsuf _Aūghlāqchī_,[2069]—the trusted of royalty, most excellent of servants, Jalālu'd-dīn Hindū Beg _qūchīn_,[2070]—the trusted of royalty, perfect in loyalty, Jalālu'd-dīn Khusrau Kūkūldāsh,—the trusted of royalty, Qawām (var. Qiyām) Beg _Aūrdū-shāh_,—the pillar of royal retainers, of perfect sincerity, Walī _Qarā-qūzī_ the treasurer,[2071]—the pillar of royal retainers, Niẕāmu'd-dīn Pīr-qulī of Sīstān,—the pillar of wazīrs, Khwāja Kamālu'd-dīn _pahlawān_ (champion) of Badakhshān,—the pillar of royal retainers, `Abdu'l-sḥakūr,—the pillar of the nobility, most excellent of servants, the envoy from `Irāq Sulaimān Āqā,—and Ḥusain Āqā the envoy from Sīstān. On [Sidenote: Fol. 320b.] the victory-crowned left of the fortunate son already named there were, the sayyid of lofty birth, of the family of Murtiẓā (`Alī), Mīr Hama (or Hāma),—the pillar of royal retainers, the perfect in sincerity, Shamsu'd-dīn Muḥammadī Kūkūldāsh and Niẕāmu'd-dīn Khwājagī Asad _jān-dār_.[2072] In the right wing there were, of the amīrs of Hind,—the pillar of the State, the Khān-of-Khāns, Dilāwar Khān,[2073]—the pillar of the nobility, Malik Dād _Kararānī_,—and the pillar of the nobility, the Shaikh-of-shaikhs, Shaikh Gūran, each standing in his appointed place.

(_f. Commanders of the left wing._)

In the left wing of the armies of Islām there extended their ranks,—the lord of lofty lineage, the refuge of those in authority, the ornament of the family of _T̤a Ha_ and _Ya Sin_,[2074] the model for the descendants of the prince of ambassadors (Muḥammad), Sayyid Mahdī Khwāja,—the exalted and fortunate brother, the well-regarded of his Majesty, Muḥammad Sl. Mīrzā,[2075]—the personage approximating to royalty, the descended of monarchs, `Ādil Sulṯān son of Mahdī Sulṯān,[2076]—the trusted in the State, perfect in attachment, `Abdu'l-'azīz Master of the Horse,—the trusted in the State, the pure in friendship, Shamsu'd-dīn Muḥammad `Ali _Jang-jang_,[2077]—the pillar of royal retainers, Jalālu'd-dīn Qūtlūq-qadam _qarāwal_ (scout),—the pillar of royal retainers, the perfect in sincerity, Jalālu'd-dīn Shāh Ḥusain _yārāgī Mughūl Ghānchī_(?),[2078]—and Niẕāmu'd-dīn Jān-i-muḥammad _Beg Ātāka_.

Of amīrs of Hind there were in this division, the scions of sulṯāns, Kamāl Khān and Jamāl Khān sons of the Sl. `Alā'u'd-dīn [Sidenote: Fol. 321.] above-mentioned,—the most excellent officer `Alī Khān Shaikh-zāda of Farmūl,—and the pillar of the nobility, Niẕām Khān of Bīāna.

(_g. The flanking parties._)

For the flank-movement (_tūlghāma_) of the right wing there were posted two of the most trusted of the household retainers, Tardīka[2079] and Malik Qāsim the brother of Bābā Qashqa, with a body of Mughūls; for the flank-movement of the left wing were the two trusted chiefs Mūmin Ātāka and Rustam _Turkmān_, leading a body of special troops.

(_h. The Chief of the Staff._)

The pillar of royal retainers, the perfect in loyalty, the cream of privy-counsellors, Niẕāmu'd-dīn Sulṯān Muḥammad _Bakhshī_, after posting the _ghāzīs_ of Islām, came to receive the royal commands. He despatched adjutants (_tawāchī_) and messengers (_yasāwal_) in various directions to convey imperative orders concerning the marshalling of the troops to the great sulṯāns and amīrs. And when the Commanders had taken up their positions, an imperative order was given that none should quit his post or, uncommanded, stretch forth his arm to fight.

(_i. The battle._)

One watch[2080] of the afore-mentioned day had elapsed when the opposing forces approached each other and the battle began. As Light opposes Darkness, so did the centres of the two [Sidenote: Fol. 321b.] armies oppose one another. Fighting began on the right and left wings, such fighting as shook the Earth and filled highest Heaven with clangour.

The left wing of the ill-fated pagans advanced against the right wing of the Faith-garbed troops of Islām and charged down on Khusrau Kūkūldāsh and Bābā Qashqa's brother Malik Qāsim. The most glorious and most upright brother Chīn-tīmūr Sulṯān, obeying orders, went to reinforce them and, engaging in the conflict with bold attack, bore the pagans back almost to the rear of their centre. Guerdon was made for the brother's glorious fame.[2081] The marvel of the Age, Muṣṯafa of Rūm, had his post in the centre (of the right wing) where was the exalted son, upright and fortunate, the object of the favourable regard of Creative Majesty (_i.e._ God), the one _distinguished by the particular grace of the mighty Sovereign who commands to do and not to do_ (_i.e._ Bābur), Muḥammad Humāyūn Bahādur. This Muṣṯafa of Rūm had the carts (_arābahā_)[2082] brought forward and broke the ranks of pagans with matchlock and culverin dark like their hearts(?).[2083] In the thick of the fight, the most glorious brother Qāsim-i-ḥusain Sulṯān and the pillars of royal retainers, Niẕāmu'd-dīn Aḥmad-i-yūsuf and Qawām Beg, obeying orders, hastened to their help. And since band after band of pagan troops followed each other to help their men, so we, in our turn, sent the trusted in the State, the glory of the Faith, Hindū Beg, and, after him, the pillars of the nobility, Muhammadī Kūkūldāsh and Khwājagī Asad _jān-dār_, and, after them, the trusted in [Sidenote: Fol. 322.] the State, the trustworthy in the resplendent Court, the most confided-in of nobles, the elect of confidential servants, Yūnas-i-'alī, together with the pillar of the nobility, the perfect in friendship, Shāh Manṣūr _Barlās_ and the pillar of the grandees, the pure in fidelity, `Abdu'l-lāh the librarian, and after these, the pillar of the nobles, Dost the Lord-of-the-Gate, and Muḥammad Khalil the master-gelder (_akhta-begī_).[2084]

The pagan right wing made repeated and desperate attack on the left wing of the army of Islām, falling furiously on the holy warriors, possessors of salvation, but each time was made to turn back or, smitten with the arrows of victory, was _made to descend into Hell, the house of perdition; they shall be thrown to burn therein, and an unhappy dwelling shall it be_.[2085] Then the trusty amongst the nobles, Mūmin Ātāka and Rustam _Turkmān_ betook themselves to the rear[2086] of the host of darkened pagans; and to help them were sent the Commanders Khwāja Maḥmūd and `Alī Ātāka, servants of him who amongst the royal retainers is near the throne, the trusted of the Sulṯānate, Niẕāmu'd-din `Alī Khalīfa.

Our high-born brother[2087] Muḥammad Sl. Mīrzā, and the representative of royal dignity, `Ādil Sulṯān, and the trusted in the State, the strengthener of the Faith, `Abdu'l-`azīz, the Master of the Horse, and the glory of the Faith, Qūtlūq-qadam _qarāwal_, and the meteor of the Faith, Muḥammad `Alī _Jang-jang_, and the pillar of royal retainers, Shāh Ḥusain _yāragī Mughūl Ghānchī_(?) stretched out the arm to fight and stood firm. To support them we sent the _Dastūr_, the highest of wazīrs, Khwāja [Sidenote: Fol. 322b.] Kamālu'd-dīn Ḥusain with a body of _dīwānīs_.[2088] Every holy warrior was eager to show his zeal, entering the fight with desperate joy as if approving the verse, _Say, Do you expect any other should befall us than one of the two most excellent things, victory or martyrdom?_[2089] and, with display of life-devotion, uplifted the standard of life-sacrifice.

As the conflict and battle lasted long, an imperative order was issued that the special royal corps (_tābīnān-i-khāṣa-i-pādshāhī_)[2090] who, heroes of one hue,[2091] were standing, like tigers enchained, behind the carts,[2092] should go out on the right and the left of the centre,[2093] leaving the matchlockmen's post in-between, and join battle on both sides. As the True Dawn emerges from its cleft in the horizon, so they emerged from behind the carts; they poured a ruddy crepuscule of the blood of those ill-fated pagans on the nadir of the Heavens, that battle-field; they made fall from the firmament of existence many heads of the headstrong, as stars fall from the firmament of heaven. The marvel of the Age, Ustād `Alī-qulī, who with his own appurtenances stood in front of the centre, did deeds of valour, discharging against the iron-mantled forts of the infidels[2094] stones of such size that were (one) put into a scale of the Balance in which actions are weighed, that _scale shall be heavy with good works and he_ (_i.e._ its owner) _shall lead a pleasing life_[2095]; and were such stones discharged against a hill, broad of base and high of summit, it would _become like carded wool_.[2096] Such stones Ustād `Alī-qulī discharged at the iron-clad fortress of the pagan ranks and by this discharge of stones, and abundance of culverins and matchlocks(?)[2097] destroyed many of the builded bodies of the [Sidenote: Fol. 323.] pagans. The matchlockmen of the royal centre, in obedience to orders, going from behind the carts into the midst of the battle, each one of them made many a pagan taste of the poison of death. The foot-soldiers, going into a most dangerous place, made their names to be blazoned amongst those of the forest-tigers (_i.e._ heroes) of valour and the champions in the field of manly deeds. Just at this time came an order from his Majesty the Khāqān that the carts of the centre should be advanced; and the gracious royal soul (_i.e._ Bābur) moved towards the pagan soldiers, Victory and Fortune on his right, Prestige and Conquest on his left. On witnessing this event, the victorious troops followed from all sides; the whole surging ocean of the army rose in mighty waves; the courage of all the crocodiles[2098] of that ocean was manifested by the strength of their deeds; an obscuring cloud of dust o'erspread the sky(?). The dust that gathered over the battle-field was traversed by the lightning-flashes of the sword; the Sun's face was shorn of light as is a mirror's back; the striker and the struck, the victor and the vanquished were commingled, all distinction between them lost. The Wizard of Time produced such a night that its only planets were arrows,[2099] its only constellations of fixed stars were the steadfast squadrons.

Upon that day of battle sank and rose Blood to the Fish and dust-clouds to the Moon, While through the horse-hoofs on that spacious plain, [Sidenote: Fol. 323b.] One Earth flew up to make another Heaven.[2100]

At the moment when the holy warriors were heedlessly flinging away their lives, they heard a secret voice say, _Be not dismayed, neither be grieved, for, if ye believe, ye shall be exalted above the unbelievers_,[2101] and from the infallible Informer heard the joyful words, _Assistance is from God, and a speedy victory! And do thou bear glad tidings to true believers._[2102] Then they fought with such delight that the plaudits of the saints of the Holy Assembly reached them and the angels from near the Throne, fluttered round their heads like moths. Between the first and second Prayers, there was such blaze of combat that the flames thereof raised standards above the heavens, and the right and left of the army of Islām rolled back the left and right of the doomed infidels in one mass upon their centre.

When signs were manifest of the victory of the Strivers and of the up-rearing of the standards of Islām, those accursed infidels and wicked unbelievers remained for one hour confounded. At length, their hearts abandoning life, they fell upon the right and left of our centre. Their attack on the left was the more vigorous and there they approached furthest, but the holy warriors, their minds set on the reward, planted shoots (_nihāl_) of arrows in the field of the breast of each one of them, and, such being their gloomy fate, overthrew them. In this state of affairs, the breezes of victory and fortune blew over the meadow of our [Sidenote: Fol. 324.] happy Nawāb, and brought the good news, _Verily we have granted thee a manifest victory_.[2103] And Victory the beautiful woman (_shāhid_) whose world-adornment of waving tresses was embellished by _God will aid you with a mighty aid_,[2104] bestowed on us the good fortune that had been hidden behind a veil, and made it a reality. The absurd (_bāṯil_) Hindūs, knowing their position perilous, _dispersed like carded wool before the wind_, and _like moths scattered abroad_.[2105] Many fell dead on the field of battle; others, desisting from fighting, fled to the desert of exile and became the food of crows and kites. Mounds were made of the bodies of the slain, pillars of their heads.

(_j. Hindū chiefs killed in the battle._)

Ḥasan Khān of Mīwāt was enrolled in the list of the dead by the force of a matchlock (_ẓarb-i-tufak_); most of those headstrong chiefs of tribes were slain likewise, and ended their days by arrow and matchlock (_tīr u tufak_). Of their number was Rāwal Ūdī Sīngh of Bāgar,[2106] ruler (_wālī_) of the Dungarpūr country, who had 12,000 horse, Rāī Chandrabān _Chūhān_ who had 4,000 horse, Bhūpat Rāo son of that Ṣalāḥu'd-dīn already mentioned, who was lord of Chandīrī and had 6,000 horse, Mānik-chand _Chūhān_ and Dilpat Rāo who had each 4,000 horse, Kankū (or Gangū) and Karm Sīngh and Dankūsī(?)[2107] who had each 3,000 horse, and a number of others, each one of whom was leader of a great [Sidenote: Fol. 324b.] command, a splendid and magnificent chieftain. All these trod the road to Hell, removing from this house of clay to the pit of perdition. The enemy's country (_dāru'l-ḥarb_) was full, as Hell is full, of wounded who had died on the road. The lowest pit was gorged with miscreants who had surrendered their souls to the lord of Hell. In whatever direction one from the army of Islām hastened, he found everywhere a self-willed one dead; whatever march the illustrious camp made in the wake of the fugitives, it found no foot-space without its prostrate foe.

All the Hindūs slain, abject (_khwār_, var. _zār_) and mean, By matchlock-stones, like the Elephants' lords,[2108] Many hills of their bodies were seen, And from each hill a fount of running blood. Dreading the arrows of (our) splendid ranks, Passed[2109] they in flight to each waste and hill.

They turn their backs. The command of God is to be performed. Now praise be to God, All-hearing and All-wise, for victory is from God alone, the Mighty, the Wise.[2110] Written Jumāda II. 25th 933 (AH.-March 29th 1527 A.D.).[2111]

MINOR SEQUELS OF VICTORY.

(_a. Bābur assumes the title of Ghāzī._)

After this success _Ghāzī_ (Victor in a Holy-war) was written amongst the royal titles.

Below the titles (_ṯughrā_)[2112] entered on the _Fatḥ-nāma_, I wrote the following quatrain:—[2113]

For Islām's sake, I wandered in the wilds, Prepared for war with pagans and Hindūs, Resolved myself to meet the martyr's death. [Sidenote: Fol. 325.] Thanks be to God! a _ghāzī_ I became.

(_b. Chronograms of the victory._)

Shaikh Zain had found (_tāpīb aīdī_) the words _Fatḥ-i-pādshāḥ-i-islām_[2114] (Victory of the Pādshāh of the Faith) to be a chronogram of the victory. Mīr Gesū, one of the people come from Kābul, had also found these same words to be a chronogram, had composed them in a quatrain and sent this to me. It was a coincidence that Shaikh Zain and Mīr Gesū should bring forward precisely the same words in the quatrains they composed to embellish their discoveries.[2115] Once before when Shaikh Zain found the date of the victory at Dībālpūr in the words _Wasaṯ-i-shahr Rabī`u'l-awwal_[2116] (Middle of the month Rabī` I.), Mīr Gesū had found it in the very same words.

HISTORICAL NARRATIVE RESUMED.

(_a. After the victory._)

The foes beaten, we hurried them off, dismounting one after another. The Pagan's encirclement[2117] may have been 2 _kurohs_ from our camp (_aūrdū_); when we reached his camp (_aūrdū_), we sent Muḥammadī, `Abdu'l-`azīz, `Alī Khān and some others in pursuit of him. There was a little slackness;[2118] I ought to have gone myself, and not have left the matter to what I expected from other people. When I had gone as much as a _kuroh_ (2 m.) beyond the Pagan's camp, I turned back because it was late in the day; I came to our camp at the Bed-time Prayer.

With what ill-omened words Muḥammad Sharīf the astrologer had fretted me! Yet he came at once to congratulate me! I emptied my inwards[2119] in abuse of him, but, spite of his being heathenish, ill-omened of speech, extremely self-satisfied, and a most disagreeable person, I bestowed a _lak_ upon him because there had been deserving service from him in former times, and, [Sidenote: Fol. 325b.] after saying he was not to stay in my dominions, I gave him leave to go.

(_b. Suppression of a rebellion._)

(_March 17th_) We remained next day (_Jumāda II. 14th_) on that same ground. Muḥammad `Alī _Jang-jang_ and Shaikh Gūran and `Abdu'l-malik[2120] the armourer were sent off with a dense (_qālīn_) army against Ilīās Khān who, having rebelled in Between-the-two-waters (Ganges and Jumna), had taken Kūl (Koel) and made Kīchīk `Alī prisoner.[2121] He could not fight when they came up; his force scattered in all directions; he himself was taken a few days later and brought into Āgra where I had him flayed alive.

(_c. A trophy of victory._)

An order was given to set up a pillar of pagan heads on the infant-hill (_koh-bacha_) between which and our camp the battle had been fought.

(_d. Bīāna visited._)

(_March 20th_) Marching on from that ground, and after halting on two nights, we reached Bīāna (_Sunday_, _Jumāda II. 17th_). Countless numbers of the bodies of pagans and apostates[2122] who had fallen in their flight, lay on the road as far as Bīāna, indeed as far as Alūr and Mīwāt.[2123]

(_e. Discussion of plans._)

On our return to camp, I summoned the Turk amīrs and the amīrs of Hind to a consultation about moving into the Pagan (Sangā)'s country; the plan was given up because of the little water and much heat on the road.

(_f. Mīwāt._)

Near Dihlī lies the Mīwāt country which yields revenue of 3 or 4 _krūrs_.[2124] Ḥasan Khān _Mīwātī_[2125] and his ancestors one after another had ruled it with absolute sway for a hundred years or two. They must have made[2126] imperfect submission to the Dihlī Sulṯāns; the Sulṯāns of Hind,[2127] whether because their [Sidenote: Fol. 326.] own dominions were wide, or because their opportunity was narrow, or because of the Mīwāt hill-country,[2128] did not turn in the Mīwāt direction, did not establish order in it, but just put up with this amount of (imperfect) submission. For our own part, we did after the fashion of earlier Sulṯāns; having conquered Hind, we shewed favour to Ḥasan Khān, but that thankless and heathenish apostate disregarded our kindness and benefits, was not grateful for favour and promotion, but became the mover of all disturbance and the cause of all misdoing.

When, as has been mentioned, we abandoned the plan (against Rānā Sangā), we moved to subdue Mīwāt. Having made 4 night-halts on the way, we dismounted on the bank of the Mānas-nī[2129] 6 _kurohs_ (12 m.) from Alūr, the present seat of government in Mīwāt. Ḥasan Khān and his forefathers must have had their seat[2130] in Tijāra, but when I turned towards Hindūstan, beat Pahār (or Bihār) Khān and took Lāhor and Dībālpūr (930 AH.-1524 AD.), he bethought himself betimes and busied himself for a residence (_`imārat_) in Fort Alūr (Alwar).

His trusted man, Karm-chand by name, who had come from him to me in Āgra when his son (Nāhar _i.e._ Tiger) was with me there,[2131] came now from that son's presence in Alūr and asked [Sidenote: Fol. 326b.] for peace. `Abdu'r-raḥīm _shaghāwal_ went with him to Alūr, conveying letters of royal favour, and returned bringing Nāhar Khān who was restored to favour and received _parganas_ worth several _laks_ for his support.

(_g. Rewards to officers._)

Thinking, "What good work Khusrau did in the battle!" I named him for Alūr and gave him 50 _laks_ for his support, but unluckily for himself, he put on airs and did not accept this. Later on it [_khẉud_, itself] came to be known that Chīn-tīmūr must have done[2132] that work; guerdon was made him for his renown(?);[2133] Tijāra-town, the seat of government in Mīwāt, was bestowed on him together with an allowance of 50 _laks_ for his support.

Alūr and an allowance of 15 _laks_ was bestowed on Tardīka (or, Tardī _yakka_) who in the flanking-party of the right-hand (_qūl_) had done better than the rest. The contents of the Alūr treasury were bestowed on Humāyūn.

(_h. Alwar visited._)

(_April 13th_) Marching from that camp on Wednesday the 1st of the month of Rajab, we came to within 2 _kurohs_ (4 m.) of Alūr. I went to see the fort, there spent the night, and next day went back to camp.

(_i. Leave given to various followers._)

When the oath before-mentioned[2134] was given to great and small before the Holy-battle with Rānā Sangā, it had been mentioned[2135] that there would be nothing to hinder leave after [Sidenote: Fol. 327.] this victory, and that leave would be given to anyone wishing to go away (from Hindūstān). Most of Humāyūn's men were from Badakhshān or elsewhere on that side (of Hindū-kūsh); they had never before been of an army led out for even a month or two; there had been weakness amongst them before the fight; on these accounts and also because Kābul was empty of troops, it was now decided to give Humāyūn leave for Kābul.

(_April 11th_) Leaving the matter at this, we marched from Alūr on Thursday the 9th of Rajab, did 4 or 5 _kurohs_ (8-10 m.) and dismounted on the bank of the Mānas-water.

Mahdī Khwāja also had many discomforts; he too was given leave for Kābul. The military-collectorate of Bīāna [he held] was bestowed on Dost Lord-of-the-gate, and, as previously Etāwa had been named for Mahdī Khwāja,[2136] Mahdī Khwāja's son Ja`far Khwāja was sent there in his father's place when (later) Quṯb Khān abandoned it and went off.[2137]

(_j. Despatch of the Letter-of-victory._)

Because of the leave given to Humāyūn, two or three days were spent on this ground. From it Mūmin-i-`alī the messenger (_tawāchī_) was sent off for Kābul with the _Fatḥ-nāma_.

(_k. Excursions and return to Āgra._)

Praise had been heard of the Fīrūzpūr-spring and of the great lake of Kūtila.[2138] Leaving the camp on that same ground, I rode out on Sunday (_Rajab 12th-April 14th_) both to visit [Sidenote: Fol. 327b.] these places and to set Humāyūn on his way. After visiting Fīrūzpūr and its spring on that same day, _ma'jūn_ was eaten. In the valley where the spring rises, oleanders (_kanīr_) were in bloom; the place is not without charm but is over-praised. I ordered a reservoir of hewn stone, 10 by 10[2139] to be made where the water widened, spent the night in that valley, next day rode on and visited the Kūtila lake. It is surrounded by mountain-skirts. The Mānas-nī is heard-say to go into it.[2140] It is a very large lake, from its one side the other side is not well seen. In the middle of it is rising ground. At its sides are many small boats, by going off in which the villagers living near it are said to escape from any tumult or disturbance. Even on our arrival a few people went in them to the middle of the lake.

On our way back from the lake, we dismounted in Humāyūn's camp. There we rested and ate food, and after having put robes of honour on him and his begs, bade him farewell at the Bed-time Prayer, and rode on. We slept for a little at some place on the road, at shoot of day passed through the _pargana_ of Kharī, again slept a little, and at length got to our camp which had dismounted at Toda-(bhim).[2141] After leaving Toda, we dismounted at Sūnkār; there Ḥasan Khān _Mīwātī's_ son [Sidenote: Fol. 328.] Nāhar Khān escaped from `Abdu'r-raḥīm's charge.

Going on from that place, we halted one night, then dismounted at a spring situated on the bill of a mountain between Busāwar and Chausa[2142] (or Jūsa); there awnings were set up and we committed the sin of _ma'jūn_. When the army had passed by this spring, Tardī Beg _khāksār_ had praised it; he (or we) had come and seen it from on horse-back (_sar-asbgi_) and passed on. It is a perfect spring. In Hindūstān where there are never running-waters,[2143] people seek out the springs themselves. The rare springs that are found, come oozing drop by drop (_āb-zih_) out of the ground, not bubbling up like springs of those lands.[2144] From this spring comes about a half-mill-water. It bubbles up on the hill-skirt; meadows lie round it; it is very beautiful. I ordered an octagonal reservoir of hewn stone made above[2145] it. While we were at the border of the spring, under the soothing influence of _ma'jūn_, Tardī Beg, contending for its surpassing beauty, said again and again, (_Persian_) "Since I am celebrating the beauty of the place,[2146] a name ought to be settled for it". `Abdu'l-lāh said, "It must be called the Royal-spring approved of by Tardī Beg." This saying caused much joke and laughter.

Dost Lord-of-the-gate coming up from Bīāna, waited on me at this spring-head. Leaving this place, we visited Bīāna again, [Sidenote: Fol. 328b.] went on to Sīkrī, dismounted there at the side of a garden which had been ordered made, stayed two days supervising the garden, and on Thursday the 23rd of Rajab (_April 25th_), reached Āgra.

(_l. Chandwār and Rāprī regained._)

During recent disturbances, the enemy, as has been mentioned,[2147] had possessed themselves of Chandwār[2148] and Rāprī. Against those places we now sent Muḥammad `Alī _Jang-jang_, Qūj Beg's (brother) Tardī Beg, `Abdu'l-malik the armourer, and Ḥasan Khān with his Daryā-khānīs. When they were near Chandwār, Quṯb Khān's people in it got out and away. Our men laid hands on it, and passed on to Rāprī. Here Ḥusain Khān _Nūḥānī's_ people came to the lane-end[2149] thinking to fight a little, could not stand the attack of our men, and took to flight. Ḥusain Khān himself with a few followers went into the Jūn-river (Jumna) on an elephant and was drowned. Quṯb Khān, for his part, abandoned Etāwa on hearing these news, fled with a few and got away. Etāwa having been named for Mahdī Khwāja, his son Ja`far Khwāja was sent there in his place.[2150]

(_m. Apportionment of fiefs._)

When Rānā Sangā sallied out against us, most Hindūstānīs and Afghāns, as has been mentioned,[2151] turned round against us and took possession of their _parganas_ and districts.[2152]

Sl. Muḥammad _Dūldāī_ who had abandoned Qanūj and come [Sidenote: Fol. 329.] to me, would not agree to go there again, whether from fear or for his reputation's sake; he therefore exchanged the 30 _laks_ of Qanūj for the 15 of Sihrind, and Qanūj was bestowed with an allowance of 30 _laks_ on Muḥammad Sl. Mīrzā. Badāūn[2153] was given to Qāsim-i-ḥusain Sulṯān and he was sent against Bīban who had laid siege to Luknūr[2154] during the disturbance with Rānā Sangā, together with Muḥammad Sl. Mīrzā, and, of Turk amīrs, Bābā Qashqa's Malik Qāsim with his elder and younger brethren and his Mughūls, and Abū'l-muḥammad the lance-player, and Mu'yad with his father's Daryā-khānīs and those of Ḥusain Khān _Daryā-khānī_ and the retainers of Sl. Muḥammad _Dūldāī_, and again, of amīrs of Hind, `Alī Khān _Farmūlī_ and Malik Dād _Kararānī_ and Shaikh Muḥammad of Shaikh _Bhakhārī_(?) and Tātār Khān Khān-i-jahān.

At the time this army was crossing the Gang-river (Ganges), Bīban, hearing about it, fled, abandoning his baggage. Our army followed him to Khairābād,[2155] stayed there a few days and then turned back.

(_n. Appointments and dispersion for the Rains._)

After the treasure had been shared out,[2156] Rānā Sangā's great affair intervened before districts and _parganas_ were apportioned. During the respite now from Holy-war against the Pagan (Sangā), this apportionment was made. As the Rains were near, it was settled for every-one to go to his _pargana_, get equipment [Sidenote: Fol. 329b.] ready, and be present when the Rains were over.

(_o. Misconduct of Humāyūn._)

Meantime news came that Humāyūn had gone into Dihlī, there opened several treasure-houses and, without permission, taken possession of their contents. I had never looked for such a thing from him; it grieved me very much; I wrote and sent off to him very severe reproaches.[2157]

(_p. An embassy to `Irāq._)

Khwājagī Asad who had already gone as envoy to `Irāq and returned with Sulaimān _Turkmān_,[2158] was again joined with him and on the 15th of Sha`bān (_May 17th_) sent with befitting gifts to Shāh-zāda T̤ahmāsp.

(_q. Tardī Beg khāksār resigns service._)

I had brought Tardī Beg out from the darwīsh-life and made a soldier of him; for how many years had he served me! Now his desire for the darwīsh-life was overmastering and he asked for leave. It was given and he was sent as an envoy to Kāmrān conveying 3 _laks_ from the Treasury for him.[2159]

(_r. Lines addressed to deserting friends._)

A little fragment[2160] had been composed suiting the state of those who had gone away during the past year; I now addressed it to Mullā `Alī Khān and sent it to him by Tardī Beg. It is as follows:—[2161]

Ah you who have gone from this country of Hind, [Sidenote: Fol. 330.] Aware for yourselves of its woe and its pain, With longing desire for Kābul's fine air, You went hot-foot forth out of Hind. The pleasure you looked for you will have found there With sociable ease and charm and delight; As for us, God be thanked! we still are alive, In spite of much pain and unending distress; Pleasures of sense and bodily toil Have been passed-by by you, passed-by too by us.

(_s. Of the Ramẓān Feast._)

Ramẓān was spent this year with ablution and _tarāwiḥ_[2162] in the Garden-of-eight-paradises. Since my 11th year I had not kept the Ramẓān Feast for two successive years in the same place; last year I had kept it in Āgra; this year, saying, "Don't break the rule!" I went on the last day of the month to keep it in Sīkrī. Tents were set up on a stone platform made on the n.e. side of the Garden-of-victory which is now being laid out at Sīkrī, and in them the Feast was held.[2163]

(_t. Playing cards._)

The night we left Āgra Mīr `Alī the armourer was sent to Shāh Ḥasan (_Arghūn_) in Tatta to take him playing-cards [_ganjīfa_] he much liked and had asked for.[2164]

(_u. Illness and a tour._)

(_August 3rd_) On Sunday the 5th of Ẕū'l-qa`da I fell ill; the illness lasted 17 days.

(_August 24th_) On Friday the 24th of the same month we set out to visit Dūlpūr. That night I slept at a place half-way; [Sidenote: Fol. 330b.] reached Sikandar's dam[2165] at dawn, and dismounted there.

At the end of the hill below the dam the rock is of building-stone. I had Ustād Shāh Muḥammad the stone-cutter brought and gave him an order that if a house could be cut all in one piece in that rock, it was to be done, but that if the rock were too low for a residence (_`imārat_), it was to be levelled and have a reservoir, all in one piece, cut out of it.

From Dūlpūr we went on to visit Bārī. Next morning (_August 26th_) I rode out from Bārī through the hills between it and the Chaṃbal-river in order to view the river. This done I went back to Bārī. In these hills we saw the ebony-tree, the fruit of which people call _tindū_. It is said that there are white ebony-trees also and that most ebony-trees in these hills are of this kind.[2166] On leaving Bārī we went to Sīkrī; we reached Āgra on the 29th of the same month (_August 28th_).

(_v. Doubts about Shaikh Bāyazīd Farmūlī._)

As in these days people were telling wild news about Shaikh Bāyazīd, Sl. Qulī _Turk_ was sent to him to give him tryst[2167] in 20 days.

(_w. Religious and metrical exercises._)

(_August 28th_) On Friday the 2nd of Ẕū'l-ḥijja I began what one is made to read 41 times.[2168]

In these same days I cut up [_taqṯi`_] the following couplet of mine into 504 measures[2169]:—

"Shall I tell of her eye or her brow, her fire or her speech? Shall I tell of her stature or cheek, of her hair or her waist?"

On this account a treatise[2170] was arranged.

(_x. Return of illness._)

[Sidenote: Fol. 331.] On this day (_i.e._ 2nd Ẕū'l-ḥijja) I fell ill again; the illness lasted nine days.

(_y. Start for Saṃbal._)

(_Sep. 24th_) On Thursday the 29th of Ẕū'l-ḥijja we rode out for an excursion to Kūl and Saṃbal.

934 AH.-SEP. 27TH 1527 TO SEP. 15TH 1528 AD.[2171]

(_a. Visit to Kūl (Aligarh) and Saṃbal._)

(_Sep. 27th_) On Saturday the 1st of Muḥarram we dismounted in Kūl (Koel). Humāyūn had left Darwīsh(-i-`alī) and Yūsuf-i-`alī[2172] in Saṃbal; they crossed one river,[2173] fought Quṯb _Sīrwānī_[2174] and a party of rājas, beat them well and killed a mass of men. They sent a few heads and an elephant into Kūl while we were there. After we had gone about Kūl for two days, we dismounted at Shaikh Gūran's house by his invitation, where he entertained us hospitably and laid an offering before us.

(_Sep. 30th-Muḥ. 4th_) Riding on from that place, we dismounted at Aūtrūlī (Atrauli).[2175]

(_Oct. 1st-Muḥ. 5th_) On Wednesday we crossed the river Gang (Ganges) and spent the night in villages of Saṃbal.

(_Oct. 2nd-Muḥ. 6th_) On Thursday we dismounted in Saṃbal. After going about in it for two days, we left on Saturday.

(_Oct. 5th-Muḥ. 9th_) On Sunday we dismounted in Sikandara[2176]

at the house of Rāo _Sīrwānī_ who set food before us and served us. When we rode out at dawn, I made some pretext to leave the rest, and galloped on alone to within a _kuroh_ of Āgra where they overtook me. At the Mid-day Prayer we dismounted in Āgra.

(_b. Illness of Bābur._)

(_Oct. 12th_) On Sunday the 16th of Muḥarram I had fever and ague. This returned again and again during the next 25 or 26 days. I drank operative medicine and at last relief came. I suffered much from thirst and want of sleep.

[Sidenote: Fol. 331b.] While I was ill, I composed a quatrain or two; here is one of them:—[2177]

Fever grows strong in my body by day, Sleep quits my eyes as night comes on; Like to my pain and my patience the pair, For while that goes waxing, this wanes.

(_c. Arrival of kinswomen._)

(_Nov. 23rd_) On Saturday the 28th of Ṣafar there arrived two of the paternal-aunt begīms, Fakhr-i-jahān Begīm and Khadīja-sulṯān Begīm.[2178] I went to above Sikandarābād to wait on them.[2179]

(_d. Concerning a mortar._)

(_Nov. 24th-Ṣafar 29th_) On Sunday Ustād `Alī-qulī discharged a stone from a large mortar; the stone went far but the mortar broke in pieces, one of which, knocking down a party of men, killed eight.

(_e. Visit to Sīkrī._)

(_Dec. 1st_) On Monday the 7th of the first Rabī` I rode out to visit Sīkrī. The octagonal platform ordered made in the middle of the lake was ready; we went over by boat, had an awning set up on it and elected for _ma'jūn_.

(_f. Holy-war against Chandīrī._)

(_Dec. 9th_) After returning from Sīkrī we started on Monday night the 14th of the first Rabī`,[2180] with the intention of making Holy-war against Chandīrī, did as much as 3 _kurohs_ (6 m.) and dismounted in Jalīsīr.[2181] After staying there two days for people to equip and array, we marched on Thursday (_Dec. 12th-Rabī` I. 17th_) and dismounted at Anwār. I left Anwār by boat, and disembarked beyond Chandwār.[2182]

(_Dec. 23rd_) Advancing march by march, we dismounted at the Kanār-passage[2183] on Monday the 28th.

(_Dec. 26th_) On Thursday the 2nd of the latter Rabī` I crossed the river; there was 4 or 5 days delay on one bank or the other before the army got across. On those days we went more than [Sidenote: Fol. 332.] once on board a boat and ate _ma'jūn_. The junction of the river Chaṃbal is between one and two _kurohs_ (2-4 m.) above the Kanār-passage; on Friday I went into a boat on the Chaṃbal, passed the junction and so to camp.

(_g. Troops sent against Shaikh Bāyazīd Farmūlī._)

Though there had been no clear proof of Shaikh Bāyazīd's hostility, yet his misconduct and action made it certain that he had hostile intentions. On account of this Muḥammad `Alī _Jang-jang_ was detached from the army and sent to bring together from Qanūj Muḥammad Sl. Mīrzā and the sulṯāns and amīrs of that neighbourhood, such as Qāsim-i-ḥusain Sulṯān, Bī-khūb (or, Nī-khūb) Sulṯān, Malik Qāsim, Kūkī, Abū'l-muḥammad the lancer, and Minūchihr Khān with his elder and younger brethren and Daryā-khānīs, so that they might move against the hostile Afghāns. They were to invite Shaikh Bāyazīd to go with them; if he came frankly, they were to take him along; if not, were to drive him off. Muḥammad `Alī asking for a few elephants, ten were given him. After he had leave to set off, Bābā Chuhra (the Brave) was sent to and ordered to join him.

(_h. Incidents of the journey to Chandīrī._)

From Kanār one _kuroh_ (2 m.) was done by boat.

(_Jan. 1st 1528 AD._) On Wednesday the 8th of the latter Rabī` we dismounted within a _kuroh_ of Kālpī. Bābā Sl. came to wait on me in this camp; he is a son of Khalīl Sl. who is a younger brother of the full-blood of Sl. Sa`īd Khān. Last [Sidenote: Fol. 332b.] year he fled from his elder brother[2184] but, repenting himself, went back from the Andar-āb border; when he neared Kāshghar, The Khān (Sa`īd) sent Ḥaidar M. to meet him and take him back.

(_Jan. 2nd-Rabī` II. 9th_) Next day we dismounted at `Ālam Khān's house in Kālpī where he set Hindūstānī food before us and made an offering.

(_Jan. 6th_) On Monday the 13th of the month we marched from Kālpī.

(_Jan. 10th-Rabī` II. 17th_) On Friday we dismounted at Īrij.[2185]

(_Jan. 11th_) On Saturday we dismounted at Bāndīr.[2186]

(_Jan. 12th_) On Sunday the 19th of the month Chīn-tīmūr Sl. was put at the head of 6 or 7000 men and sent ahead against Chandīrī. With him went the begs Bāqī _mīng-bāshī_ (head of a thousand), Qūj Beg's (brother) Tardī Beg, `Āshiq the taster, Mullā Apāq, Muḥsin[2187] _Dūldāī_ and, of the Hindūstānī begs, Shaikh Gūran.

(_Jan 17th_) On Friday the 24th of the month we dismounted near Kachwa. After encouraging its people, it was bestowed on the son of Badru'd-dīn.[2188]

Kachwa[2189] is a shut-in place, having lowish hills all round it. A dam has been thrown across between hills on the south-east of it, and thus a large lake made, perhaps 5 or 6 _kurohs_ (10-12 m.) round. This lake encloses Kachwa on three sides; on the north-west a space of ground is kept dry;[2190] here, therefore is its Gate. On the lake are a great many very small boats, able to hold 3 or 4 persons; in these the inhabitants go out on the lake, if they have to flee. There are two other lakes before Kachwa is [Sidenote: Fol. 333.] reached, smaller than its own and, like that, made by throwing a dam across between hills.

(_Jan. 18th_) We waited a day in Kachwa in order to appoint active overseers and a mass of spadesmen to level the road and cut jungle down, so that the carts and mortar[2191] might pass along it easily. Between Kachwa and Chandīrī the country is jungly.

(_Jan. 19th-Rabī` II. 26th_) After leaving Kachwa we halted one night, passed the Burhānpūr-water (Bhurānpūr)[2192] and dismounted within 3 _kurohs_ (6 m.) of Chandīrī.

(_i. Chandīrī and its capture._)

The citadel of Chandīrī stands on a hill; below it are the town (_shahr_) and outer-fort (_tāsh-qūrghān_), and below these is the level road along which carts pass.[2193] When we left Burhānpūr (_Jan. 10th_) we marched for a _kuroh_ below Chandīrī for the convenience of the carts.[2194]

(_Jan. 21st_) After one night's halt we dismounted beside Bahjat Khān's tank[2195] on the top of its dam, on Tuesday the 28th of the month.

(_Jan. 22nd-Rabī` II. 29th_) Riding out at dawn, we assigned post after post (_būljār_, _būljār_),[2196] round the walled town (_qūrghān_) to centre, right, and left. Ustād `Alī-qulī chose, for his stone-discharge, ground that had no fall[2197]; overseers and spadesmen were told off to raise a place (_m:ljār_) for the mortar to rest on, and the whole army was ordered to get ready appliances for taking a fort, mantelets, ladders[2198] and ... -mantelets (_tūra_).[2199]

Formerly Chandīrī will have belonged to the Sulṯāns of Mandāū (Mandū). When Sl. Nāṣiru'd-dīn passed away,[2200] one [Sidenote: Fol. 333b.] of his sons Sl. Maḥmūd who is now holding Mandū, took possession of it and its neighbouring parts, and another son called Muḥammad Shāh laid hands on Chandīrī and put it under Sl. Sikandar _(Lūdī)'s_ protection, who, in his turn, took Muḥammad Shāh's side and sent him large forces. Muḥammad Shāh survived Sl. Sikandar and died in Sl. Ibrāhīm's time, leaving a very young son called Aḥmad Shāh whom Sl. Ibrāhīm drove out and replaced by a man of his own. At the time Rānā Sangā led out an army against Sl. Ibrāhīm and Ibrāhīm's begs turned against him at Dūlpūr, Chandīrī fell into the Rānā's hands and by him was given to Medinī [Mindnī] Rāo[2201] the greatly-trusted pagan who was now in it with 4 or 5000 other pagans.

As it was understood there was friendship between Medinī Rāo and Ārāīsh Khān, the latter was sent with Shaikh Gūran to speak to Medinī Rāo with favour and kindness, and promise Shamsābād[2202] in exchange for Chandīrī. One or two of his trusted men got out(?).[2203] No adjustment of matters was reached, it is not known whether because Medinī Rāo did not trust what was said, or whether because he was buoyed up by delusion about the strength of the fort.

(_Jan. 28th_) At dawn on Tuesday the 6th of the first Jumāda we marched from Bahjat Khān's tank intending to assault Chandīrī. We dismounted at the side of the middle-tank near [Sidenote: Fol. 334.] the fort.

(_j. Bad news._)

On this same morning after reaching that ground, Khalīfa brought a letter or two of which the purport was that the troops appointed for the East[2204] had fought without consideration, been beaten, abandoned Laknau, and gone to Qanūj. Seeing that Khalīfa was much perturbed and alarmed by these news, I said,[2205] (_Persian_) "There is no ground for perturbation or alarm; nothing comes to pass but what is predestined of God. As this task (Chandīrī) is ahead of us, not a breath must be drawn about what has been told us. Tomorrow we will assault the fort; that done, we shall see what comes."

(_k. Siege of Chandīrī, resumed._)

The enemy must have strengthened just the citadel, and have posted men by twos and threes in the outer-fort for prudence' sake. That night our men went up from all round; those few in the outer-fort did not fight; they fled into the citadel.

(_Jan. 29th_) At dawn on Wednesday the 7th of the first Jumāda, we ordered our men to arm, go to their posts, provoke to fight, and attack each from his place when I rode out with drum and standard.

I myself, dismissing drum and standard till the fighting should grow hot, went to amuse myself by watching Ustād `Alī-qulī's stone-discharge.[2206] Nothing was effected by it because his ground had no fall (_yāghdā_) and because the fort-walls, being entirely [Sidenote: Fol. 334b.] of stone, were extremely strong.

That the citadel of Chandīrī stands on a hill has been said already. Down one side of this hill runs a double-walled road (_dū-tahī_) to water.[2207] This is the one place for attack; it had been assigned as the post of the right and left hands and royal corps of the centre.[2208] Hurled though assault was from every side, the greatest force was here brought to bear. Our braves did not turn back, however much the pagans threw down stones and flung flaming fire upon them. At length Shāhīm the centurion[2209] got up where the _dū-tahī_ wall touches the wall of the outer fort; braves swarmed up in other places; the _dū-tahī_ was taken.

Not even as much as this did the pagans fight in the citadel; when a number of our men swarmed up, they fled in haste.[2210] In a little while they came out again, quite naked, and renewed the fight; they put many of our men to flight; they made them fly (_āuchūrdīlār_) over the ramparts; some they cut down and killed. Why they had gone so suddenly off the walls seems to have been that they had taken the resolve of those who give up a place as lost; they put all their ladies and beauties (_ṣūratīlār_) to death, then, looking themselves to die, came naked out to fight. Our men attacking, each one from his post, drove [Sidenote: Fol. 335.] them from the walls whereupon 2 or 300 of them entered Medinī Rāo's house and there almost all killed one another in this way:—one having taken stand with a sword, the rest eagerly stretched out the neck for his blow.[2211] Thus went the greater number to hell.

By God's grace this renowned fort was captured in 2 or 3 _garīs_[2212] (_cir._ an hour), without drum and standard,[2213] with no hard fighting done. A pillar of pagan-heads was ordered set up on a hill north-west of Chandīrī. A chronogram of this victory having been found in the words _Fatḥ-i-dāru'l-ḥarb_[2214] (Conquest of a hostile seat), I thus composed them:—

Was for awhile the station Chandīrī Pagan-full, the seat of hostile force; By fighting, I vanquished its fort, The date was _Fatḥ-i-dāru'l-ḥarb_.

(_l. Further description of Chandīrī._)

Chandīrī is situated (in) rather good country,[2215] having much running-water round about it. Its citadel is on a hill and inside it has a tank cut out of the solid rock. There is another large tank[2216] at the end of the _dū-tahī_ by assaulting which the fort was taken. All houses in Chandīrī, whether of high or low, are built of stone, those of chiefs being laboriously carved;[2217] those of the lower classes are also of stone but are not carved. They are covered in [Sidenote: Fol. 335b.] with stone-slabs instead of with earthen tiles. In front of the fort are three large tanks made by former governors who threw dams across and made tanks round about it; their ground lies high.[2218] It has a small river (_daryācha_), Betwa[2219] by name, which may be some 3 _kurohs_ (6 m.) from Chandīrī itself; its water is noted in Hindūstān as excellent and pleasant drinking. It is a perfect little river (_daryā-ghīna_). In its bed lie piece after piece of sloping rock (_qīālār_)[2220] fit for making houses.[2221] Chandīrī is 90 _kurohs_ (180 m.) by road to the south of Āgra. In Chandīrī the altitude of the Pole-star (?) is 25 degrees.[2222]

(_m. Enforced change of campaign._)

(_Jan. 30th-Jumāda I. 8th_) At dawn on Thursday we went round the fort and dismounted beside Mallū Khān's tank.[2223]

We had come to Chandīrī meaning, after taking it, to move against Rāīsīng, Bhīlsān, and Sārangpūr, pagan lands dependent on the pagan Ṣalāḥu'd-dīn, and, these taken, to move on Rānā Sangā in Chītūr. But as that bad news had come, the begs were summoned, matters were discussed, and decision made that the proper course was first to see to the rebellion of those malignants. Chandīrī was given to the Aḥmad Shāh already mentioned, a grandson of Sl. Nāṣiru'd-dīn; 50 _laks_ from it were made _khalṣa_;[2224] Mullā Apāq was entrusted with its military-collectorate, and left to reinforce Aḥmad Shāh with from 2 to 3000 Turks and Hindūstānīs.

[Sidenote: Fol. 336.] (_Feb. 2nd_) This work finished, we marched from Mallū Khān's tank on Sunday the 11th of the first Jumāda, with the intention of return (north), and dismounted on the bank of the Burhānpūr-water.

(_Feb. 9th_) On Sunday again, Yakka Khwāja and Ja`far Khwāja were sent from Bāndīr to fetch boats from Kālpī to the Kanār-passage.

(_Feb. 22nd_) On Saturday the 24th of the month we dismounted at the Kanār-passage, and ordered the army to begin to cross.

(_n. News of the rebels._)

News came in these days that the expeditionary force[2225] had abandoned Qanūj also and come to Rāprī, and that a strong body of the enemy had assaulted and taken Shamsābād although Abū'l-muḥammad the lancer must have strengthened it.[2226] There was delay of 3 or 4 days on one side or other of the river before the army got across. Once over, we moved march by march towards Qanūj, sending scouting braves (_qāzāq yīgītlār_) ahead to get news of our opponents. Two or three marches from Qanūj, news was brought that Ma`rūf's son had fled on seeing the dark mass of the news-gatherers, and got away. Bīban, Bāyazīd and Ma`rūf, on hearing news of us, crossed Gang (Ganges) and seated themselves on its eastern bank opposite Qanūj, thinking to prevent our passage.

(_o. A bridge made over the Ganges._)

(_Feb. 27th_) On Thursday the 6th of the latter Jumāda we passed Qanūj and dismounted on the western bank of Gang. Some of the braves went up and down the river and took boats [Sidenote: Fol. 336b.] by force,[2227] bringing in 30 or 40, large or small. Mīr Muḥammad the raftsman was sent to find a place convenient for making a bridge and to collect requisites for making it. He came back approving of a place about a _kuroh_ (2 m.) below the camp. Energetic overseers were told off for the work. Ustād `Alī-qulī placed the mortar for his stone-discharge near where the bridge was to be and shewed himself active in discharging it. Muṣṯafa _Rūmī_ had the culverin-carts crossed over to an island below the place for the bridge, and from that island began a culverin-discharge. Excellent matchlock fire was made from a post[2228] raised above the bridge. Malik Qāsim _Mughūl_ and a very few men went across the river once or twice and fought excellently (_yakhshīlār aūrūshtīlār_). With equal boldness Bābā Sl. and Darwīsh Sl. also crossed, but went with the insufficient number of from 10 to 15 men; they went after the Evening Prayer and came back without fighting, with nothing done; they were much blamed for this crossing of theirs. At last Malik Qāsim, grown bold, attacked the enemy's camp and, by shooting arrows into it, drew him out (?);[2229] he came with a mass of men and an elephant, fell on Malik Qāsim and hurried him off. Malik Qāsim got into a boat, but before it could put off, the elephant [Sidenote: Fol. 337.] came up and swamped it. In that encounter Malik Qāsim died.

In the days before the bridge was finished Ustād `Alī-qulī did good things in stone-discharge (_yakhshīlār tāsh aītī_), on the first day discharging 8 stones, on the second 16, and going on equally well for 3 or 4 days. These stones he discharged from the Ghāzī-mortar which is so-called because it was used in the battle with Rānā Sangā the pagan. There had been another and larger mortar which burst after discharging one stone.[2230] The matchlockmen made a mass (_qālīn_) of discharges, bringing down many men and horses; they shot also slave-workmen running scared away (?) and men and horses passing-by.[2231]

(_March 11th_) On Wednesday the 19th of the latter Jumāda the bridge being almost finished, we marched to its head. The Afghāns must have ridiculed the bridge-making as being far from completion.[2232]

(_March 12th_) The bridge being ready on Thursday, a small body of foot-soldiers and Lāhorīs went over. Fighting as small followed.

(_p. Encounter with the Afghāns._)

(_March 13th_) On Friday the royal corps, and the right and left hands of the centre crossed on foot. The whole body of Afghāns, armed, mounted, and having elephants with them, attacked us. They hurried off our men of the left hand, but our centre itself (_i.e._ the royal corps) and the right hand stood [Sidenote: Fol. 337b.] firm, fought, and forced the enemy to retire. Two men from these divisions had galloped ahead of the rest; one was dismounted and taken; the horse of the other was struck again and again, had had enough,[2233] turned round and when amongst our men, fell down. On that day 7 or 8 heads were brought in; many of the enemy had arrow or matchlock wounds. Fighting went on till the Other Prayer. That night all who had gone across were made to return; if (more) had gone over on that Saturday's eve,[2234] most of the enemy would probably have fallen into our hands, but this was in my mind:—Last year we marched out of Sīkrī to fight Rānā Sangā on Tuesday, New-year's-day, and crushed that rebel on Saturday; this year we had marched to crush these rebels on Wednesday, New-year's-day,[2235] and it would be one of singular things, if we beat them on Sunday. So thinking, we did not make the rest of the army cross. The enemy did not come to fight on Saturday, but stood arrayed a long way off.

(_Sunday March 15th-Jumāda II. 23rd_) On this day the carts were taken over, and at this same dawn the army was ordered to cross. At beat of drum news came from our scouts that the enemy had fled. Chīn-tīmūr Sl. was ordered to lead his army in pursuit and the following leaders also were made pursuers who should move with the Sulṯān and not go beyond his word:—Muḥammad `Alī _Jang-jang_, Ḥusamu'd-dīn `Alī (son) of Khalīfa, Muḥibb-i-`alī (son) of Khalīfa, Kūkī (son) of Bābā Qashqa, Dost-i-muḥammad (son) of Bābā Qashqa, Bāqī of [Sidenote: Fol. 338.] Tāshkīnt, and Red Walī. I crossed at the Sunnat Prayer. The camels were ordered to be taken over at a passage seen lower down. That Sunday we dismounted on the bank of standing-water within a _kuroh_ of Bangarmāwū.[2236] Those appointed to pursue the Afghāns were not doing it well; they had dismounted in Bangarmāwū and were scurrying off at the Mid-day Prayer of this same Sunday.

(_March 16th-Jumāda II. 24th_) At dawn we dismounted on the bank of a lake belonging to Bangarmāwū.

(_q. Arrival of a Chaghatāī cousin._)

On this same day (_March 16th_) Tūkhtā-būghā Sl. a son of my mother's brother (_dādā_) the Younger Khān (_Aḥmad Chaghatāī_) came and waited on me.

(_March 21st_) On Saturday the 29th of the latter Jumāda I visited Laknau, crossed the Gūī-water[2237] and dismounted. This day I bathed in the Gūī-water. Whether it was from water getting into my ear, or whether it was from the effect of the climate, is not known, but my right ear was obstructed and for a few days there was much pain.[2238]

(_r. The campaign continued._)

One or two marches from Aūd (Oudh) some-one came from Chīn-tīmūr Sl. to say, "The enemy is seated on the far side of the river Sīrd[a?];[2239] let His Majesty send help." We detached a reinforcement of 1000 braves under Qarācha.

(_March 28th_) On Saturday the 7th of Rajab we dismounted [Sidenote: Fol. 338b.] 2 or 3 _kurohs_ from Aūd above the junction of the Gagar (Gogra) and Sīrd[a]. Till today Shaikh Bāyazīd will have been on the other side of the Sīrd[a] opposite Aūd, sending letters to the Sulṯān and discussing with him, but the Sulṯān getting to know his deceitfulness, sent word to Qarācha at the Mid-day Prayer and made ready to cross the river. On Qarācha's joining him, they crossed at once to where were some 50 horsemen with 3 or 4 elephants. These men could make no stand; they fled; a few having been dismounted, the heads cut off were sent in.

Following the Sulṯān there crossed over Bī-khūb (var. Nī-khūb) Sl. and Tardī Beg (the brother) of Qūj Beg, and Bābā Chuhra (the Brave), and Bāqī _shaghāwal_. Those who had crossed first and gone on, pursued Shaikh Bāyazīd till the Evening Prayer, but he flung himself into the jungle and escaped. Chīn-tīmūr dismounted late on the bank of standing-water, rode on at midnight after the rebel, went as much as 40 _kurohs_ (80 m.), and came to where Shaikh Bāyazīd's family and relations (_nisba_?) had been; they however must have fled. He sent gallopers off in all directions from that place; Bāqī _shaghāwal_ and a few braves drove the enemy like sheep before them, overtook the family and brought in some Afghān prisoners.

We stayed a few days on that ground (near Aūd) in order to settle the affairs of Aūd. People praised the land lying along the Sīrd[a] 7 or 8 _kurohs_ (14-16 m.) above Aūd, saying it was hunting-ground. Mīr Muḥammad the raftsman was sent out and returned after looking at the crossings over the Gagar-water (Gogra) and the Sīrd[a]-water (Chauka?).

[Sidenote: Fol. 339.] (_April 2nd_) On Thursday the 12th of the month I rode out intending to hunt.[2240]

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.

Here, in all known texts of the _Bābur-nāma_ there is a break of the narrative between April 2nd and Sep. 18th 1528 AD.-Jumāda II. 12th 934 AH. and Muḥarram 3rd 935 AH., which, whether intentional or accidental, is unexplained by Bābur's personal circumstances. It is likely to be due to a loss of pages from Bābur's autograph manuscript, happening at some time preceding the making of either of the Persian translations of his writings and of the Elphinstone and Ḥaidarābād transcripts. Though such a loss might have occurred easily during the storm chronicled on f. 376_b_, it seems likely that Bābur would then have become aware of it and have made it good. A more probable explanation of the loss is the danger run by Humāyūn's library during his exile from rule in Hindūstān, at which same time may well have occurred the seeming loss of the record of 936 and 937 AH.

(_a. Transactions of the period of the lacuna._)

Mr. Erskine notes (_Mems._ p. 381 n.) that he found the gap in all MSS. he saw and that historians of Hindūstān throw no light upon the transactions of the period. Much can be gleaned however as to Bābur's occupations during the 5-1/2 months of the _lacuna_ from his chronicle of 935 AH. which makes several references to occurrences of "last year" and also allows several inferences to be drawn. From this source it becomes known that the Afghān campaign the record of which is broken by the gap, was carried on and that in its course Bābur was at Jūn-pūr (f. 365), Chausa (f. 365_b_) and Baksara (f. 366-366_b_); that he swam the Ganges (f. 366_b_), bestowed Sarūn on a Farmūlī Shaikh-zāda (f. 374_b_ and f. 377), negociated with Rānā Sangā's son Bikramājīt (f. 342_b_), ordered a Chār-bāgh laid out (f. 340), and was ill for 40 days (f. 346_b_). It may be inferred too that he visited Dūlpūr (f. 353_b_) recalled `Askarī (f. 339), sent Khwāja Dost-i-khāwand on family affairs to Kābul (f. 345_b_), and was much pre-occupied by the disturbed state of Kābul (_see_ his letters to Humāyūn and Khwāja Kālan written in 935 AH.).[2241]

It is not easy to follow the dates of events in 935 AH. because in many instances only the day of the week or a "next day" is entered. I am far from sure that one passage at least now found _s.a._ 935 AH. does not belong to 934 AH. It is not in the Ḥai. Codex (where its place would have been on f. 363_b_), and, so far as I can see, does not fit with the dates of 935 AH. It will be considered with least trouble with its context and my notes (_q.v._ f. 363_b_ and ff. 366-366_b_).

(_b. Remarks on the lacuna._)

One interesting biographical topic is likely to have found mention in the missing record, _viz._ the family difficulties which led to `Askarī's supersession by Kāmrān in the government of Multān (f. 359).

Another is the light an account of the second illness of 934 AH. might have thrown on a considerable part of the Collection of verses already written in Hindūstān and now known to us as the _Rāmpūr Dīwān_. The _Bābur-nāma_ allows the dates of much of its contents to be known, but there remain poems which seem prompted by the self-examination of some illness not found in the _B.N._ It contains the metrical version of Khwāja `Ubaidu'l-lāh's _Wālidiyyah_ of which Bābur writes on f. 346 and it is dated Monday Rabī` II. 15th 935 AH. (Dec. 29th 1528 AD.). I surmise that the reflective verses following the _Wālidiyyah_ belong to the 40 days' illness of 934 AH. _i.e._ were composed in the period of the _lacuna_. The Collection, as it is in the "Rāmpūr Dīwān", went to a friend who was probably Khwāja Kalān; it may have been the only such collection made by Bābur. No other copy of it has so far been found. It has the character of an individual gift with verses specially addressed to its recipient. Any light upon it which may have vanished with pages of 934 AH. is an appreciable loss.

935 AH.-SEP. 15TH 1528 TO SEP. 5TH 1529 AD.[2242]

(_a. Arrivals at Court._)

(_Sep. 18th_) On Friday the 3rd[2243] of Muḥarram, `Askarī whom I had summoned for the good of Multān[2244] before I moved out for Chandīrī, waited on me in the private-house.[2245]

(_Sep. 19th_) Next day waited on me the historian Khwānd-amīr, Maulānā Shihāb[2246] the enigmatist, and Mīr Ibrāhīm the harper a relation of Yūnas-i-`alī, who had all come out of Herī long before, wishing to wait on me.[2247]

(_b. Bābur starts for Gūālīār._)[2248]

(_Sep. 20th_) With the intention of visiting Gūālīār which in books they write Gālīūr,[2249] I crossed the Jūn at the Other Prayer of Sunday the 5th of the month, went into the fort of Āgra to bid farewell to Fakhr-i-jahān Begīm and Khadīja-sulṯān Begīm who were to start for Kābul in a few days, and got to horse. Muḥammad-i-zamān Mīrzā asked for leave and stayed behind in Āgra. That night we did 3 or 4 _kurohs_ (6-8 m.) of the road, dismounted near a large lake (_kūl_) and there slept.

(_Sep. 21st_) We got through the Prayer somewhat before time (_Muḥ. 6th_) and rode on, nooned[2250] on the bank of the Gamb[h]īr-water[2251], and went on shortly after the Mid-day Prayer. On the way we ate[2252] powders mixed with the flour of parched [Sidenote: Fol. 339b.] grain,[2253] Mullā Rafī` having prepared them for raising the spirits. They were found very distasteful and unsavoury. Near the Other Prayer we dismounted a _kuroh_ (2 m.) west of Dūlpūr, at a place where a garden and house had been ordered made.[2254]

(_c. Work in Dūlpūr (Dhūlpūr)._)

That place is at the end of a beaked hill,[2255] its beak being of solid red building-stone (_`imārat-tāsh_). I had ordered the (beak of the) hill cut down (dressed down?) to the ground-level and that if there remained a sufficient height, a house was to be cut out in it, if not, it was to be levelled and a tank (_ḥauẓ_) cut out in its top. As it was not found high enough for a house, Ūstād Shāh Muḥammad the stone-cutter was ordered to level it and cut out an octagonal, roofed tank. North of this tank the ground is thick with trees, mangoes, _jāman_ (_Eugenia jambolana_), all sorts of trees; amongst them I had ordered a well made, 10 by 10; it was almost ready; its water goes to the afore-named tank. To the north of this tank Sl. Sikandar's dam is flung across (the valley); on it houses have been built, and above it the waters of the Rains gather into a great lake. On the east of this lake is a garden; I ordered a seat and four-pillared platform (_tālār_) to be cut out in the solid rock on that same side, and a mosque [Sidenote: Fol. 340.] built on the western one.

(_Sept. 22nd and 23rd—Muḥ. 7th and 8th_) On account of these various works, we stayed in Dūlpūr on Tuesday and Wednesday.

(_d. Journey to Gūālīār resumed._)

(_Sep. 24th_) On Thursday we rode on, crossed the Chaṃbal-river and made the Mid-day Prayer on its bank, between the two Prayers (the Mid-day and the Afternoon) bestirred ourselves to leave that place, passed the Kawārī and dismounted. The Kawārī-water being high through rain, we crossed it by boat, making the horses swim over.

(_Sep. 25th_) Next day, Friday which was 'Āshūr (_Muḥ. 10th_), we rode on, took our nooning at a village on the road, and at the Bed-time Prayer dismounted a _kuroh_ north of Gūālīār, in a Chār-bāgh ordered made last year.[2256]

(_Sep. 26th_) Riding on next day after the Mid-day Prayer, we visited the low hills to the north of Gūālīār, and the Praying-place, went into the fort[2257] through the Gate called Hātī-pūl which joins Mān-sing's buildings (_`imārāt_[2258]), and dismounted, close to the Other Prayer, at those (_`imāratlār_)[2259] of Rāja Bikramājīt in which Raḥīm-dād[2260] had settled himself.

To-night I elected to take opium because of ear-ache; another reason was the shining of the moon.[2261]

(_e. Visit to the Rājas' palaces._)

(_Sep. 27th_) Opium sickness gave me much discomfort next day (_Muḥ. 12th_); I vomited a good deal. Sickness notwithstanding, I visited the buildings (_`imāratlār_) of Mān-sing and [Sidenote: Fol. 340b.] Bikramājīt thoroughly. They are wonderful buildings, entirely of hewn stone, in heavy and unsymmetrical blocks however.[2262] Of all the Rājas' buildings Mān-sing's is the best and loftiest.[2263] It is more elaborately worked on its eastern face than on the others. This face may be 40 to 50 _qārī_ (yards) high,[2264] and is entirely of hewn stone, whitened with plaster.[2265] In parts it is four storeys high; the lower two are very dark; we went through them with candles.[2266] On one (or, every) side of this building are five cupolas[2267] having between each two of them a smaller one, square after the fashion of Hindūstān. On the larger ones are fastened sheets of gilded copper. On the outside of the walls is painted-tile work, the semblance of plantain-trees being shewn all round with green tiles. In a bastion of the eastern front is the Hātī-pūl,[2268] _hātī_ being what these people call an elephant, _pūl_, a gate. A sculptured image of an elephant with two drivers (_fīl-bān_)[2269] stands at the out-going (_chīqīsh_) of this Gate; it is exactly like an elephant; from it the gate is called Hātī-pūl. A window in the [Sidenote: Fol. 341.] lowest storey where the building has four, looks towards this elephant and gives a near view of it.[2270] The cupolas which have been mentioned above are themselves the topmost stage (_murtaba_) of the building;[2271] the sitting-rooms are on the second storey (_ṯabaqat_), in a hollow even;[2272] they are rather airless places although Hindūstānī pains have been taken with them.[2273] The buildings of Mān-sing's son Bikramājīt are in a central position (_aūrta dā_) on the north side of the fort.[2274] The son's buildings do not match the father's. He has made a great dome, very dark but growing lighter if one stays awhile in it.[2275] Under it is a smaller building into which no light comes from any side. When Raḥīm-dād settled down in Bikramājīt's buildings, he made a rather small hall [_kīchīkrāq tālārghīna_] on the top of this dome.[2276] From Bikramājīt's buildings a road has been made to his father's, a road such that nothing is seen of it from outside and nothing known of it inside, a quite enclosed road.[2277]

After visiting these buildings, we rode to a college Raḥīm-dād [Sidenote: Fol. 341b.] had made by the side of a large tank, there enjoyed a flower-garden[2278] he had laid out, and went late to where the camp was in the Chārbāgh.

(_f. Raḥīm-dād's flower-garden._)

Raḥīm-dād has planted a great numbers of flowers in his garden (_bāghcha_), many being beautiful red oleanders. In these places the oleander-flower is peach,[2279] those of Gūālīār are beautiful, deep red. I took some of them to Āgra and had them planted in gardens there. On the south of the garden is a large lake[2280] where the waters of the Rains gather; on the west of it is a lofty idol-house,[2281] side by side with which Sl. Shihābu'd-dīn Aīltmīsh (Altamsh) made a Friday mosque; this is a very lofty building (_`imārat_), the highest in the fort; it is seen, with the fort, from the Dūlpūr-hill (_cir._ 30 m. away). People say the stone for it was cut out and brought from the large lake above-mentioned. Raḥīm-dād has made a wooden (_yīghāch_) _tālār_ in his garden, and porches at the gates, which, after the Hindūstānī fashion, are somewhat low and shapeless.

(_g. The Urwāh-valley._)

(_Sep. 28th_) Next day (_Muḥ. 13th_) at the Mid-day Prayer we rode out to visit places in Gūālīār we had not yet seen. We saw the _`imārat_ called Bādalgar[2282] which is part of Mān-sing's fort (_qila`_), went through the Hātī-pūl and across the fort to a place called Urwā (Urwāh), which is a valley-bottom (_qūl_) on its western side. Though Urwā is outside the fort-wall running along the top of the hill, it has two stages (_murtaba_) of high wall at its mouth. The higher of these walls is some 30 or 40 _qārī_ (yards) high; this is the longer one; at each end it joins [Sidenote: Fol. 342.] the wall of the fort. The second wall curves in and joins the middle part of the first; it is the lower and shorter of the two. This curve of wall will have been made for a water-thief;[2283] within it is a stepped well (_wā'īn_) in which water is reached by 10 or 15 steps. Above the Gate leading from the valley to this walled-well the name of Sl. Shihābu'd-dīn Aīltmīsh (Altamsh) is inscribed, with the date 630 (AH.-1233 AD.). Below this outer wall and outside the fort there is a large lake which seems to dwindle (at times) till no lake remains; from it water goes to the water-thief. There are two other lakes inside Urwā the water of which those who live in the fort prefer to all other.

Three sides of Urwā are solid rock, not the red rock of Bīāna but one paler in colour. On these sides people have cut out idol-statues, large and small, one large statue on the south side being perhaps 20 _qārī_ (yds.) high.[2284] These idols are shewn quite naked without covering for the privities. Along the sides of [Sidenote: Fol. 342b.] the two Urwā lakes 20 or 30 wells have been dug, with water from which useful vegetables (_sabzī kārlīklār_), flowers and trees are grown. Urwā is not a bad place; it is shut in (T. _tūr_); the idols are its defect; I, for my part, ordered them destroyed.[2285]

Going out of Urwā into the fort again, we enjoyed the window[2286] of the Sultānī-pūl which must have been closed through the pagan time till now, went to Raḥīm-dād's flower-garden at the Evening Prayer, there dismounted and there slept.

(_h. A son of Rānā Sangā negociates with Bābur._)

(_Sep. 29th_) On Tuesday the 14th of the month came people from Rānā Sangā's second son, Bikramājīt by name, who with his mother Padmāwatī was in the fort of Rantanbūr. Before I rode out for Gūālīār,[2287] others had come from his great and trusted Hindū, Asūk by name, to indicate Bikramājīt's submission and obeisance and ask a subsistence-allowance of 70 _laks_ for him; it had been settled at that time that _parganas_ to the amount he asked should be bestowed on him, his men were given leave to go, with tryst for Gūālīār which we were about to visit. They came into Gūālīār somewhat after the trysting-day. The Hindū Asūk[2288] is said to be a near relation of Bikramājīt's mother Padmāwatī; he, for his part, set these particulars forth father-like [Sidenote: Fol. 343.] and son-like;[2289] they, for theirs, concurring with him, agreed to wish me well and serve me. At the time when Sl. Maḥmūd (_Khīljī_) was beaten by Rānā Sangā and fell into pagan captivity (925 AH.-1519 AD.) he possessed a famous crown-cap (_tāj-kula_) and golden belt, accepting which Sangā let him go free. That crown-cap and golden belt must have become Bikramājīt's; his elder brother Ratan-sī, now Rānā of Chītūr in his father's place, had asked for them but Bikramājīt had not given them up,[2290] and now made the men he sent to me, speak to me about them, and ask for Bīāna in place of Rantanbūr. We led them away from the Bīāna question and promised Shamsābād in exchange for Rantanbūr. To-day (_Muḥ. 14th_) they were given a nine days' tryst for Bīāna, were dressed in robes of honour, and allowed to go.

(_i. Hindū temples visited._)

We rode from the flower-garden to visit the idol-houses of Gūālīār. Some are two, and some are three storeys high, each storey rather low, in the ancient fashion. On their stone plinths (_izāra_) are sculptured images. Some idol-houses, College-fashion, have a portico, large high cupolas[2291] and _madrāsa_-like cells, each topped by a slender stone cupola.[2292] In the lower cells are idols carved in the rock. [Sidenote: Fol. 343b.]

After enjoying the sight of these buildings (_`imāratlār_) we left the fort by the south Gate,[2293] made an excursion to the south, and went (north) to the Chār-bāgh Raḥim-dād had made over-against the Hātī-pūl.[2294] He had prepared a feast of cooked-meat (_āsh_) for us and, after setting excellent food before us, made offering of a mass of goods and coin worth 4 _laks._ From his Chār-bāgh I rode to my own.

(_j. Excursion to a waterfall._)

(_Sep. 30th._) On Wednesday the 15th of the month I went to see a waterfall 6 _kurohs_ (12 m.) to the south-east of Gūālīār. Less than that must have been ridden;[2295] close to the Mid-day Prayer we reached a fall where sufficient water for one mill was coming down a slope (_qīā_) an _arghamchī_[2296] high. Below the fall there is a large lake; above it the water comes flowing through solid rock; there is solid rock also below the fall. A lake forms wherever the water falls. On the banks of the water lie piece after piece of rock as if for seats, but the water is said not always to be there. We sat down above the fall and ate _ma`jūn_, went up-stream to visit its source (_badayat_), returned, got out on higher ground, and stayed while musicians played and reciters [Sidenote: Fol. 344.] repeated things (_nīma aītīlār_). The Ebony-tree which Hindīs call _tindū_, was pointed out to those who had not seen it before. We went down the hill and, between the Evening and Bed-time Prayers, rode away, slept at a place reached near the second watch (midnight), and with the on-coming of the first watch of day (6 a.m. _Muḥ. 16th-Oct. 1st_) reached the Chār-bāgh and dismounted.

(_k. Ṣalāḥu'd-dīn's birth-place._)[2297]

(_Oct. 2nd_) On Friday the 17th of the month, I visited the garden of lemons and pumeloes (_sadā-fal_) in a valley-bottom amongst the hills above a village called Sūkhjana (?)[2298] which is Ṣalāḥu'd-dīn's birth-place. Returning to the Chār-bāgh, I dismounted there in the first watch.[2299]

(_l. Incidents of the march from Gūālīār._)

(_Oct. 4th_) On Sunday the 19th of the month, we rode before dawn from the Chār-bāgh, crossed the Kawārī-water and took our nooning (_tūshlāndūk_). After the Mid-day Prayer we rode on, at sunset passed the Chaṃbal-water, between the Evening and Bed-time Prayers entered Dulpūr-fort, there, by lamp-light, visited a Hot-bath which Abū'l-fatḥ had made, rode on, and dismounted at the dam-head where the new Chār-bāgh is in making.

(_Oct. 5th_) Having stayed the night there, at dawn (_Monday 20th_) I visited what places had been ordered made.[2300] The face (_yūz_) of the roofed-tank, ordered cut in the solid rock, was not being got up quite straight; more stone-cutters were sent for who were to make the tank-bottom level, pour in water, and, by help of the water, to get the sides to one height. They got the face up straight just before the Other Prayer, were then ordered to fill the tank with water, by help of the water made the sides [Sidenote: Fol. 344b.] match, then busied themselves to smooth them. I ordered a water-chamber (_āb-khāna_) made at a place where it would be cut in the solid rock; inside it was to be a small tank also cut in the solid rock.

(_Here the record of 6 days is wanting._)[2301]

(_Oct. 12th_?) To-day, Monday (_27th_?), there was a _ma`jūn_ party. (_Oct. 13th_) On Tuesday I was still in that same place. (_Oct. 14th_) On the night of Wednesday,[2302] after opening the mouth and eating something[2303] we rode for Sīkrī. Near the second watch (midnight), we dismounted somewhere and slept; I myself could not sleep on account of pain in my ear, whether caused by cold, as is likely, I do not know. At the top of the dawn, we bestirred ourselves from that place, and in the first watch dismounted at the garden now in making at Sīkrī. The garden-wall and well-buildings were not getting on to my satisfaction; the overseers therefore were threatened and punished. We rode on from Sīkrī between the Other and Evening Prayers, passed through Marhākūr, dismounted somewhere and slept.

(_Oct. 15th_) Riding on (_Thursday 30th_), we got into Āgra during the first watch (6-9 a.m.). In the fort I saw the honoured Khadīja-sulṯān Begīm who had stayed behind for several reasons when Fakhr-i-jahān Begīm started for Kābul. Crossing Jūn (Jumna), I went to the Garden-of-eight paradises.[2304]

(_m. Arrival of kinswomen._)

(_Oct. 17th_) On Saturday the 3rd of Ṣafar, between the Other and Evening Prayers, I went to see three of the great-aunt begīms,[2305] Gauhar-shād Begīm, Badī`u'l-jamāl Begīm, and Āq Begīm, with also, of lesser begīms,[2306] Sl. Maṣ`ūd Mīrzā's daughter Khān-zāda Begīm, and Sulṯān-bakht Begīm's daughter, and my _yīnkā chīcha's_ grand-daughter, that is to say, Zaināb-sulṯān Begīm.[2307] They had come past Tūta and dismounted at a small [Sidenote: Fol. 345.] standing-water (_qarā sū_) on the edge of the suburbs. I came back direct by boat.

(_n. Despatch of an envoy to receive charge of Ranthaṃbhor._)

(_Oct. 19th_) On Monday the 5th of the month of Ṣafar, Hāmūsī son of Dīwa, an old Hindū servant from Bhīra, was joined with Bikramājīt's former[2308] and later envoys in order that pact and agreement for the surrender of Ranthanbūr and for the conditions of Bikramājīt's service might be made in their own (hindū) way and custom. Before our man returned, he was to see, and learn, and make sure of matters; this done, if that person (_i.e._ Bikramājīt) stood fast to his spoken word, I, for my part, promised that, God bringing it aright, I would set him in his father's place as Rānā of Chitūr.[2309]

(_Here the record of 3 days is wanting._)

(_o. A levy on stipendiaries._)

(_Oct. 22nd_) By this time the treasure of Iskandar and Ibrāhīm in Dihlī and Āgra was at an end. Royal orders were given therefore, on Thursday the 8th of Ṣafar, that each stipendiary (_wajhdār_) should drop into the Dīwān, 30 in every 100 of his allowance, to be used for war-material and appliances, for equipment, for powder, and for the pay of gunners and matchlockmen.

(_p. Royal letters sent into Khurāsān._)

(_Oct. 24th_) On Saturday the 10th of the month, Pay-master Sl. Muḥammad's foot-man Shāh Qāsim who once before had taken letters of encouragement to kinsfolk in Khurāsān,[2310] was sent to Herī with other letters to the purport that, through God's grace, our hearts were at ease in Hindūstān about the rebels and [Sidenote: Fol. 345b.] pagans of east and west; and that, God bringing it aright, we should use every means and assuredly in the coming spring should touch the goal of our desire.[2311] On the margin of a royal letter sent to Ahmad _Afshār_ (_Turk_) a summons to Farīdūn the _qabūz_-player was written with my own hand.

(_Here the record of 11 days is wanting._)

In today's forenoon (_Tuesday 20th_?) I made a beginning of eating quicksilver.[2312]

(_q. News from Kābul and Khurāsān._)[2313]

(_Nov. 4th_) On Wednesday the 21st of the month (_Ṣafar_) a Hindūstānī foot-man (_pīāda_) brought dutiful letters (_`arẓ-dāshtlār_) from Kāmrān and Khwāja Dost-i-khāwand. The Khwāja had reached Kābul on the 10th of Ẕū'l-ḥijja[2314] and will have been anxious to go on[2315] to Humāyūn's presence, but there comes to him a man from Kāmrān, saying, "Let the honoured Khwāja come (to see me); let him deliver whatever royal orders there may be; let him go on to Humāyūn when matters have been talked over."[2316] Kāmrān will have gone into Kābul on the 17th of Ẕū'l-ḥijja (_Sep. 2nd_), will have talked with the Khwāja and, on the 28th of the same month, will have let him go on for Fort Victory (_Qila'-i-ẕafar_).

There was this excellent news in the dutiful letters received:—that Shāh-zāda T̤ahmāsp, resolute to put down the Aūzbeg,[2317] had overcome and killed Rīnīsh (var. Zīnīsh) _Aūzbeg_ in Dāmghān and made a general massacre of his people; that 'Ubaid Khān, getting sure news about the _Qīzīl-bāsh_ (Red-head) had risen from round Herī, gone to Merv, called up to him there all the sulṯāns of Samarkand and those parts, and that all the sulṯāns of Mā warā'u'n-nahr had gone to help him.[2318]

[Sidenote: Fol. 346.] This same foot-man brought the further news that Humāyūn was said to have had a son by the daughter of Yādgār T̤aghāī, and that Kāmrān was said to be marrying in Kābul, taking the daughter of his mother's brother Sl. `Alī Mīrzā (_Begchīk_).[2319]

(_r. Honours for an artificer._)[2320]

On this same day Sayyid Daknī of Shīrāz the diviner (_ghaiba-gar_?) was made to wear a dress of honour, given presents, and ordered to finish the arched(?) well (_khwāralīq-chāh_) as he best knew how.

(_s. The Wālidiyyah-risāla (Parental-tract)._)

(_Nov. 6th_) On Friday the 23rd of the month[2321] such heat[2322] appeared in my body that with difficulty I got through the Congregational Prayer in the Mosque, and with much trouble through the Mid-day Prayer, in the book-room, after due time, and little by little. Thereafter[2323] having had fever, I trembled less on Sunday (_Nov. 28th_). During the night of Tuesday[2324] the 27th of the month Ṣafar, it occurred to me to versify (_naẕm qīlmāq_)

the _Wālidiyyah-risāla_ of his Reverence Khwāja 'Ubaidu'l-lāh.[2325] I laid it to heart that if I, going to the soul of his Reverence[2326] for protection, were freed from this disease, it would be a sign that my poem was accepted, just as the author of the _Qaṣīdatu'l-būrda_[2327] was freed from the affliction of paralysis when his poem [Sidenote: Fol. 346b.] had been accepted. To this end I began to versify the tract, using the metre[2328] of Maulānā 'Abdu´r-raḥīm _Jāmī's Subḥatu'l-abrār_ (Rosary of the Righteous). Thirteen couplets were made in that same night. I tasked myself not to make fewer than 10 a day; in the end one day had been omitted. While last year every time such illness had happened, it had persisted at least a month or 40 days,[2329] this year, by God's grace and his Reverence's favour, I was free, except for a little depression (_afsurda_), on Thursday the 29th of the month (_Nov. 12th_). The end of versifying the contents of the tract was reached on Saturday the 8th of the first Rabī' (_Nov. 20th_). One day 52 couplets had been made.[2330]

(_t. Troops warned for service._)

(_Nov. 11th_) On Wednesday the 28th of the month royal orders were sent on all sides for the armies, saying, "God bringing it about, at an early opportunity my army will be got to horse. Let all come soon, equipped for service."

(_Here the record of 9 days is wanting._)[2331]

(_u. Messengers from Humāyūn._)

(_Nov. 21st_) On Sunday the 9th of the first Rabī`, Beg Muḥammad _ta`alluqchī_[2332] came, who had been sent last year (934 AH.) at the end of Muḥarram to take a dress of honour and a horse to Humāyūn.[2333]

(_Nov. 22nd_) On Monday the 10th of the month there came from Humāyūn's presence Wais _Lāgharī's_ (son) Beg-gīna (Little Beg) and Bīān Shaikh, one of Humāyūn's servants who had come as the messenger of the good tidings of the birth of Humāyūn's son whose name he gave as Al-amān. Shaikh Abū'l-wajd found _Shăh sa`ādatmand_[2334] to be the date of his birth. [Sidenote: Fol. 347.]

(_v. Rapid travel._)

Bīān Shaikh set out long after Beg-gīna. He parted from Humāyūn on Friday the 9th of Ṣafar (_Oct. 23rd_) at a place below Kishm called Dū-shaṃba (Monday); he came into Āgra on Monday the 10th of the first Rabī` (_Nov. 23rd_). He came very quickly! Another time he actually came from Qila`-i-ẕafar to Qandahār in 11 days.[2335]

(_w. News of T̤ahmāsp's victory over the Aūzbegs._)

Bīān Shaikh brought news about Shāh-zāda T̤ahmāsp's advancing out of `Irāq and defeating the Aūzbeg.[2336] Here are his particulars:—Shāh-zāda T̤ahmāsp, having come out of `Irāq with 40,000 men arrayed in Rūmī fashion of matchlock and cart,[2337] advances with great speed, takes Basṯām, slaughters Rīnīsh (var. Zīnīsh) _Aūzbeg_ and his men in Dāmghān, and from there passes right swiftly on.[2338] Kīpīk Bī's son Qaṃbar-i-`alī Beg is beaten by one of the _Qīzīl-bāsh_ (Red-head)'s men, and with his few followers goes to `Ubaid Khān's presence. `Ubaid Khān finds it undesirable to stay near Herī, hurriedly sends off gallopers to all the sulṯāns of Balkh, Ḥiṣār, Samarkand, and Tāshkend (Tāshkīnt) and goes himself to Merv. Sīūnjak Sl.'s younger son Bārāq Sl. from Tāshkend, Kūchūm Khān, with (his sons) Abū-sa`īd Sl. and Pūlad Sl., and Jānī Beg Sl. with his sons, from [Sidenote: Fol. 347b.] Samarkand and Mīān-kāl, Mahdī Sl.'s and Ḥamza Sl.'s sons from Ḥiṣār, Kītīn-qarā Sl. from Balkh, all these sulṯāns assemble right swiftly in Merv. To them their informers (_tīl-chī_) take news that Shāh-zāda, after saying, "`Ubaid Khān is seated near Herī with few men only," had been advancing swiftly with his 40,000 men, but that when he heard of this assembly (_i.e._ in Merv), he made a ditch in the meadow of Rādagān[2339] and seated himself there.[2340] Here-upon the Aūzbegs, with entire disregard of their opponents,[2341] left their counsels at this:—"Let all of us sulṯāns and khāns seat ourselves in Mashhad;[2342] let a few of us be told off with 20,000 men to go close to the Qīzīl-bāsh camp[2343] and not let them put head out; let us order magicians[2344] to work their magic directly Scorpio appears;[2345] by this stratagem the enemy will be enfeebled, and we shall overcome." So said, they march from Merv. Shāh-zāda gets out of Mashhad.[2346] He confronts them near Jām-and-Khirgird.[2347] There defeat befalls the Aūzbeg side.[2348] A mass of sulṯāns are overcome and slaughtered.

In one letter it (_khūd_) was written, "It is not known for certain [Sidenote: Fol. 348.] that any sulṯān except Kūchūm Khān has escaped; not a man who went with the army has come back up to now." The sulṯāns who were in Ḥiṣār abandoned it. Ibrāhīm _Jānī's_ son Chalma, whose real name is Ismā`īl, must be in the fort.[2349]

(_x. Letters written by Bābur._)

(_Nov. 27th and 28th_) This same Bīān Shaikh was sent quite quickly back with letters. for Humāyūn and Kāmrān. These and other writings being ready by Friday the 14th of the month (_Nov. 27th_) were entrusted to him, his leave was given, and on Saturday the 15th he got well out of Āgra.

COPY OF A LETTER TO HUMĀYŪN.[2350]

"The first matter, after saying, 'Salutation' to Humāyūn whom I am longing to see, is this:—

"Exact particulars of the state of affairs on that side and on this[2351] have been made known by the letters and dutiful representations brought on Monday the 10th of the first Rabī` by Beg-gīna and Bīān Shaikh.

(_Turkī_) Thank God! a son is born to thee! A son to thee, to me a heart-enslaver (_dil-bandī_).

"May the Most High ever allot to thee and to me tidings as joyful! So may it be, O Lord of the two worlds!"

"Thou sayest thou hast called him Al-amān; God bless and prosper this! Thou writest it so thyself (_i.e._ Al-amān), but hast over-looked that common people mostly say _alāmā_ or _aīlāmān_.[2352] [Sidenote: Fol. 348b.] Besides that, this _Al_ is rare in names.[2353] May God bless and prosper him in name and person; may He grant us to keep Al-amān (peace) for many years and many decades of years![2354] May He now order our affairs by His own mercy and favour; not in many decades comes such a chance as this!"[2355]

"Again:—On Tuesday the 11th of the month (_Nov. 23rd_) came the false rumour that the Balkhīs had invited and were fetching Qurbān[2356] into Balkh."

"Again:—Kāmrān and the Kābul begs have orders to join thee; this done, move on Ḥiṣār, Samarkand, Herī or to whatever side favours fortune. Mayst thou, by God's grace, crush foes and take lands to the joy of friends and the down-casting of adversaries! Thank God! now is your time to risk life and slash swords.[2357] Neglect not the work chance has brought; slothful life in retirement befits not sovereign rule:—

(_Persian_) He grips the world who hastens; Empire yokes not with delay; All else, confronting marriage, stops, Save only sovereignty.[2358]

"If through God's grace, the Balkh and Ḥiṣār countries be won and held, put men of thine in Ḥiṣār, Kāmrān's men in Balkh. Should Samarkand also be won, there make thy seat. Ḥiṣār, [Sidenote: Fol. 349.] God willing, I shall make a crown-domain. Should Kāmrān regard Balkh as small, represent the matter to me; please God! I will make its defects good at once out of those other countries."

"Again:—As thou knowest, the rule has always been that when thou hadst six parts, Kāmrān had five; this having been constant, make no change."

"Again:—Live well with thy younger brother. Elders must bear the burden![2359] I have the hope that thou, for thy part, wilt keep on good terms with him; he, who has grown up an active and excellent youth, should not fail, for his part, in loyal duty to thee."[2360]

"Again:—Words from thee are somewhat few; no person has [Sidenote: Fol. 349b.] come from thee for two or three years past; the man I sent to thee (Beg Muḥammad _ta`alluqchī_) came back in something over a year; is this not so?"

"Again:—As for the "retirement", "retirement", spoken of in thy letters,—retirement is a fault for sovereignty; as the honoured (Sa`dī) says:—[2361]

(_Persian_) If thy foot be fettered, choose to be resigned; If thou ride alone, take thou thine own head.

"No bondage equals that of sovereignty; retirement matches not with rule."

"Again:—Thou hast written me a letter, as I ordered thee to do; but why not have read it over? If thou hadst thought of reading it, thou couldst not have done it, and, unable thyself to read it, wouldst certainly have made alteration in it. Though by taking trouble it can be read, it is very puzzling, and who ever saw an enigma in prose?[2362] Thy spelling, though not bad, is not quite correct; thou writest _iltafāt_ with _ṯā_ (_iltafāṯ_) and _qūlinj_ with _yā_ (_qīlinj_?).[2363] Although thy letter can be read if every sort of pains be taken, yet it cannot be quite understood because of that obscure wording of thine. Thy remissness in letter-writing seems to be due to the thing which makes thee obscure, that is to say, to elaboration. In future write without elaboration; use plain, clear words. So will thy trouble and thy reader's be less."

"Again:—Thou art now to go on a great business;[2364] take counsel with prudent and experienced begs, and act as they say. If thou seek to pleasure me, give up sitting alone and avoiding society. Summon thy younger brother and the begs twice daily to thy presence, not leaving their coming to choice; be the business what it may, take counsel and settle every word and act in agreement with those well-wishers."

"Again:—Khwāja Kalān has long had with me the house-friend's intimacy; have thou as much and even more with him. [Sidenote: Fol. 350.] If, God willing, the work becomes less in those parts, so that thou wilt not need Kāmrān, let him leave disciplined men in Balkh and come to my presence."

"Again:—Seeing that there have been such victories, and such conquests, since Kābul has been held, I take it to be well-omened; I have made it a crown-domain; let no one of you covet it."

"Again:—Thou hast done well (_yakhshī qīlīb sīn_); thou hast won the heart of Sl. Wais;[2365] get him to thy presence; act by his counsel, for he knows business."

"Until there is a good muster of the army, do not move out."

"Bīān Shaikh is well-apprized of word-of-mouth matters, and will inform thee of them. These things said, I salute thee and am longing to see thee."—

The above was written on Thursday the 13th of the first Rabi` (_Nov. 26th_). To the same purport and with my own hand, I wrote also to Kāmrān and Khwāja Kalān, and sent off the letters (by Bīān Shaikh).

(_Here the record fails from Rabī` 15th to 19th._)

(_y. Plans of campaign._)

(_Dec. 2nd_) On Wednesday the 19th of the month (_Rabī` I._) the mīrzās, sulṯāns, Turk and Hind amīrs were summoned for counsel, and left the matter at this:—That this year the army must move in some direction; that `Askarī should go in advance towards the East, be joined by the sulṯāns and amīrs from beyond Gang (Ganges), and march in whatever direction favoured fortune. These particulars having been written down, Ghīāṣu'd-dīn the [Sidenote: Fol. 350b.] armourer was given rendezvous for 16 days,[2366] and sent galloping off, on Saturday the 22nd of the month, to the amīrs of the East headed by Sl. Junaid _Barlās_. His word-of-mouth message was, that `Askarī was being sent on before the fighting apparatus, culverin, cart and matchlock, was ready; that it was the royal order for the sulṯāns and amīrs of the far side of Gang to muster in `Askarī's presence, and, after consultation with well-wishers on that side, to move in whatever direction, God willing! might favour fortune; that if there should be work needing me, please God! I would get to horse as soon as the person gone with the (16 days) tryst (_mī`ād_) had returned; that explicit representation should be made as to whether the Bengali (Nas̤rat Shāh) were friendly and single-minded; that, if nothing needed my presence in those parts, I should not make stay, but should move elsewhere at once;[2367] and that after consulting with well-wishers, they were to take `Askarī with them, and, God willing! settle matters on that side.

(_Here the record of 5 days is wanting._)

(_z. `Askarī receives the insignia and rank of a royal commander._)

(_Dec. 12th_) On Saturday the 29th of the first Rabī`, `Askarī was made to put on a jewelled dagger and belt, and a royal dress of honour, was presented with flag, horse-tail standard, [Sidenote: Fol. 351.] drum, a set (6-8) of _tīpūchāq_ (horses), 10 elephants, a string of camels, one of mules, royal plenishing, and royal utensils. Moreover he was ordered to take his seat at the head of a _Dīwān_. On his mullā and two guardians were bestowed jackets having buttons[2368]; on his other servants, three sets of nine coats.

(_aa. Bābur visits one of his officers._)

(_Dec. 13th_) On Sunday the last day of the month (_Rabī` I. 30th_)[2369] I went to Sl. Muḥammad _Bakhshī's_ house. After spreading a carpet, he brought gifts. His offering in money and goods was more than 2 _laks_.[2370] When food and offering had been set out, we went into another room where sitting, we ate _ma`jūn_. We came away at the 3rd watch (midnight?), crossed the water, and went to the private house.

(_bb. The Āgra-Kābul road measured._)

(_Dec. 17th_) On Thursday the 4th of the latter Rabī`, it was settled that Chīqmāq Beg with Shāhī _ṯamghāchī's_[2371] clerkship, should measure the road between Āgra and Kābul. At every 9th _kuroh_ (_cir._ 18m.), a tower was to be erected 12 _qārīs_ high[2372] and having a _chār-dara_[2373] on the top; at every 18th _kuroh_ (_cir._ 36m.),[2374] 6 post-horses were to be kept fastened; and arrangement was to be made for the payment of post-masters and grooms, and for horse-corn. The order was, "If the place where the horses are fastened up,[2375] be near a crown-domain, let those there provide for the matters mentioned; if not, let the cost be charged on the beg in whose _pargana_ the post-house may be." Chīqmāq Beg got out of Āgra with Shāhī on that same day.

[Sidenote: Fol. 351b.] (_Author's note on the kuroh._) These _kurohs_ were established in relation to the _mīl_, in the way mentioned in the _Mubīn_:—[2376]

(_Turkī_) Four thousand paces (_qadam_) are one _mīl_; Know that Hind people call this a _kuroh_; The pace (_qadam_) they say is a _qārī_ and a half (36 in.); Know that each _qārī_ (24 in.) is six hand-breadths (_tūtām_) That each _tūtām_ is four fingers (_aīlīk_), Each _aīlīk_, six barley-corns. Know this knowledge.[2377]

The measuring-cord (_ṯanāb_)[2378] was fixed at 40 _qārī_, each being the one-and-a-half _qārī_ mentioned above, that is to say, each is 9 hand-breadths.

(_cc. A feast._)

(_Dec. 18th_) On Saturday the 6th of the month (Rabī` II.) there was a feast[2379] at which were present Qīzīl-bāsh (Red-head), and Aūzbeg, and Hindū envoys.[2380] The Qīzīl-bāsh envoys sat under an awning placed some 70-80 _qārīs_[2381] on my right, of the begs Yūnas-i-`alī being ordered to sit with them. On my left the Aūzbeg envoys sat in the same way, of the begs `Abdu'l-lāh being ordered to sit with them. I sat on the north side of a newly-erected octagonal pavilion (_tālār_) covered in with _khas_[2382]. Five or six _qārīs_ on my right sat Tūkhtā-būgha Sl. and `Askarī, with Khwāja `Abdu'sh-shahīd and Khwāja Kalān, descendants of his Reverence the Khwāja,[2383] and Khwāja Chishtī (var. Ḥusainī), and Khalīfa, together with the _ḥāfiẕes_ and _mullās_ dependent on the Khwājas who had come from Samarkand. Five or six _qārīs_ on my left sat Muḥammad-i-zamān M. and Tāng-ātmīsh Sl.[2384] [Sidenote: Fol. 352.] and Sayyid Rafī`, Sayyid Rūmī, Shaikh Abū'l-fatḥ, Shaikh Jamālī, Shaikh Shihābu'd-dīn _`Arab_ and Sayyid Daknī (var.Zaknī, Ruknī). Before food all the sulṯāns, khāns, grandees, and amīrs brought gifts[2385] of red, of white, of black,[2386] of cloth and various other goods. They poured the red and white on a carpet I had ordered spread, and side by side with the gold and silver piled plenishing, white cotton piece-cloth and purses (_badra_) of money. While the gifts were being brought and before food, fierce camels and fierce elephants[2387] were set to fight on an island opposite,[2388] so too a few rams; thereafter wrestlers grappled. After the chief of the food had been set out, Khwāja `Abdu'sh-shahīd and Khwāja Kalān were made to put on surtouts (_jabbah_) of fine muslin,[2389] spotted with gold-embroidery, and suitable dresses of honour, and those headed by Mullā Farrūkh and _Ḥāfiẕ_[2390] had jackets put on them. On Kūchūm Khān's envoy[2391] and on Ḥasan _Chalabi's_ younger brother[2392] were bestowed silken head-wear (_bāshlīq_) and gold-embroidered surtouts of fine muslin, with suitable dresses of honour. Gold-embroidered jackets and silk coats were presented to the envoys of Abū-sa`īd Sl. (_Aūzbeg_), of Mihr-bān Khānīm and her son Pulād Sl., and of Shāh Ḥasan [Sidenote: Fol. 352b.] (_Arghūn_). The two Khwājas and the two chief envoys, that is to say Kūchūm Khān's retainer and Ḥasan _Chalabī's_ younger brother, were presented with a silver stone's weight of gold and a gold stone's weight of silver.

(_Author's note on the Turkī stone-weight._) The gold stone (_tāsh_) is 500 _mis̤qāls_, that is to say, one Kābul _sīr_; the silver stone is 250 _mis̤qāls_, that is to say, half a Kābul _sīr_.[2393]

To Khwāja Mīr Sulṯān and his sons, to Ḥāfiẕ of Tāshkīnt, to Mullā Farrūkh at the head of the Khwājas' servants, and also to other envoys, silver and gold were given with a quiver.[2394] Yādgār-i-nāṣir[2395] was presented with a dagger and belt. On Mīr Muḥammad the raftsman who was deserving of reward for the excellent bridge he had made over the river Gang (Ganges),[2396] a dagger was bestowed, so too on the matchlockmen Champion [_pahlawān_] Ḥājī Muḥammad and Champion Buhlūl and on Walī the cheeta-keeper (_pārschī_); one was given to Ustād `Alī's son also. Gold and silver were presented to Sayyid Daud _Garmsīrī_. Jackets having buttons,[2397] and silk dresses of honour were presented to the servants of my daughter Ma`ṣūma[2398] and my son Hind-āl. Again:—presents of jackets and silk dresses of honour, of gold and silver, of plenishing and various goods were given to those from Andijān, and to those who had come from Sūkh and Hushīār, the places whither we had gone landless and homeless.[2399] Gifts of the same kind were given to the servants of Qurbān and Shaikhī and the peasants of Kāhmard.[2400] [Sidenote: Fol. 353.]

After food had been sent out, Hindūstānī players were ordered to come and show their tricks. Lūlīs came.[2401] Hindūstānī performers shew several feats not shewn by (Tramontane) ones. One is this:—They arrange seven rings, one on the forehead, two on the knees, two of the remaining four on fingers, two on toes, and in an instant set them turning rapidly. Another is this:—Imitating the port of the peacock, they place one hand on the ground, raise up the other and both legs, and then in an instant make rings on the uplifted hand and feet revolve rapidly. Another is this:—In those (Tramontane) countries two people grip one another and turn two somersaults, but Hindūstānī _lūlīs_, clinging together, go turning over three or four times. Another is this:—a _lūlī_ sets the end of a 12 or 14 foot pole on his middle and holds it upright while another climbs up it and does his [Sidenote: Fol. 353b.] tricks up there. Another is this:—A small _lūlī_ gets upon a big one's head, and stands there upright while the big one moves quickly from side to side shewing his tricks, the little one shewing his on the big one's head, quite upright and without tottering. Many dancing-girls came also and danced.

A mass of red, white, and black was scattered (_sāchīldī_) on which followed amazing noise and pushing. Between the Evening and Bed-time Prayers I made five or six special people sit in my presence for over one watch. At the second watch of the day (9 a.m., _Sunday, Rabi` II. 7th_) having sat in a boat, I went to the Eight-Paradises.

(_dd. `Askarī starts eastwards._)

(_Dec. 20th_) On Monday (_8th_) `Askarī who had got (his army) out (of Āgra) for the expedition, came to the Hot-bath, took leave of me and marched for the East.

(_ee. A visit to Dhūlpūr._)

(_Dec. 21st_) On Tuesday (_Rabī` II. 9th_) I went to see the buildings for a reservoir and well at Dūlpūr.[2402] I rode from the (Āgra) garden at one watch (_pahr_) and one _garī_ (9.22 a.m.), and I entered the Dūlpūr garden when 5 _garīs_ of the 1st night-watch (_pās_)[2403] had gone (7.40 p.m.).[2404]

(_Dec. 23rd_) On Thursday the 11th day of the month the stone-well (_sangīn-chāh_), the 26 rock-spouts (_tāsh-tār-nau_) and rock-pillars (_tāsh-sitūn_), and the water-courses (_ārīqlār_) cut on the solid slope (_yak pāra qīā_) were all ready.[2405] At the 3rd watch (_pahr_) of this same day preparation for drawing water from the well was made. On account of a smell (_aīd_) in the water, it was ordered, for prudence' sake, that they should turn the well-wheel without rest for 15 days-and-nights, and so draw off the water. Gifts were made to the stone-cutters, and labourers, [Sidenote: Fol. 354.] and the whole body of workmen in the way customary for master-workmen and wage-earners of Āgra.

(_Dec. 24th_) We rode from Dūlpūr while one _garī_ of the 1st watch (_pahr_) of Friday remained (_cir._ 8.40 a.m.), and we crossed the river (Jumna) before the Sun had set.

(_Here the record of 3 days is wanting._)[2406]

(_ff. A Persian account of the battle of Jām._)

(_Dec. 28th_) On Tuesday the 16th of the month (_Rabī` II._) came one of Dīv Sl.'s[2407] servants, a man who had been in the fight between the Qīzīl-bāsh and Aūzbeg, and who thus described it:—The battle between the Aūzbegs and Turkmāns[2408] took place on `Āshūr-day (_Muḥ. 10th_) near Jām-and-Khirgird.[2409] They fought from the first dawn till the Mid-day Prayer. The Aūzbegs were 300,000; the Turkmāns may have been (as is said?) 40 to 50,000; he said that he himself estimated their dark mass at 100,000; on the other hand, the Aūzbegs said they themselves were 100,000. The Qīzīl-bāsh leader (_ādam_) fought after arraying cart, culverin and matchlockmen in the Rūmī fashion, and after protecting himself.[2410] Shāh-zāda[2411] and Jūha Sl. stood behind the carts with 20,000 good braves. The rest of the begs were posted right and left beyond the carts. [Sidenote: Fol. 354b.] These the Aūzbeg beat at once on coming up, dismounted and overcame many, making all scurry off. He then wheeled to the (Qīzīl-bāsh) rear and took loot in camel and baggage. At length those behind the carts loosed the chains and came out. Here also the fight was hard. Thrice they flung the Aūzbeg back; by God's grace they beat him. Nine sulṯāns, with Kūchūm Khān, `Ubaid Khān and Abū-sa`īd Sl. at their head, were captured; one, Abū-sa`īd Sl. is said to be alive; the rest have gone to death.[2412] `Ubaid Khān's body was found, but not his head. Of Aūzbegs 50,000, and of Turkmāns 20,000 were slain.[2413]

(_Here matter seems to have been lost._)[2414]

(_gg. Plan of campaign._)

(_Dec. 30th_) On this same day (Thursday _Rabī` II. 18th_) came Ghīāṣu'd-dīn the armourer[2415] who had gone to Jūna-pūr (Jūnpūr) with tryst of 16 days,[2416] but, as Sl. Junaid and the rest had led out their army for Kharīd,[2417] he (Ghīāṣu'd-dīn) was not able to be back at the time fixed.[2418] Sl. Junaid said, by word-of-mouth, "Thank God! through His grace, no work worth the Pādshāh's attention has shewn itself in these parts; if the honoured Mīrzā (`Askarī) come, and if the sulṯāns, khāns and amīrs here-abouts be ordered to move in his steps, there is hope that everything in these parts will be arranged with ease." Though such was Sl. [Sidenote: Fol. 355.] Junaid's answer,yet, as people were saying that Mullā Muḥammad Maẕhab, who had been sent as envoy to Bengal after the Holy-battle with Sangā the Pagan,[2419] would arrive today or tomorrow, his news also was awaited.

(_Dec. 31st_) On Friday the 19th of the month I had eaten ma`jūn and was sitting with a special few in the private house, when Mullā Maẕhab who had arrived late, that is to say, in the night of Saturday,[2420] came and waited on me. By asking one particular after another, we got to know that the attitude of the Bengalī[2421] was understood to be loyal and single-minded.

(_Jan. 2nd_) On Sunday (_Rabī` II. 21st_), I summoned the Turk and Hind amīrs to the private house, when counsel was taken and the following matters were brought forward:—As the Bengalī (Naṣrat Shāh) has sent us an envoy[2422] and is said to be loyal and single-minded, to go to Bengal itself would be improper; if the move be not on Bengal, no other place on that side has treasure helpful for the army; several places to the west are both rich and near,

(_Turkī_) Abounding wealth, a pagan people, a short road; Far though the East lie, this is near.

At length the matter found settlement at this:—As our westward road is short, it will be all one if we delay a few days, so that our minds may be at ease about the East. Again Ghīāṣu'd-dīn [Sidenote: Fol. 355b.] the armourer was made to gallop off, with tryst of 20 days,[2423] to convey written orders to the eastern amīrs for all the sulṯāns, khāns, and amīrs who had assembled in `Askarī's presence, to move against those rebels.[2424] The orders delivered, he was to return by the trysted day with what ever news there might be.

(_hh. Balūchī incursions._)

In these days Muḥammadī Kūkūldāsh made dutiful representation that again Balūchīs had come and overrun several places. Chīn-tīmūr Sl. was appointed for the business; he was to gather to his presence the amīrs from beyond Sihrind and Samāna and with them, equipped for 6 months, to proceed against the Balūchīs; namely, such amīrs as `Ādil Sulṯān, Sl. Muḥ. _Dūldāī_, Khusrau Kūkūldāsh, Muḥammad `Alī _Jang-jang_, `Abdu'l-`azīz the Master-of-the-horse, Sayyid `Alī, Walī Qīzil, Qarācha, Halāhil, `Āshiq the House-steward, Shaikh `Alī, Kitta (_Beg Kuhbur_), Gujūr Khān, Ḥasan `Alī _Sīwādī_. These were to present themselves at the Sulṯān's call and muster and not to transgress his word by road or in halt.[2425] The messenger[2426] appointed to carry these orders was `Abdu'l-ghaffār; he was to deliver them first to Chīn-tīmūr Sl., [Sidenote: Fol. 356.] then to go on and shew them to the afore-named begs who were to present themselves with their troops at whatever place the Sulṯān gave rendezvous (_būljār_);[2427] `Abdu'l-ghaffār himself was to remain with the army and was to make dutiful representation of slackness or carelessness if shewn by any person soever; this done, we should remove the offender from the circle of the approved (_muwajjah-jīrgāsī_) and from his country or _pargana_. These orders having been entrusted to `Abdu'l-ghaffār, words-of-mouth were made known to him and he was given leave to go.

(_The last explicit date is a week back._)

(_ii. News of the loss of Bihār reaches Dhūlpūr._)

(_Jan. 9th_) On the eve of Sunday the 28th of the month (_Rabi` II._) we crossed the Jūn (Jumna) at the 6th _garī_ of the 3rd watch (2.15 a.m.) and started for the Lotus-garden of Dūlpūr. The 3rd watch was near[2428] (Sunday mid-day) when we reached it. Places were assigned on the border of the garden, where begs and the household might build or make camping-grounds for themselves.

(_Jan. 13th_) On Thursday the 3rd of the first Jumāda, a place was fixed in the s.e. of the garden for a Hot-bath; the ground was to be levelled; I ordered a plinth(?) (_kursī_) erected on the levelled ground, and a Bath to be arranged, in one room of which was to be a reservoir 10 X 10.

On this same day Khalīfa sent from Āgra dutiful letters of Qāẓī Jīā and Bīr-sing Deo, saying it had been heard said that Iskandar's son Maḥmūd (_Lūdī_) had taken Bihār (town). This news decided for getting the army to horse.

(_Jan. 14th_) On Friday (_Jumāda I. 4th_), we rode out from the Lotus-garden at the 6th _garī_ (8.15 a.m.); at the Evening Prayer we reached Āgra. We met Muḥammad-i-zamān Mīrzā on the road who would have gone to Dūlpūr, Chīn-tīmūr also who must have been coming into Agra.[2429]

(_Jan. 15th_) On Saturday (_5th_) the counselling begs having been summoned, it was settled to ride eastwards on Thursday the 10th of the month (_Jan. 21st_).

(_jj. News of Badakhshān._)

On this same Saturday letters came from Kābul with news [Sidenote: Fol. 356b.] that Humāyūn, having mustered the army on that side (Tramontana), and joined Sl. Wais to himself, had set out with 40,000 men for Samarkand;[2430] on this Sl. Wais' younger brother Shāh-qūlī goes and enters Ḥiṣār, Tarsūn Muḥammad leaves Tirmiẕ, takes Qabādīān and asks for help; Humāyūn sends Tūlik Kūkūldāsh and Mīr Khẉurd[2431] with many of his men and what Mughūls there were, then follows himself.[2432]

(_Here 4 days record is wanting._)

(_kk. Bābur starts for the East._)

(_Jan. 20th_) On Thursday the 10th of the first Jumāda, I set [Sidenote: Fol. 357.] out for the East after the 3rd _garī_ (_cir._ 7.10 a.m.), crossed Jūn by boat a little above Jalīsīr, and went to the Gold-scattering-garden.[2433] It was ordered that the standard (_tūgh_), drum, stable and all the army-folk should remain on the other side of the water, opposite to the garden, and that persons coming for an interview[2434] should cross by boat.

(_ll. Arrivals._)

(_Jan. 22nd_) On Saturday (_12th_) Ismā`īl Mītā, the Bengal envoy brought the Bengalī's offering (Naṣrat Shāh's), and waited on me in Hindūstān fashion, advancing to within an arrow's flight, making his reverence, and retiring. They then put on him the due dress of honour (_khi`lat_) which people call * * * *[2435], and brought him before me. He knelt thrice in our fashion, advanced, handed Naṣrat Shāh's letter, set before me the offering he had brought, and retired.

(_Jan. 24th_) On Monday (_14th_) the honoured Khwāja `Abdu'l-ḥaqq having arrived, I crossed the water by boat, went to his tents and waited on him.[2436]

(_Jan. 25th_) On Tuesday (_15th_) Ḥasan _Chalabī_ arrived and waited on me.[2437]

(_mm. Incidents of the eastward march._)

On account of our aims (_chāpdūq_) for the army,[2438] some days were spent in the Chār-bāgh.

(_Jan. 27th_) On Thursday the 17th of the month, that ground was left after the 3rd _garī_ (7.10 a.m.), I going by boat. It was dismounted 7 _kurohs_ (14 m.) from Āgra, at the village of Anwār.[2439]

(_Jan. 30th_) On Sunday (_Jumāda I. 20th_), the Aūzbeg envoys were given their leave. To Kūchūm Khān's envoy Amīn Mīrzā were presented a dagger with belt, cloth of gold,[2440] and 70,000 _tankas_.[2441] Abū-sa`īd's servant Mullā T̤aghāī and the servants of [Sidenote: Fol. 357b.] Mihr-bān Khānim and her son Pūlād Sl. were made to put on dresses of honour with gold-embroidered jackets, and were presented also with money in accordance with their station.

(_Jan. 31st_?) Next morning[2442] (_Monday 21st_?) leave was given to Khwāja `Abdu'l-ḥaqq for stay in Āgra and to Khwāja Yaḥyā's grandson Khwāja Kalān for Samarkand, who had come by way of a mission from Aūzbeg khāns and sulṯāns.[2443]

In congratulation on the birth of Humāyūn's son and Kāmrān's marriage, Mullā Tabrīzī and Mīrzā Beg T̤aghāī[2444] were sent with gifts (_sāchāq_) to each Mīrzā of 10,000 _shāhrukhīs_, a coat I had worn, and a belt with clasps. Through Mullā Bihishtī were sent to Hind-āl an inlaid dagger with belt, an inlaid ink-stand, a stool worked in mother-o'pearl, a tunic and a girdle,[2445] together with the alphabet of the Bāburī script and fragments (_qiṯa`lār_) written in that script. To Humāyūn were sent the translation (_tarjuma_) and verses made in Hindūstān.[2446] To Hind-āl and Khwāja Kalān also the translation and verses were sent. They were sent too to Kāmrān, through Mīrzā Beg T̤aghāī, together with head-lines (_sar-khaṯ_) in the Bāburī script.[2447]

(_Feb. 1st_) On Tuesday, after writing letters to be taken by those going to Kābul, the buildings in hand at Āgra and Dūlpūr [Sidenote: Fol. 358.] were recalled to mind, and entrusted to the charge of Mullā Qāsim, Ustād Shāh Muḥammad the stone-cutter, Mīrak, Mīr Ghīāṣ, Mīr Sang-tarāsh (stone-cutter) and Shāh Bābā the spadesman. Their leave was then given them.

(_Feb. 2nd_) The first watch (6 a.m.) was near[2448] when we rode out from Anwār (_Wednesday, Jumāda I. 23rd_); in the end,[2449] we dismounted, at the Mid-day Prayer, in the village of Ābāpūr, one _kuroh_ (2 m.) from Chandawār.[2450]

(_Feb. 3rd_) On the eve of Thursday (_24th_)[2451] `Abdu'l-malūk the armourer[2452] was joined with Ḥasan _Chalabī_ and sent as envoy to the Shāh[2453]; and Chāpūq[2454] was joined with the Aūzbeg envoys and sent to the Aūzbeg khāns and sulṯāns.

We moved from Ābāpūr while 4 _garīs_ of the night remained (4.30 a.m.). After passing Chandawār at the top of the dawn, I got into a boat. I landed in front of Rāprī and at the Bed-time Prayer got to the camp which was at Fatḥpūr.[2455]

(_Feb. 4th and 5th_) Having stayed one day (_Friday_) at Fatḥpūr, we got to horse on Saturday (_26th_) after making ablution (_waẓū_) at dawn. We went through the Morning Prayer in assembly near Rāprī, Maulānā Muḥammad of Fārāb being the leader (_imām_). At sun-rise I got into a boat below the great crook[2456] of Rāprī.

Today I put together a line-marker (_misṯar_) of eleven lines[2457] in order to write the mixed hands of the translation.[2458] Today the words of the honoured man-of-God admonished my heart.[2459]

(_Feb. 6th_) Opposite Jākīn,[2460] one of the Rāprī _parganas_, we [Sidenote: Fol. 358b.] had the boats drawn to the bank and just spent the night in them. We had them moved on from that place before the dawn (_Sunday 27th_), after having gone through the Morning Prayer. When I was again on board, Pay-master Sl. Muḥammad came, bringing a servant of Khwāja Kalān, Shamsu'd-dīn Muḥammad, from whose letters and information particulars about the affairs of Kābul became known.[2461] Mahdī Khwāja also came when I was in the boat.[2462] At the Mid-day Prayer I landed in a garden opposite Etāwa, there bathed (_ghusl_) in the Jūn, and fulfilled the duty of prayer. Moving nearer towards Etāwa, we sat down in that same garden under trees on a height over-looking the river, and there set the braves to amuse us.[2463] Food ordered by Mahdī Khwāja, was set before us. At the Evening Prayer we crossed the river; at the bed-time one we reached camp.

There was a two or three days' delay on that ground both to collect the army, and to write letters in answer to those brought by Shamsu'd-dīn Muḥammad.

(_nn. Letters various._)

(_Feb. 9th_) On Wednesday the last day (_30th_) of the 1st Jumāda, we marched from Etāwa, and after doing 8 _kurohs_ (16m.), dismounted at Mūrī-and-Adūsa.[2464]

Several remaining letters for Kābul were written on this same ground. One to Humāyūn was to this purport:—If the work have not yet been done satisfactorily, stop the raiders and thieves thyself; do not let them embroil the peace now descending amongst the peoples.[2465] Again, there was this:—I have made [Sidenote: Fol. 359.] Kābul a crown-domain, let no son of mine covet it. Again:—that I had summoned Hind-āl.

Kāmrān, for his part, was written to about taking the best of care in intercourse with the Shāh-zāda,[2466] about my bestowal on himself of Multān, making Kābul a crown-domain, and the coming of my family and train.[2467]

As my letter to Khwāja Kalān makes several particulars known, it is copied in here without alteration:—[2468]

[COPY OF A LETTER TO KHWĀJA KALĀN.]

"After saying 'Salutation to Khwāja Kalān', the first matter is that Shamsu'd-dīn Muḥammad has reached Etāwa, and that the particulars about Kābul are known."

"Boundless and infinite is my desire to go to those parts.[2469] Matters are coming to some sort of settlement in Hindūstān; there is hope, through the Most High, that the work here will soon be arranged. This work brought to order, God willing! my start will be made at once."

"How should a person forget the pleasant things of those countries, especially one who has repented and vowed to sin no more? How should he banish from his mind the permitted flavours of melons and grapes? Taking this opportunity,[2470] a melon was brought to me; to cut and eat it affected me strangely; I was all tears!"

"The unsettled state[2471] of Kābul had already been written of [Sidenote: Fol. 359b.] to me. After thinking matters over, my choice fell on this:—How should a country hold together and be strong (_marbūṯ u maẓbūṯ_), if it have seven or eight Governors? Under this aspect of the affair, I have summoned my elder sister (Khān-zāda) and my wives to Hindūstān, have made Kābul and its neighbouring countries a crown-domain, and have written in this sense to both Humāyūn and Kāmrān. Let a capable person take those letters to the Mīrzās. As you may know already, I had written earlier to them with the same purport. About the safe-guarding and prosperity of the country, there will now be no excuse, and not a word to say. Henceforth, if the town-wall[2472] be not solid or subjects not thriving, if provisions be not in store or the Treasury not full, it will all be laid on the back of the inefficiency of the Pillar-of-the State."[2473]

"The things that must be done are specified below; for some of them orders have gone already, one of these being, 'Let treasure accumulate.' The things which must be done are these:—First, the repair of the fort; again:—the provision of stores; again:—the daily allowance and lodging[2474] of envoys going backwards and forwards[2475]; again:—let money, taken legally from revenue,[2476] be spent for building the Congregational Mosque; again:—the repairs of the Kārwan-sarā (Caravan-sarai) and the Hot-baths; again:—the completion of the unfinished building [Sidenote: Fol. 360.] made of burnt-brick which Ūstād Ḥasan `Alī was constructing in the citadel. Let this work be ordered after taking counsel with Ūstād Sl. Muḥammad; if a design exist, drawn earlier by Ūstād Ḥasan `Alī, let Ūstād Sl. Muḥammad finish the building precisely according to it; if not, let him do so, after making a gracious and harmonious design, and in such a way that its floor shall be level with that of the Audience-hall; again:—the Khẉurd-Kābul dam which is to hold up the But-khāk-water at its exit from the Khẉurd-Kābul narrows; again:—the repair of the Ghaznī dam[2477]; again:—the Avenue-garden in which water is short and for which a one-mill stream must be diverted[2478]; again:—I had water brought from Tūtūm-dara to rising ground south-west of Khwāja Basta, there made a reservoir and planted young trees. The place got the name of Belvedere,[2479] because it faces the ford and gives a first-rate view. The best of young trees must be planted there, lawns arranged, and borders set with sweet-herbs and with flowers of beautiful colour and scent; again:—Sayyid Qāsim has been named to reinforce thee; again:—do not neglect the condition of matchlockmen and of Ūstād Muḥammad Amīn the armourer[2480]; again:—directly this letter arrives, thou must get my elder sister (Khān-zāda Begīm) and my wives right out of Kābul, and escort them to Nīl-āb. However averse they may still be, they most certainly must start within a week of the arrival of [Sidenote: Fol. 360b.] this letter. For why? Both because the armies which have gone from Hindūstān to escort them are suffering hardship in a cramped place (_tār yīrdā_), and also because they[2481] are ruining the country."

"Again:—I made it clear in a letter written to `Abdu'l-lāh (_`asas_), that there had been very great confusion in my mind (_dúghdugha_), to counterbalance being in the oasis (_wādī_) of penitence. This quatrain was somewhat dissuading (_mānī`_):—[2482]

Through renouncement of wine bewildered am I; How to work know I not, so distracted am I; While others repent and make vow to abstain, I have vowed to abstain, and repentant am I.

"A witticism of Banāī's came back to my mind:—One day when he had been joking in `Alī-sher Beg's presence, who must have been wearing a jacket with buttons,[2483] `Alī-sher Beg said, 'Thou makest charming jokes; but for the buttons, I would give thee the jacket; they are the hindrance (_māni`_).' Said Banāī, 'What hindrance are buttons? It is button-holes (_mādagī_) that hinder.'[2484] Let responsibility for this story lie on the teller! hold me excused for it; for God's sake do not be offended by it.[2485] Again:—that quatrain was made before last year, and in truth the longing and craving for a wine-party has been infinite and endless for two years past, so much so that sometimes the craving for wine brought me to the verge of tears. Thank God! this year that trouble has passed from my mind, perhaps by virtue of the [Sidenote: Fol. 361.] blessing and sustainment of versifying the translation.[2486] Do thou also renounce wine! If had with equal associates and boon-companions, wine and company are pleasant things; but with whom canst thou now associate? with whom drink wine? If thy boon-companions are Sher-i-aḥmad and Ḥaidar-qulī, it should not be hard for thee to forswear wine. So much said, I salute thee and long to see thee."[2487]

The above letter was written on Thursday the 1st of the latter Jumāda (_Feb. 10th_). It affected me greatly to write concerning those matters, with their mingling of counsel. The letters were entrusted to Shamsu'd-dīn Muḥammad on Friday night,[2488] he was apprized of word-of-mouth messages and given leave to go.

(_oo. Complaints from Balkh._)

(_Feb. 11th_) On Friday (_Jumāda II. 2nd_) we did 8 _kurohs_ (16m.) and dismounted at Jumandnā.[2489] Today a servant of Kītīn-qarā Sl. arrived whom the Sulṯān had sent to his retainer and envoy Kamālu'd-din _Qīāq_,[2490] with things written concerning the behaviour of the begs of the (Balkh) border, their intercourse with himself, and complaints of theft and raid. Leave to go was given to _Qīāq_, and orders were issued to the begs of the border to put an end to raiding and thieving, to behave well and to maintain intercourse with Balkh. These orders were entrusted to Kītīn-qarā Sl.'s servant and he was dismissed from this ground.

A letter, accepting excuse for the belated arrival of Ḥasan _Chalabī_,[2491] was sent to the Shāh today by one Shāh-qulī who had [Sidenote: Fol. 361b.] come to me from Ḥasan _Chalabī_ and reported the details of the battle (of Jām).[2492] Shāh-qulī was given his leave on this same day, the 2nd of the month.

(_pp. Incidents of the eastward march resumed._)

(_Feb. 12th_) On Saturday (_3rd_) we did 8 _kurohs_ (16m.) and dismounted in the Kakūra and Chachāwalī[2493] _parganas_ of Kālpī.

(_Feb. 13th_) On Sunday the 4th of the month, we did 9 _kurohs_ (18m.) and dismounted in Dīrapūr[2494] a _pargana_ of Kālpī. Here I shaved my head,[2495] which I had not done for the past two months, and bathed in the Sīngar-water (Sengar).

(_Feb. 14th_) On Monday (_5th_) we did 14 _kurohs_ (28m.), and dismounted in Chaparkada[2496] one of the _parganas_ of Kālpī.

(_Feb. 15th_) At the dawn of Tuesday (_6th_), a Hindūstānī servant of Qarācha's arrived who had taken a command (_farmān_) from Māhīm to Qarācha from which it was understood that she was on the road. She had summoned escort from people in Lāhor, Bhīra and those parts in the fashion I formerly wrote orders (_parwānas_) with my own hand. Her command had been written in Kābul on the 7th of the 1st Jumāda (_Jan. 17th_).[2497]

(_Feb. 16th_) On Wednesday (_7th_) we did 7 _kurohs_ (14m.), and dismounted in the Ādampūr _pargana_.[2498] Today I mounted before dawn, took the road[2499] alone, reached the Jūn (Jumna), and went on along its bank. When I came opposite to Ādampūr, I had awnings set up on an island (_ārāl_) near the camp and seated there, ate _ma`jūn_.

Today we set Ṣādiq to wrestle with Kalāl who had come to [Sidenote: Fol. 362.] Āgra with a challenge.[2500] In Āgra he had asked respite for 20 days on the plea of fatigue from his journey; as now 40-50 days had passed since the end of his respite, he was obliged to wrestle. Ṣādiq did very well, throwing him easily. Ṣādiq was given 10,000 _tankas_, a saddled horse, a head-to-foot, and a jacket with buttons; while Kalāl, to save him from despair, was given 3000 _tankas_, spite of his fall.

The carts and mortar were ordered landed from the boats, and we spent 3 or 4 days on this same ground while the road was made ready, the ground levelled and the landing effected.

(_Feb. 21st_) On Monday the 12th of the month (_Jumāda II._), we did 12 _kurohs_ (24 m.) and dismounted at Kūrarah.[2501] Today I travelled by litter.

(_Feb. 22nd-25th_) After marching 12 _kurohs_ (24 m.) from Kūrarah (_13th_), we dismounted in Kūrīa[2502] a _pargana_ of Karrah. From Kūrīa we marched 8 _kurohs_ (16m.) and dismounted (_14th_) in Fatḥpūr-Aswa.[2503] After 8 _kurohs_ (16m.) done from Fatḥpūr, we dismounted (_15th_) at Sarāī Munda.[2504]... Today at the Bedtime Prayer (_Friday 16th_, _after dark_), Sl. Jalālu'd-dīn (_Sharqī_)[2505] came with his two young sons to wait on me.

(_Feb. 26th_) Next day, Saturday the 17th of the month, we did 8 _kurohs_ (16m.), and dismounted at Dugdugī a Karrah _pargana_ on the bank of the Gang.[2506]

(_Feb. 27th_) On Sunday (_18th_) came to this ground Muḥammad Sl. M., Nī-khūb (or, Bī-khūb) Sl. and Tardīka (or, Tardī _yakka_, [Sidenote: Fol. 362b.] champion).

(_Feb. 28th_) On Monday (_19th_) `Askarī also waited on me. They all came from the other side of Gang (Ganges). `Askarī and his various forces were ordered to march along the other bank of the river keeping opposite the army on this side, and wherever our camp might be, to dismount just opposite it.

(_qq. News of the Afghāns._)

While we were in these parts news came again and again that Sl. Maḥmūd (_Lūdī_) had collected 10,000 Afghāns; that he had detached Shaikh Bāyazīd and Bīban with a mass of men towards Sarwār [Gorakhpūr]; that he himself with Fatḥ Khān _Sarwānī_ was on his way along the river for Chunār; that Sher Khān _Sūr_ whom I had favoured last year with the gift of several _parganas_ and had left in charge of this neighbourhood,[2507] had joined these Afghāns who thereupon had made him and a few other amīrs cross the water; that Sl. Jalālu'd-dīn's man in Benares had not been able to hold that place, had fled, and got away; what he was understood to have said being, that he had left soldiers (_sipahīlār_) in Benares-fort and gone along the river to fight Sl. Maḥmūd.[2508]

(_rr. Incidents of the march resumed._)

(_March 1st_) Marching from Dugdugī (_Tuesday, Jumāda II. 20th_) the army did 6 _kurohs_ (12m.) and dismounted at Kusār,[2509] 3 or 4 _kurohs_ from Karrah. I went by boat. We stayed here 3 or 4 [Sidenote: Fol. 363.] days because of hospitality offered by Sl. Jalālu'd-dīn.

(_March 4th_) On Friday (_23rd_), I dismounted at Sl. Jalālu'd-dīn's house inside Karrah-fort where, host-like, he served me a portion of cooked meat and other viands.[2510] After the meal, he and his sons were dressed in unlined coats (_yaktāī jāmah_) and short tunics (_nīmcha_).[2511] At his request his elder son was given the style Sl. Maḥmūd.[2512] On leaving Karrah, I rode about one _kuroh_ (2m.) and dismounted on the bank of Gang.

Here letters were written and leave was given to Shahrak Beg who had come from Māhīm to our first camp on Gang (_i.e._ Dugdugī). As Khwāja Yaḥyā's grandson Khwāja Kalān had been asking for the records I was writing,[2513] I sent him by Shahrak a copy I had had made.

(_March 5th_) On Saturday move was made at dawn (_24th_), I going by boat direct, and after 4 _kurohs_ done (8m.), halt was made at Koh.[2514] Our ground, being so near, was reached quite early. After awhile, we seated ourselves inside[2515] a boat where we ate _ma`jūn_. We invited the honoured Khwāja `Abdu'sh-shahīd[2516] who was said to be in Nūr Beg's quarters (_awī_), invited also Mullā Maḥmūd (_Farābī_?), bringing him from Mullā `Alī Khān's. After staying for some time on that spot, we crossed the river, and on the other side, set wrestlers to wrestle. In opposition to the rule of gripping the strongest first, Dost-i-yāsīn-khair [Sidenote: Fol. 363b.] was told not to grapple with Champion Ṣādiq, but with others; he did so very well with eight.

(_ss. News of the Afghān enemy._)

At the Afternoon Prayer, Sl. Muḥammad the Pay-master came by boat from the other side of the river, bringing news that the army of Sl. Iskandar's son Maḥmūd Khān whom rebels style Sl. Maḥmūd,[2517] had broken up. The same news was brought in by a spy who had gone out at the Mid-day Prayer from where we were; and a dutiful letter, agreeing with what the spy had reported, came from Tāj Khān _Sārang-khānī_ between the Afternoon and Evening Prayers. Sl. Muḥammad gave the following particulars:—that the rebels on reaching Chunār seemed to have laid siege to it and to have done a little fighting, but had risen in disorderly fashion when they heard of our approach; that Afghāns who had crossed the river for Benares, had turned back in like disorder; that two of their boats had sunk in crossing and a body of their men been drowned.

(_tt. Incidents of the eastward march resumed._)

(_March 6th_) After marching at Sunday's dawn (_25th_) and doing 6 _kurohs_ (12m.), Sīr-auliya,[2518] a _pargana_ of Pīāg*[2519] was reached. I went direct by boat.

Aīsan-tīmūr Sl. and Tūkhta-būghā Sl. had dismounted half-way, and were waiting to see me.[2520] I, for my part, invited them into the boat. Tūkhta-būghā Sl. must have wrought magic, for a bitter wind rose and rain began to fall. It became quite windy(?)[2521] on which account I ate _ma`jūn_, although I had done so on the previous day. Having come to the encamping-ground....[2522]

(_March 7th_?) Next day (_Monday 26th_?) we remained on the same ground.

(_March 8th_?) On Tuesday (_27th_?) we marched on.

Opposite the camp was what may be an island,[2523] large and verdant. I went over by boat to visit it, returning to the boat during the 1st watch (6-9 a.m.). While I rode carelessly along the ravine (_jar_) of the river, my horse got to where it was fissured and had begun to give way. I leapt off at once and flung myself on the bank; even the horse did not go down; probably, however, if I had stayed on its back, it and I would have gone down together.

On this same day, I swam the Gang-river (Ganges), counting every stroke;[2524] I crossed with 33, then, without resting, swam back. I had swum the other rivers, Gang had remained to do.[2525]

We reached the meeting of the waters of Gang and Jūn at the Evening Prayer, had the boat drawn to the Pīāg side, and got to camp at 1 watch, 4 _garīs_ (10.30 p.m.).

(_March 9th_) On Wednesday (_Jumāda II. 28th_) from the 1st watch onwards, the army began to cross the river Jūn; there were 420 boats.[2526]

(_March 11th_) On Friday, the 1st of the month of Rajab, I crossed the river.

(_March 14th_) On Monday, the 4th of the month, the march for Bihār began along the bank of Jūn. After 5 _kurohs_ (10m.) done, halt was made at Lawāīn.[2527] I went by boat. The people of the army were crossing the Jūn up to today. They were ordered to put the culverin-carts[2528] which had been landed at Ādampūr, into boats again and to bring them on by water from Pīāg.

On this ground we set wrestlers to wrestle. Dost-i-yāsīn-khair gripped the boatman Champion of Lāhor; the contest was stubborn; it was with great difficulty that Dost gave the throw. A head-to-foot was bestowed on each.

(_March 15th and 16th_) People said that ahead of us was a swampy, muddy, evil river called Tūs.[2529] In order to examine the ford*[2530] and repair the road, we waited two days (_Tuesday Ramzān 5th and Wednesday 6th_) on this ground. For the horses and camels a ford was found higher up, but people said laden carts could not get through it because of its uneven, stony bottom. [Sidenote: Fol. 364.] They were just ordered to get them through.

(_March 17th_) On Thursday (_7th_) we marched on. I myself went by boat down to where the Tūs meets the Gang (Ganges), there landed, thence rode up the Tūs, and, at the Other Prayer, reached where the army had encamped after crossing the ford. Today 6 _kurohs_ (12 m.) were done.

(_March 18th_) Next day (_Friday 8th_), we stayed on that ground.

(_March 19th_) On Saturday (_9th_), we marched 12 _kurohs_ and got to the bank of Gang again at Nulibā.[2531]

(_March 20th_) Marching on (_Sunday 10th_), we did 6 _kurohs_ of road, and dismounted at Kintit.[2532]

(_March 21st_) Marching on (_Monday 11th_), we dismounted at Nānāpur.[2533] Tāj Khān _Sārang-khānī_ came from Chunār to this ground with his two young sons, and waited on me.

In these days a dutiful letter came from Pay-master Sl. Muḥammad, saying that my family and train were understood to be really on their way from Kābul.[2534]

(_March 23rd_) On Wednesday (_13th_) we marched from that ground. I visited the fort of Chunār, and dismounted about one _kuroh_ beyond it.

During the days we were marching from Pīāg, painful boils had come out on my body. While we were on this ground, an Ottoman Turk (Rūmī) used a remedy which had been recently discovered in Rūm. He boiled pepper in a pipkin; I held the sores in the steam and, after steaming ceased, laved them with the hot water. The treatment lasted 2 sidereal hours.

While we were on this ground, a person said he had seen tiger and rhinoceros on an _ārāl_[2535] by the side of the camp.

(_March 24th_?) In the morning (_14th_?), we made the hunting-circle[2536] [Sidenote: Fol. 364b.] on that _ārāl_, elephants also being brought. Neither tiger nor rhino appeared; one wild buffalo came out at the end of the line. A bitter wind rising and the whirling dust being very troublesome, I went back to the boat and in it to the camp which was 2 _kurohs_ (4m.) above Banāras.

(_uu. News of the Afghāns._)

(_March 25th_ (?) _and 26th_) Having heard there were many elephants in the Chunār jungles, I had left (Thursday's) ground thinking to hunt them, but Tāj Khān bringing the news (_Friday 15th_(?)) that Maḥmūd Khān (_Lūdi_) was near the Son-water, I summoned the begs and took counsel as to whether to fall upon him suddenly. In the end it was settled to march on continuously, fast[2537] and far.

(_March 27th_) Marching on (_Sunday 17th_), we did 9 _kurohs_ (18m.), and dismounted at the Bilwah-ferry.[2538]

(_March 28th_) On Monday night[2539] the 18th of the month, T̤āhir was started for Āgra from this camp (Bilwah-ferry), taking money-drafts for the customary gifts of allowance and lodging[2540] to those on their way from Kābul.

Before dawn next morning (Monday) I went on by boat. When we came to where the Gūī-water (Gūmtī) which is the water of Jūnpūr, meets the Gang-water (Ganges), I went a little [Sidenote: Fol. 365.] way up it and back. Narrower[2541] though it is, it has no ford; the army-folk crossed it (last year) by boat, by raft, or by swimming their horses.

To look at our ground of a year ago,[2542] from which we had started for Jūnpūr,[2543] I went to about a _kuroh_ lower than the mouth of the Jūnpūr-water (Gūmtī). A favourable wind getting up behind, our larger boat was tied to a smaller Bengalī one which, spreading its sail, made very quick going. Two _garīs_ of day remained (5.15 p.m.) when we had reached that ground (Sayyidpur?), we went on without waiting there, and by the Bed-time Prayer had got to camp, which was a _kuroh_ above Madan-Benāres,[2544] long before the boats following us. Mughūl Beg had been ordered to measure all marches from Chunār on the direct road, Luṯfī Beg to measure the river's bank whenever I went by boat. The direct road today was said to be 11 _kurohs_ (22m.), the distance along the river, 18 (36m.).

(_March 29th_) Next day (_Tuesday 19th_), we stayed on that ground.

(_March 30th_) On Wednesday (_20th_), we dismounted a _kuroh_ (2m.) below Ghāzīpūr, I going by boat.

(_March 31st_) On Thursday (_21st_) Maḥmūd Khān _Nuḥānī_[2545] waited on me on that ground. On this same day dutiful letters[2546] came from Bihār Khān _Bihārī's_ son Jalāl Khān (_Nuḥānī_),[2547] from Naṣīr Khān (_Nūḥānī_)'s son Farīd Khān,[2548] from Sher Khān _Sūr_, from `Alāūl Khān _Sūr_ also, and from other Afghān amīrs. Today [Sidenote: Fol. 365b.] came also a dutiful letter from `Abdu'l-`azīz _Master-of-the-horse_, which had been written in Lāhor on the 20th of the latter Jumāda (_Feb. 29th_), the very day on which Qarācha's Hindūstānī servant whom we had started off from near Kālpī,[2549] reached Lāhor. `Abdu'l-`azīz wrote that he had gone with the others assigned to meet my family at Nīl-āb, had met them there on the 9th of the latter Jumāda (_Feb. 18th_), had accompanied them to Chīn-āb (Chan-āb), left them there, and come ahead to Lāhor where he was writing his letter.

(_April 1st_) We moved on, I going by boat, on Friday (_Rajab 22nd_). I landed opposite Chausā to look at the ground of a year ago[2550] where the Sun had been eclipsed and a fast kept.[2551] After I got back to the boat, Muḥammad-i-zamān Mīrzā, coming up behind by boat, overtook me; at his suggestion _ma`jūn_ was eaten.

The army had dismounted on the bank of the Karmā-nā['s]ā-river, about the water of which Hindūs are understood to be extremely scrupulous. They do not cross it, but go past its mouth by boat along the Gang (Ganges). They firmly believe that, if its water touch a person, the merit of his works is destroyed; with this belief its name accords.[2552] I went some way up it by [Sidenote: Fol. 366.] boat, turned back, went over to the north bank of Gang, and tied up. There the braves made a little fun, some wrestling. Muḥsin the cup-bearer challenged, saying, "I will grapple with four or five." The first he gripped, he threw; the second, who was Shādmān (Joyous), threw him, to Muḥsin's shame and vexation. The (professional) wrestlers came also and set to.

(_April 2nd_) Next morning, Saturday (_23rd_) we moved, close to the 1st watch (6 a.m.), in order to get people off to look at the ford through the Karmā-nā['s]ā-water. I rode up it for not less than a _kuroh_ (2 m.), but the ford being still far on,[2553] took boat and went to the camp below Chausā.

Today I used the pepper remedy again; it must have been somewhat hotter than before, for it blistered (_qāpārdī_) my body, giving me much pain.

(_April 3rd_) We waited a day for a road to be managed across a smallish, swampy rivulet heard to be ahead.[2554]

(_April 4th_) On the eve of Monday (_25th_),[2555] letters were written and sent off in answer to those brought by the Hindūstānī footman of `Abdu'l-`azīz.

The boat I got into at Monday's dawn, had to be towed because of the wind. On reaching the ground opposite Baksara (Buxar) [Sidenote: Fol. 366b.] where the army had been seated many days last year,[2556] we went over to look at it. Between 40 and 50 landing-steps had been then made on the bank; of them the upper two only were left, the river having destroyed the rest. _Ma`jūn_ was eaten after return to the boat. We tied up at an _ārāl_[2557] above the camp, set the champions to wrestle, and went on at the Bed-time Prayer. A year ago (_yīl-tūr_), an excursion had been made to look at the ground on which the camp now was, I passing through Gang swimming (? _dastak bīla_),[2558] some coming mounted on horses, some on camels. That day I had eaten opium.

(_vv. Incidents of the military operations._)

(_April 5th_) At Tuesday's dawn (_26th_), we sent out for news not under 200 effective braves led by Karīm-bīrdī and Ḥaidar the stirrup-holder's son Muḥammad `Alī and Bābā Shaikh.

While we were on this ground, the Bengal envoy was commanded to set forth these three articles:—[2559]

(_April 6th_) On Wednesday (_27th_) Yūnas-i-`alī who had been sent to gather Muḥammad-i-zamān Mīrzā's objections to Bihār, brought back rather a weak answer.

Dutiful letters from the (Farmūlī) Shaikh-zādas of Bihār gave news that the enemy had abandoned the place and gone off.

(_April 7th_) On Thursday (_28th_) as many as 2000 men of the Turk and Hind amīrs and quiver-wearers were joined to Muḥammad `Alī _Jang-jang's_ son Tardī-muḥammad, and he was [Sidenote: Fol. 367.] given leave to go, taking letters of royal encouragement to people in Bihār. He was joined also by Khwāja Murshid _`Irāqī_ who had been made Dīwān of Bihār.

(_April 8th_ (?)) Muḥammad-i-zamān M. who had consented to go to Bihār, made representation of several matters through Shaikh Zain and Yūnas-i-`alī. He asked for reinforcement; for this several braves were inscribed and several others were made his own retainers.

(_April 9th_)[2560] On Saturday the 1st of the month of Sha`bān, we left that ground where we had been for 3 or 4 days. I rode to visit Bhūjpūr and Bihiya,[2561] thence went to camp.

Muḥammad `Alī and the others, who had been sent out for news, after beating a body of pagans as they went along, reached the place where Sl. Maḥmūd (_Lūdī_) had been with perhaps 2000 men. He had heard of our reconnaissance, had broken up, killed two elephants of his, and marched off. He seemed to have left braves and an elephant[2562] scout-fashion; they made no stand when our men came up but took to flight. Ours unhorsed a few of his, cut one head off, brought in a few good men alive.

(_ww. Incidents of the eastward march resumed._)

(_April 10th_) We moved on next day (_Sunday 2nd_), I going by boat. From our today's ground Muḥammad-i-zamān M. crossed (his army) over the river (Son), leaving none behind. We spent 2 or 3 days on this ground in order to put his work through and [Sidenote: Fol. 367b.] get him off.

(_April 13th_) On Wednesday the 4th[2563] of the month, Muḥammad-i-zamān M. was presented with a royal head-to-foot, a sword and belt, a _tīpūchāq_ horse and an umbrella.[2564] He also was made to kneel (_yūkūndūrūldī_) for the Bihār country. Of the Bihār revenues one _krūr_ and 25 _laks_ were reserved for the Royal Treasury; its Dīwānī was entrusted to Murshid _`Irāqī_.

(_April 14th_) I left that ground by boat on Thursday (_6th_). I had already ordered the boats to wait, and on getting up with them, I had them fastened together abreast in line.[2565] Though all were not collected there, those there were greatly exceeded the breadth of the river. They could not move on, however, so-arranged, because the water was here shallow, there deep, here swift, there still. A crocodile (_gharīāl_) shewing itself, a terrified fish leaped so high as to fall into a boat; it was caught and brought to me.

When we were nearing our ground, we gave the boats names:—a [Sidenote: Fol. 368.] large[2566] one, formerly the Bāburī,[2567] which had been built in Āgra before the Holy-battle with Sangā, was named Asāīsh (Repose).[2568] Another, which Arāīsh Khān had built and presented to me this year before our army got to horse, one in which I had had a platform set up on our way to this ground, was named Arāīsh (Ornament). Another, a good-sized one presented to me by Jalālu'd-dīn _Sharqī_, was named the Gunjāīsh (Capacious); in it I had ordered a second platform set up, on the top of the one already in it. To a little skiff, having a _chaukandī_,[2569] one used for every task (_har āīsh_) and duty, was given the name Farmāīsh (Commissioned).

(_April 15th_) Next day, Friday (_7th_), no move was made. Muḥammad-i-zamān M. who, his preparations for Bihār complete, had dismounted one or two _kurohs_ from the camp, came today to take leave of me.[2570]

(_xx. News of the army of Bengal._)

Two spies, returned from the Bengal army, said that Bengalīs[2571] under Makhdūm-i-`ālam were posted in 24 places on the Gandak and there raising defences; that they had hindered the Afghāns from carrying out their intention to get their families across the river (Ganges?), and had joined them to themselves.[2572] This news making fighting probable, we detained Muḥammad-i-zamān Mīrzā, and sent Shāh Iskandar to Bihār with 3 or 400 men.

(_yy. Incidents of the eastward march resumed._)

[Sidenote: Fol. 368b.] (_April 16th_) On Saturday (_8th_) a person came in from Dūdū and her son Jalāl Khān (son) of Bihār Khān[2573] whom the Bengalī (Naṣrat Shāh) must have held as if eye-bewitched.[2574] After letting me know they were coming,[2575] they had done some straight fighting to get away from the Bengalīs, had crossed the river,[2576] reached Bihār, and were said now to be on their way to me.

This command was given today for the Bengal envoy Ismā`īl Mītā:—Concerning those three articles, about which letters have already been written and despatched, let him write that an answer is long in coming, and that if the honoured (Naṣrat Shāh) be loyal and of single-mind towards us, it ought to come soon.

(_April 17th_) In the night of Sunday (_9th_)[2577] a man came in from Tardī-muḥammad _Jang-jang_ to say that when, on Wednesday the 5th of the month Sha`bān, his scouts reached Bihār from this side, the Shiqdār of the place went off by a gate on the other side.

On Sunday morning we marched on and dismounted in the _pargana_ of Ārī (Ārrah).[2578]

(_zz. News and negotiations._)

To this ground came the news that the Kharīd[2579] army, with 100-150 boats, was said to be on the far side of the Sarū near the meeting of Sarū and Gang (Ghogrā and Ganges). As a sort of peace existed between us and the Bengalī (Naṣrat Shāh _Afghān_), and as, for the sake of a benediction, peace was our first endeavour whenever such work was toward as we were now on, we kept to our rule, notwithstanding his unmannerly conduct in setting himself on our road;[2580] we associated Mullā Maẕhab with his envoy Ismā`īl Mītā, spoke once more about those three articles [Sidenote: Fol. 369.] (_faṣl soz_), and decided to let the envoy go.

(_April 18th_) On Monday (_10th_) when the Bengal envoy came to wait on me, he was let know that he had his leave, and what follows was mentioned:[2581]—"We shall be going to this side and that side, in pursuit of our foe, but no hurt or harm will be done to any dependency of yours. As one of those three articles said,[2582] when you have told the army of Kharīd to rise off our road and to go back to Kharīd, let a few Turks be joined with it to reassure these Kharīd people and to escort them to their own place.[2583] If they quit not the ferry-head, if they cease not their unbecoming words, they must regard as their own act any ill that befalls them, must count any misfortune they confront as the fruit of their own words."

(_April 20th_) On Wednesday (_12th_) the usual dress of honour was put on the Bengal envoy, gifts were bestowed on him and his leave to go was given.

(_April 21st_) On Thursday (_13th_) Shaikh Jamālī was sent with royal letters of encouragement to Dūdū and her son Jalāl Khān.

Today a servant of Māhīm's came, who will have parted from the Wālī(?)[2584] on the other side of the Bāgh-i-ṣafā.

(_April 23rd_) On Saturday (_15th_) an envoy from `Irāq, Murād _Qajar_[2585] the life-guardsman, was seen.

(_April 24th_) On Sunday (_16th_) Mullā Maẕhab received his usual keepsakes (_yādgārlār_) and was given leave to go.

[Sidenote: Fol. 369b.] (_April 25th_) On Monday (_17th_) Khalīfa was sent, with several begs, to see where the river (Ganges) could be crossed.

(_April 27th_) On Wednesday, (_19th_) Khalīfa again was sent out, to look at the ground between the two rivers (Ganges and Ghogrā).

On this same day I rode southward in the Ārī (Ārrah) _pargana_ to visit the sheets of lotus[2586] near Ārī. During the excursion Shaikh Gūran brought me fresh-set lotus-seeds, first-rate little things just like pistachios. The flower, that is to say, the _nīlūfar_ (lotus), Hindūstānīs call _kuwul-kikrī_ (lotus-pistachio), and its seed _dūdah_ (soot).

As people said, "The Son is near," we went to refresh ourselves on it. Masses of trees could be seen down-stream; "Munīr is there," said they, "where the tomb is of Shaikh Yaḥyā the father of Shaikh Sharafu'd-dīn _Munīrī_."[2587] It being so close, I crossed the Son, went 2 or 3 _kurohs_ down it, traversed the Munīr orchards, made the circuit of the tomb, returned to the Son-bank, made ablution, went through the Mid-day Prayer before time, and made for camp. Some of our horses, being fat,[2588] had fallen behind; some were worn out; a few people were left to gather them together, water them, rest them, and bring them on without pressure; but for this many would have been ruined.

When we turned back from Munīr, I ordered that some-one [Sidenote: Fol. 370.] should count a horse's steps between the Son-bank and the camp. They amounted to 23,100, which is 46,200 paces, which is 11-1/2 _kurohs_ (23m.).[2589] It is about half a _kuroh_ from Munīr to the Son; the return journey from Munīr to the camp was therefore 12 _kurohs_ (24m.). In addition to this were some 15-16 _kurohs_ done in visiting this and that place; so that the whole excursion was one of some 30 _kurohs_ (60m.). Six _garīs_ of the 1st night-watch had passed [8.15 p.m.] when we reached the camp.

(_April 28th_) At the dawn of Thursday (_Sha`bān 19th_) Sl. Junaid _Barlās_ came in with the Jūnpūr braves from Jūnpūr. I let him know my blame and displeasure on account of his delay; I did not see him. Qāẓī Jīā I sent for and saw.

(_aaa. Plan of the approaching battle with the Bengal army._)

On the same day the Turk and Hind amīrs were summoned for a consultation about crossing Gang (Ganges), and matters found settlement at this[2590]:—that Ūstād `Alī-qulī should collect mortar, _firingī_,[2591] and culverin[2592] to the point of rising ground between the rivers Sarū and Gang, and, having many matchlockmen with him, should incite to battle from that place;[2593] that Muṣṯafa, he also having many matchlockmen, should get his material and implements ready on the Bihār side of Gang, a little below the meeting of the waters and opposite to where on an island the Bengalīs had an elephant and a mass of boats tied up, and that he should engage battle from this place;[2594] that Muḥammad-i-zamān Mīrzā and the others inscribed for the work should take post behind Muṣṯafa as his reserve; that both for Ūstād `Alī-qulī and Muṣṯafa shelters (_muljār_) for the culverin-firers should be raised by a mass of spadesmen and coolies (_kahār_) [Sidenote: Fol. 370b.] under appointed overseers; that as soon as these shelters were ready, `Askarī and the sulṯāns inscribed for the work should cross quickly at the Haldī-passage[2595] and come down on the enemy; that meantime, as Sl. Junaid and Qāẓī Jīā had given information about a crossing-place[2596] 8 _kurohs_ (16 m.) higher up,[2597] Zard-rūī(Pale-face?) should go with a few raftsmen and some of the people of the Sulṯān, Maḥmūd Khān _Nūḥānī_ and Qāẓī Jīā to look at that crossing; and that, if crossing there were, they should go over at once, because it was rumoured that the Bengalīs were planning to post men at the Haldī-passage.

A dutiful letter from Maḥmūd Khān the Military-collector (_shiqdār_) of Sikandarpūr now came, saying that he had collected as many as 50 boats at the Haldī-passage and had given wages to the boatmen, but that these were much alarmed at the rumoured approach of the Bengalīs.

(_April 30th_) As time pressed[2598] for crossing the Sarū, I did not wait for the return of those who had gone to look at the passage, but on Saturday (_21st_) summoned the begs for consultation and said, "As it has been reported that there are (no?) crossing-places (fords?) along the whole of the ground from Chatur-mūk in Sikandarpūr to Barāīch and Aūd,[2599] let us, while seated here, assign the large force to cross at the Haldī-passage by boat and from there [Sidenote: Fol. 371.] to come down on the enemy; let Ūstād `Alī-qulī and Muṣṯafa engage battle with gun (_top_), matchlock, culverin and _firingī_, and by this draw the enemy out before `Askarī comes up.[2600] Let us after crossing the river (Ganges) and assigning reinforcement to Ūstād `Alī-qulī, take our stand ready for whatever comes; if `Askarī's troops get near, let us fling attack from where we are, cross over and assault; let Muḥammad-i-zamān Mīrzā and those appointed to act with him, engage battle from near Muṣṯafa on the other side of Gang."

The matter having been left at this, the force for the north of the Gang was formed into four divisions to start under `Askarī's command for the Haldī-passage. One division was of `Askarī and his retainers; another was Sl. Jalālu'd-dīn _Sharqī_; another was of the Aūzbeg sulṯāns Qāsim-i-ḥusain Sulṯān, Bī-khūb Sulṯān and Tāng-aītmīsh Sulṯān, together with Maḥmūd Khān _Nūḥānī_ of Ghāzīpūr, Bābā Qashqa's Kūkī, Tūlmīsh _Aūzbeg_, Qurbān of Chīrkh, and the Daryā-khānīs led by Ḥasan Khān; another was of Mūsā Sl. (_Farmūlī_) and Sl. Junaid with what-not of the Jūnpūr army, some 20,000 men. Officers were appointed to oversee the getting of the force to horse that very night, that is to say, the [Sidenote: Fol. 371b.] night of Sunday.[2601]

(_May 1st_) The army began to cross Gang at the dawn of Sunday (_Sha`bān 22nd_); I went over by boat at the 1st watch (6a.m.). Zard-rūī and his party came in at mid-day; the ford itself they had not found but they brought news of boats and of having met on the road the army getting near them.[2602]

(_May 3rd_) On Tuesday (_Sha`bān 24th_) we marched from where the river had been crossed, went on for nearly one _kuroh_ (2 m.) and dismounted on the fighting-ground at the confluence.[2603] I myself went to enjoy Ūstād `Alī-qulī's firing of culverin and _firingī_; he hit two boats today with _firingī_-stones, broke them and sank them. Muṣṯafa did the same from his side. I had the large mortar[2604] taken to the fighting-ground, left Mullā Ghulām to superintend the making of its position, appointed a body of _vasāwals_[2605] and active braves to help him, went to an island facing the camp and there ate _ma`jūn_.

Whilst still under the influence of the confection[2606] I had the boat taken to near the tents and there slept. A strange thing happened in the night, a noise and disturbance arising about the 3rd watch (midnight) and the pages and others snatching up pieces of wood from the boat, and shouting "Strike! strike!" [Sidenote: Fol. 372.] What was said to have led to the disturbance was that a night-guard who was in the Farmāīsh along-side the Asāīsh in which I was sleeping,[2607] opening his eyes from slumber, sees a man with his hand on the Asāīsh as if meaning to climb into her. They fall on him;[2608] he dives, comes up again, cuts at the night-guard's head, wounding it a little, then runs off at once towards the river.[2609] Once before, on the night we returned from Munīr, one or two night-guards had chased several Hindūstānīs from near the boats, and had brought in two swords and a dagger of theirs. The Most High had me in His Keeping!

(_Persian_) Were the sword of the world to leap forth, It would cut not a vein till God will.[2610]

(_May 4th_) At the dawn of Wednesday (_25th_), I went in the boat Gunjāīsh to near the stone-firing ground (_tāsh-ātār-yīr_) and there posted each soever to his work.

(_bbb. Details of the engagement._)

Aūghān-bīrdī _Mughūl_, leading not less than 1,000 men, had been sent to get, in some way or other, across the river (Sarū) one, two, three _kurohs_ (2, 4, 6m.) higher up. A mass of foot-soldiers, crossing from opposite `Askarī's camp,[2611] landed from 20-30 boats on his road, presumably thinking to show their superiority, but Aūghān-bīrdī and his men charged them, put them to flight, took a few and cut their heads off, shot many with arrows, and got possession of 7 or 8 boats. Today also Bengalīs crossed in a few boats to Muḥammad-i-zamān Mīrzā's side, there landed and [Sidenote: Fol. 372b.] provoked to fight. When attacked they fled, and three boat-loads of them were drowned. One boat was captured and brought to me. In this affair Bābā the Brave went forward and exerted himself excellently.

Orders were given that in the darkness of night the boats Aūghān-bīrdī had captured should be drawn[2612] up-stream, and that in them there should cross Muḥammad Sl. Mīrzā, Yakka Khwāja, Yūnas-i-`alī, Aūghān-bīrdī and those previously assigned to go with them.

Today came a man from `Askarī to say that he had crossed the [Sarū]-water, leaving none behind, and that he would come down on the enemy at next day's dawn, that is to say, on Thursday's. Here-upon those already ordered to cross over were told to join `Askarī and to advance upon the enemy with him.

At the Mid-day Prayer a person came from Ūstā, saying "The stone is ready; what is the order?" The order was, "Fire this stone off; keep the next till I come." Going at the Other Prayer in a very small Bengalī skiff to where shelter (_muljār_) had been raised, I saw Ūstā fire off one large stone and several small _firingī_ ones. Bengalīs have a reputation for fire-working;[2613] we tested it now; they do not fire counting to hit a particular spot, but fire at random.

At this same Other Prayer orders were given to draw a few boats up-stream along the enemy's front. A few were got past without a "God forbid!"[2614] from those who, all unprotected, drew [Sidenote: Fol. 373.] them up. Aīsān-tīmūr Sl. and Tūkhta-būghā Sl. were ordered to stay at the place those boats reached, and to keep watch over them. I got back to camp in the 1st night-watch of Thursday.[2615]

Near midnight came news from (Aūghān-bīrdī's) boats which were being drawn up-stream, "The force appointed had gone somewhat ahead; we were following, drawing the boats, when the Bengalīs got to know where we were drawing them and attacked. A stone hit a boatman in the leg and broke it, we could not pass on."

(_May 5th_) At dawn on Thursday (_Sha`bān 26th_) came the news from those at the shelter, "All the boats have come from above.[2616] The enemy's horse has ridden to meet our approaching army." On this, I got our men mounted quickly and rode out to above those boats[2617] that had been drawn up in the night. A galloper was sent off with an order for Muḥammad Sl. M. and those appointed to cross with him, to do it at once and join `Askarī. The order for Aīsān-tīmūr Sl. and Tūkhta-būghā Sl. who were above these boats,[2618] was that they should busy themselves to cross. Bābā Sl. was not at his post.[2619]

Aīsān-tīmūr Sl. at once crosses, in one boat with 30-40 of his retainers who hold their horses by the mane at the boat-side. [Sidenote: Fol. 373b.] A second boat follows. The Bengalīs see them crossing and start off a mass of foot-soldiers for them. To meet these go 7 or 8 of Aīsān-tīmūr Sl.'s retainers, keeping together, shooting off arrows, drawing those foot-soldiers towards the Sulṯān who meantime is getting his men mounted; meantime also the second boat is moving (_rawān_). When his 30-35 horsemen charge those foot-soldiers, they put them well to flight. Aīsān-tīmūr did distinguished work, first in crossing before the rest, swift, steady, and without a "God forbid!", secondly in his excellent advance, with so few men, on such a mass of foot, and by putting these to flight. Tūkhta-būghā Sl. also crossed. Then boats followed one after another. Lāhorīs and Hindūstānīs began to cross from their usual posts[2620] by swimming or on bundles of reeds.[2621] Seeing how matters were going, the Bengalīs of the boats opposite the shelter (Muṣṯafa's), set their faces for flight down-stream.

Darwīsh-i-muḥammad _Sārbān_, Dost Lord-of-the-gate, Nūr Beg and several braves also went across the river. I made a man gallop off to the Sulṯāns to say, "Gather well together those who [Sidenote: Fol. 374.] cross, go close to the opposing army, take it in the flank, and get to grips." Accordingly the Sulṯāns collected those who crossed, formed up into 3 or 4 divisions, and started for the foe. As they draw near, the enemy-commander, without breaking his array, flings his foot-soldiers to the front and so comes on. Kūkī comes up with a troop from `Askarī's force and gets to grips on his side; the Sulṯāns get to grips on theirs; they get the upper hand, unhorse man after man, and make the enemy scurry off. Kūkī's men bring down a Pagan of repute named Basant Rāō and cut off his head; 10 or 15 of his people fall on Kūkī's, and are instantly cut to pieces. Tūkhta-būghā Sl. gallops along the enemy's front and gets his sword well in. Mughūl `Abdu'l-wahhāb and his younger brother gets theirs in well too. Mughūl though he did not know how to swim, had crossed the river holding to his horse's mane.

I sent for my own boats which were behind;[2622] the Farmāīsh coming up first, I went over in it to visit the Bengalīs' encamping-grounds. I then went into the Gunjāīsh. "Is there a crossing-place higher up?" I asked. Mīr Muḥammad the raftsman represented that the Sarū was better to cross higher up;[2623] accordingly the army-folk[2624] were ordered to cross at the higher place he named.

While those led by Muḥammad Sl. Mīrzā were crossing the [Sidenote: Fol. 374b.] river,[2625] the boat in which Yakka Khwāja was, sank and he went to God's mercy. His retainers and lands were bestowed on his younger brother Qāsim Khwāja.

The Sulṯāns arrived while I was making ablution for the Mid-day Prayer; I praised and thanked them and led them to expect guerdon and kindness. `Askarī also came; this was the first affair he had seen; one well-omened for him!

As the camp had not yet crossed the river, I took my rest in the boat Gunjāīsh, near an island.

(_ccc. Various incidents of the days following the battle._)

(_May 6th_) During the day of Friday (_Sha`bān 27th_) we landed at a village named Kūndīh[2626] in the Nirhun _pargana_ of Kharīd on the north side of the Sarū.[2627]

(_May 8th_) On Sunday (_29th_) Kūkī was sent to Ḥājīpūr for news.

Shāh Muḥammad (son) of Ma`rūf to whom in last year's campaign (934 AH.) I had shown great favour and had given the Sāran-country, had done well on several occasions, twice fighting and overcoming his father Ma`rūf.[2628] At the time when Sl. Maḥmūd _Lūdī_ perfidiously took possession of Bihār and was opposed by Shaikh Bāyazīd and Bīban, Shāh Muḥammad had no help for it, he had to join them; but even then, when people were saying wild words about him, he had written dutifully to me. When `Askarī crossed at the Haldī-passage, Shāh [Sidenote: Fol. 375.] Muḥammad had come at once with a troop, seen him and with him gone against the Bengalīs. He now came to this ground and waited on me.

During these days news came repeatedly that Bīban and Shaikh Bāyazīd were meaning to cross the Sarū-river.

In these days of respite came the surprising news from Sanbal (Saṃbhal) where `Alī-i-yūsuf had stayed in order to bring the place into some sort of order, that he and a physician who was by way of being a friend of his, had gone to God's mercy on one and the same day. `Abdu'l-lāh (_kitābdār_) was ordered to go and maintain order in Sanbal.

(_May 13th_) On Friday the 5th of the month Ramẓān, `Abdu'l-lāh was given leave for Sanbal.[2629]

(_ddd. News from the westward._)

In these same days came a dutiful letter from Chīn-tīmūr Sl. saying that on account of the journey of the family from Kābul, several of the begs who had been appointed to reinforce him, had not been able to join him;[2630] also that he had gone out with Muḥammadī and other begs and braves, not less than 100 _kurohs_ (200m.), attacked the Balūchīs and given them a good beating.[2631] Orders were sent through `Abdu'l-lāh (_kitābdār_) for the Sulṯān that he and Sl. Muḥammad _Dūldāī_, Muḥammadī, and some of the begs and braves of that country-side should assemble in Āgra and there remain ready to move to wherever an enemy appeared.

(_eee. Settlement with the Nūḥānī Afghāns._)

(_May 16th_) On Monday the 8th of the month, Daryā Khān's [Sidenote: Fol. 375b.] grandson Jalāl Khān to whom Shaikh Jamālī had gone, came in with his chief amīrs and waited on me.[2632] Yaḥyā _Nūḥānī_ also came, who had already sent his younger brother in sign of submission and had received a royal letter accepting his service. Not to make vain the hope with which some 7 or 8,000 _Nūḥānī_ Afghāns had come in to me, I bestowed 50 _laks_ from Bīhār on Maḥmūd Khān _Nūḥānī_, after reserving one _krūr_ for Government uses (_khalṣa_), and gave the remainder of the Bihār revenues in trust for the above-mentioned Jalāl Khān who for his part agreed to pay one _krūr_ of tribute. Mullā Ghulām _yasāwal_ was sent to collect this tribute.[2633] Muḥammad-i-zamān Mīrzā received the Jūnapūr-country.[2634]

(_fff. Peace made with Naṣrat Shāh._)

(_May 19th_) On the eve of Thursday (_11th_) that retainer of Khalīfa's, Ghulām-i-`alī by name, who in company with a retainer of the Shāh-zāda of Mungīr named Abū'l-fatḥ,[2635] had gone earlier than Ismā`īl Mītā, to convey those three articles (_faṣl soz_), now returned, again in company with Abū'l-fatḥ, bringing letters for Khalīfa written by the Shāh-zāda and by Ḥusain Khān _Laskar_(?) _Wazīr_, who, in these letters, gave assent to those three conditions, took upon themselves to act for Naṣrat Shāh and interjected a word for peace. As the object of this campaign was to put down the rebel Afghāns of whom some had taken their heads and gone off, some had come in submissive and accepting my service, and the remaining few were in the hands of the Bengalī [Sidenote: Fol. 376.] (Naṣrat Shāh) who had taken them in charge, and as, moreover, the Rains were near, we in our turn wrote and despatched words for peace on the conditions mentioned.

(_ggg_. _Submissions and guerdon._)

(_May 21st_) On Saturday (_13th_) Ismā`īl _Jālwānī_, `Alāūl Khān _Nūḥānī_, Auliya Khān _Ashrāqī_(?) and 5 and 6 amīrs came in and waited on me.

Today guerdon was bestowed on Aīsān-tīmūr Sl. and Tūkhta-būghā Sl., of swords and daggers with belts, cuirasses, dresses of honour, and _tīpūchāq_ horses; also they were made to kneel, Aīsān-tīmūr Sl. for the grant of 36 _laks_ from the Nārnūl _pargana_, Tūkhta-bughā Sl. for 30 _laks_ from that of Shamsābād.

(_hhh_. _Pursuit of Bāyazīd and Bīban._)

(_May 23rd_) On Monday the 15th of the month (_Ramẓān_), we marched from our ground belonging to Kūndbah (or Kūndīh) on the Sarū-river, with easy mind about Bihār and Bengal, and resolute to crush the traitors Bīban and Shaikh Bāyazīd.

(_May 25th_) On Wednesday (_17th_) after making two night-halts by the way, we dismounted at a passage across the Sarū, called Chaupāra-Chaturmūk of Sikandarpūr.[2636] From today people were busy in crossing the river.

As news began to come again and again that the traitors, after crossing Sarū and Gogar,[2637] were going toward Luknū,[2638] the following leaders were appointed to bar (their) crossing[2639]:—The Turk and Hind amīrs Jalālu'd-dīn _Sharqī_, `Alī Khān _Farmūlī_; Tardīka (or, Tardī _yakka_), Nizām Khān of Bīāna, together with Tūlmīsh _Aūzbeg_, Qurbān of Chīrk and Daryā Khān (of Bhīra's [Sidenote: Fol. 376b.] son) Ḥasan Khān. They were given leave to go on the night of Thursday.[2640]

(_iii. Damage done to the Bābur-nāma writings._)

That same night when 1 watch (_pās_), 5 _garīs_ had passed (_cir._ 10.55 p.m.) and the _tarāwīḥ_-prayers were over,[2641] such a storm burst, in the inside of a moment, from the up-piled clouds of the Rainy-season, and such a stiff gale rose, that few tents were left standing. I was in the Audience-tent, about to write (_kitābat qīlā dūr aīdīm_); before I could collect papers and sections,[2642] the tent came down, with its porch, right on my head. The _tūnglūq_ went to pieces.[2643] God preserved me! no harm befell me! Sections and book[2644] were drenched under water and gathered together with much difficulty. We laid them in the folds of a woollen throne-carpet,[2645] put this on the throne and on it piled blankets. The storm quieted down in about 2 _garīs_ (45m.); the bedding-tent was set up, a lamp lighted, and, after much trouble, a fire kindled. We, without sleep, were busy till shoot of day drying folios and sections.

(_jjj. Pursuit of Bīban and Bāyazīd resumed._)

(_May 26th_) I crossed the water on Thursday morning (_Ramān 18th_).

(_May 27th_) On Friday (_19th_) I rode out to visit Sikandarpūr and Kharīd.[2646] Today came matters written by `Abdu`l-lāh (_kitābdār_) and Bāqī about the taking of Luknūr.[2647]

(_May 28th_) On Saturday (_20th_) Kūkī was sent ahead, with a troop, to join Bāqī.[2648]

(_May 29th_) That nothing falling to be done before my arrival might be neglected, leave to join Bāqī was given on Sunday (_21st_) to Sl. Junaid _Barlās_, Khalīfa's (son) Ḥasan, Mullā Apāq's [Sidenote: Fol. 377.] retainers, and the elder and younger brethren of Mumin Ātāka.

Today at the Other Prayer a special dress of honour and a _tīpūchāq_ horse were bestowed on Shāh Muḥammad (son) of Ma`rūf _Farmūlī_, and leave to go was given. As had been done last year (934 AH.), an allowance from Sāran and Kūndla[2649] was bestowed on him for the maintenance of quiver-wearers. Today too an allowance of 72 _laks_[2650] from Sarwār and a _tīpūchāq_ horse were bestowed on Ismā`īl _Jalwānī_, and his leave was given.

About the boats Gunjāīsh and Arāīsh it was settled with Bengalīs that they should take them to Ghāzīpūr by way of Tīr-mūhānī.[2651] The boats Asāīsh and Farmāīsh were ordered taken up the Sarū with the camp.

(_May 30th_) On Monday (_Ramẓān 22nd_) we marched from the Chaupāra-Chaturmūk passage along the Sarū, with mind at ease about Bihār and Sarwār,[2652] and after doing as much as 10 _kurohs_ [Sidenote: Fol. 377b.] (20m.) dismounted on the Sarū in a village called Kilirah (?) dependent on Fatḥpūr.[2653]

(_kkk. A surmised survival of the record of 934. A.H._[2654])

*After spending several days pleasantly in that place where there are gardens, running-waters, well-designed buildings, trees, particularly mango-trees, and various birds of coloured plumage, I ordered the march to be towards Ghāzīpūr.

Ismā`īl Khān _Jalwānī_ and `Alāūl Khān _Nūḥānī_ had it represented to me that they would come to Āgra after seeing their native land (_watn_). On this the command was, "I will give an order in a month."*[2655]

(_lll. The westward march resumed._)

(_May 31st_) Those who marched early (_Tuesday, Ramẓān 23rd_), having lost their way, went to the great lake of Fatḥpūr (?).[2656] People were sent galloping off to fetch back such as were near and Kīchīk Khwāja was ordered to spend the night on the lakeshore and to bring the rest on next morning to join the camp. We marched at dawn; I got into the Asāīsh half-way and had it towed to our ground higher up.

(_mmm. Details of the capture of a fort by Bīban and Bāyazīd._)

On the way up, Khalīfa brought Shāh Muḥammad _dīwāna's_ son who had come from Bāqī bringing this reliable news about Luknūr[2657]:—They (_i.e._ Bīban and Bāyazīd) hurled their assault on Saturday the 13th of the month Ramẓān (_May 21st_) but could do nothing by fighting; while the fighting was going on, a collection of wood-chips, hay, and thorns in the fort took fire, so that inside the walls it became as hot as an oven (_tanūrdīk tafsān_); the garrison could not move round the rampart; the fort was lost. When the enemy heard, two or three days later, of our return (westwards), he fled towards Dalmau.[2658]

Today after doing as much as 10 _kurohs_ (20m.), we dismounted beside a village called Jalisir,[2659] on the Sarū-bank, in the Sagrī _pargāna_.

(_June 1st_) We stayed on the same ground through Wednesday (_24th_), in order to rest our cattle.

(_nnn. Dispositions against Bīban and Bāyazīd._)

Some said they had heard that Bīban and Bāyazīd had crossed Gang, and thought of withdrawing themselves to their kinsfolk [Sidenote: Fol. 378.]

(_nisbahsīlār_) by way of....[2660] Here-upon the begs were summoned for a consultation and it was settled that Muḥammad-i-zamān Mīrzā and Sl. Junaid _Barlās_ who in place of Jūnpūr had been given Chunār with several _parganas_, Maḥmud Khān _Nūḥānī_, Qāẓī Jīā, and Tāj Khān _Sarāng-khānī_ should block the enemy's road at Chunār.[2661]

(_June 2nd_) Marching early in the morning of Thursday (_25th_), we left the Sarū-river, did 11 _kurohs_ (22 m.), crossed the Parsarū (Sarjū) and dismounted on its bank.

Here the begs were summoned, discussion was had, and the leaders named below were appointed to go detached from the army, in rapid pursuit of Bīban and Bāyazīd towards Dalmūṯ (Dalmau):—Aīsān-tīmūr Sl., Muḥammad Sl. M., Tūkhta-būghā Sl., Qāsim-i-ḥusain Sl., Bī-khūb (Nī-khūb) Sl., Muz̤affar-i-ḥusain Sl., Qāsim Khwāja, Ja`far Khwāja, Zahid Khwāja, Jānī Beg, `Askarī's retainer Kīchīk Khwāja, and, of Hind amīrs, `Ālam Khān of Kālpī, Malik-dād _Kararānī_, and Rāo (Rāwūī) _Sarwāni_.

(_ooo. The march continued._)

When I went at night to make ablution in the Parsarū, people were catching a mass of fish that had gathered round a lamp on the surface of the water. I like others took fish in my hands.[2662]

(_June 3rd_) On Friday (_26th_) we dismounted on a very slender stream, the head-water of a branch of the Parsarū. In order not to be disturbed by the comings and goings of the army-folk, [Sidenote: Fol. 378b.] I had it dammed higher up and had a place, 10 by 10, made for ablution. The night of the 27th[2663] was spent on this ground.

(_June 4th_) At the dawn of the same day (_Saturday 27th_) we left that water, crossed the Tūs and dismounted on its bank.[2664]

(_June 5th_) On Sunday (_28th_) we dismounted on the bank of the same water.

(_June 6th_) On Monday the 29th of the month (_Ramẓān_), our station was on the bank of the same Tūs-water. Though tonight the sky was not quite clear, a few people saw the Moon, and so testifying to the Qāẓī, fixed the end of the month (_Ramẓān_).

(_June 7th_) On Tuesday (_Shawwāl 1st_) we made the Prayer of the Festival, at dawn rode on, did 10 _kurohs_ (20 m.), and dismounted on the bank of the Gūī (Gūmtī), a _kuroh_ (2 m.) from Māīng.[2665] The sin of _ma`jūn_ was committed (_irtikāb qīlīldī_) near the Mid-day Prayer; I had sent this little couplet of invitation to Shaikh Zain, Mullā Shihāb and Khwānd-amīr:—

(_Turkī_) Shaikh and Mullā Shihāb and Khwānd-amir, Come all three, or two, or one.

Darwīsh-i-muḥammad (_Sārbān_), Yūnas-i-`alī and `Abdu'l-lāh (_`asas_)[2666] were also there. At the Other Prayer the wrestlers set to.

(_June 8th_) On Wednesday (_2nd_) we stayed on the same ground. Near breakfast-time _ma`jūn_ was eaten. Today Malik Sharq came in who had been to get Tāj Khān out of Chunār.[2667] When the wrestlers set to today, the Champion of Aūd who had come earlier, grappled with and threw a Hindūstānī wrestler who had [Sidenote: Fol. 379.] come in the interval.

Today Yaḥyā _Nuḥāni_ was granted an allowance of 15 _laks_ from Parsarūr,[2668] made to put on a dress of honour, and given his leave.

(_June 9th_) Next day (_Thursday 3rd_) we did 11 _kurohs_ (22 m.), crossed the Gūī-water (Gūmtī), and dismounted on its bank.

(_ppp. Concerning the pursuit of Bīban and Bāyazīd._)

News came in about the sulṯāns and begs of the advance that they had reached Dalmūd (Dalmau), but were said not yet to have crossed the water (Ganges). Angered by this (delay), I sent orders, "Cross the water at once; follow the track of the rebels; cross Jūn (Jumna) also; join `Ālam Khān to yourselves; be energetic and get to grips with the adversary."

(_qqq. The march continued._)

(_June 10th_) After leaving this water (_Gūmtī_, _Friday 4th_) we made two night-halts and reached Dalmūd (Dalmau), where most of the army-folk crossed Gang, there and then, by a ford. While the camp was being got over, _ma`jūn_ was eaten on an island (_ārāl_) below the ford.

(_June 13th_) After crossing, we waited one day (_Monday 7th_) for all the army-folk to get across. Today Bāqī _Tāshkīndī_ came in with the army of Aūd (Ajodhya) and waited on me.

(_June 14th_) Leaving the Gang-water (Ganges, _Tuesday 8th_), we made one night-halt, then dismounted (_June 15th-Shawwāl 9th_) beside Kūrarah (Kūra Khāṣ) on the Arind-water. The distance from Dalmūd (Dalmau) to Kūrarah came out at 22 _kurohs_ (44 m.).[2669]

(_June 16th_) On Thursday (_10th_) we marched early from that ground and dismounted opposite the Ādampūr _pargana_.[2670]

To enable us to cross (Jūn) in pursuit of our adversaries, a few [Sidenote: Fol. 379b.] raftsmen had been sent forward to collect at Kālpī what boats were to be had; some boats arrived the night we dismounted, moreover a ford was found through the Jūn-river.

As the encamping-place was full of dust, we settled ourselves on an island and there stayed the several days we were on that ground.

(_rrr. Concerning Bīban and Bāyazīd._)

Not getting reliable news about the enemy, we sent Bāqī _shaghāwal_ with a few braves of the interior[2671] to get information about him.

(_June 17th_) Next day (_Friday 11th_) at the Other Prayer, one of Bāqī Beg's retainers came in. Bāqī had beaten scouts of Bīban and Bāyazīd, killed one of their good men, Mubārak Khān _Jalwānī_, and some others, sent in several heads, and one man alive.

(_June 18th_) At dawn (_Saturday 12th_) Paymaster Shāh Ḥusain came in, told the story of the beating of the scouts, and gave various news.

Tonight, that is to say, the night of Sunday the 13th of the month,[2672] the river Jūn came down in flood, so that by the dawn, the whole of the island on which I was settled, was under water. I moved to another an arrow's-flight down-stream, there had a tent set up and settled down.

(_June 20th_) On Monday (_14th_) Jalāl _Tāshkīndī_ came from the begs and sulṯāns of the advance. Shaikh Bāyazīd and Bīban, on hearing of their expedition, had fled to the _pargana_ of Mahūba.[2673] [Sidenote: Fol. 380.]

As the Rains had set in and as after 5 or 6 months of active service, horses and cattle in the army were worn out, the sulṯāns and begs of the expedition were ordered to remain where they were till they received fresh supplies from Āgra and those parts. At the Other Prayer of the same day, leave was given to Bāqī and the army of Aūd (Ajodhya). Also an allowance of 30 _lāks_[2674] from Amrohā was assigned to Mūsa (son) of Ma`rūf _Farmūlī_, who had waited on me at the time the returning army was crossing the Sarū-water,[2675] a special head-to-foot and saddled horse were bestowed on him, and he was given his leave.

(_sss. Bābur returns to Āgra._)

(_June 21st_) With an easy mind about these parts, we set out for Āgra, raid-fashion,[2676] when 3 _pās_ 1 _garī_ of Tuesday night were past.[2677] In the morning (_Tuesday 15th_) we did 16 _kurohs_ (32 m.), near mid-day made our nooning in the _pargana_ of Balādar, one of the dependencies of Kālpī, there gave our horses barley, at the Evening Prayer rode on, did 13 _kurohs_ (26 m.) in the night, at the 3rd night-watch (_mid-night_, _Shawwāl 15-16th_) dismounted at Bahādur Khān _Sarwānī's_ tomb at Sūgandpūr, a _pargana_ of Kālpī, slept a little, went through the Morning Prayer and hurried on. After doing 16 _kurohs_ (32 m.), we reached Etāwa at the fall of day, where Mahdī Khwāja came out to meet us.[2678] Riding [Sidenote: Fol. 380b.] on after the 1st night-watch (9 p.m.), we slept a little on the way, did 16 _kurohs_ (32 m.), took our nooning at Fatḥpūr of Rāprī, rode on soon after the Mid-day Prayer (_Thursday Shawwāl 17th_), did 17 _kurohs_ (34 m.), and in the 2nd night-watch[2679] dismounted in the Garden-of-eight-paradises at Āgra.

(_June 24th_) At the dawn of Friday (_18th_) Pay-master Sl. Muḥammad came with several more to wait on me. Towards the Mid-day Prayer, having crossed Jūn, I waited on Khwāja `Abdu'l-ḥaqq, went into the Fort and saw the begīms my paternal-aunts.

(_ttt. Indian-grown fruits._)

A Balkhī melon-grower had been set to raise melons; he now brought a few first-rate small ones; on one or two bush-vines (_būta-tāk_) I had had planted in the Garden-of-eight-paradises very good grapes had grown; Shaikh Gūran sent me a basket of grapes which too were not bad. To have grapes and melons grown in this way in Hindūstān filled my measure of content.

(_uuu. Arrival of Māhīm Begīm._)

(_June 26th_) Māhīm arrived while yet two watches of Sunday night (_Shawwāl 20th_)[2680] remained. By a singular agreement of things they had left Kābul on the very day, the 10th of the 1st Jumāda (_Jan. 21st 1529_) on which I rode out to the army.[2681]

(_Here the record of 11 days is wanting._)

(_July 7th_) On Thursday the 1st of Ẕū'l-qa`da the offerings made by Humāyūn and Māhīm were set out while I sat in the large Hall of Audience.

Today also wages were given to 150 porters (_kahār_) and they were started off under a servant of Faghfūr _Dīwān_ to fetch melons, grapes, and other fruits from Kabul. [Sidenote: Fol. 381.]

(_vvv. Concerning Saṃbhal._)

(_July 9th_) On Saturday the 3rd of the month, Hindū Beg who had come as escort from Kābul and must have been sent to Saṃbhal on account of the death of `Alī-i-yūsuf, came and waited on me.[2682] Khalīfa's (son) Ḥusāmu'd-dīn came also today from Alwār and waited on me.

(_July 10th_) On Sunday morning (_4th_) came `Abdu'l-lāh (_kitābdār_), who from Tīr-mūhānī[2683] had been sent to Saṃbhal on account of the death of `Alī-i-yūsuf.

(_Here the record of 7 days is wanting._)

(_www. Sedition in Lāhor._)

People from Kābul were saying that Shaikh Sharaf of Qarā-bāgh, either incited by `Abdu'l-`azīz or out of liking for him, had written an attestation which attributed to me oppression I had not done, and outrage that had not happened; that he had extorted the signatures of the Prayer-leaders (_imāmlār_) of Lāhor to this accusation, and had sent copies of it to the various towns; that `Abdu'l-`azīz himself had failed to give ear to several royal orders, had spoken unseemly words, and done acts which ought to have been left undone. On account of these matters Qaṃbar-i-`alī _Arghūn_ was started off on Sunday the 11th of the month (_Ẕū'l-qa`da_), to arrest Shaikh Sharaf, the Lāhor _imāms_ with their associates, and `Abdu'l-`azīz, and to bring them all to Court.

(_xxx. Varia._)

(_July 22nd_) On Thursday the 15th of the month Chīn-tīmūr Sl. came in from Tijāra and waited on me. Today Champion [Sidenote: Fol. 381b.] Ṣādiq and the great champion-wrestler of Aūd wrestled. Ṣādiq gave a half-throw[2684]; he was much vexed.

(_July 28th_) On Monday the 19th of the month (_Ẕū'l-qa`da_) the Qīzīl-bāsh envoy Murād the life-guardsman was made to put on an inlaid dagger with belt, and a befitting dress of honour, was presented with 2 _laks_ of _tankas_ and given leave to go.

(_Here the record of 15 days is wanting._)

(_yyy. Sedition in Gūālīār._)

(_August 11th_) Sayyid Mashhadī who had come from Gūālīār in these days, represented that Raḥīm-dād was stirring up sedition.[2685] On account of this, Khalīfa's servant Shāh Muḥammad the seal-bearer was sent to convey to Raḥīm-dād matters written with commingling of good counsel. He went; and in a few days came back bringing Raḥīm-dād's son, but, though the son came, Raḥīm-dād himself had no thought of coming. On Wednesday the 5th of _Ẕū'l-ḥijja_, Nūr Beg was sent to Gūālīār to allay Raḥīm-dād's fears, came back in a few days, and laid requests from Raḥīm-dād before us. Orders in accordance with those requests had been written and were on the point of despatch when one of Raḥīm-dād's servants arriving, represented that he had come to effect the escape of the son and that Raḥīm-dād himself had no thought of coming in. I was for riding out at once to Gūālīār, but Khalīfa set it forth to me, "Let me write one more letter commingled with good counsel; he may even yet come peacefully." On this mission Khusrau's (son?) Shihābu'd-dīn was despatched.

(_August 12th_) On Thursday the 6th of the month mentioned (_Ẕū'l-ḥijja_) Mahdī Khwāja came in from Etāwa.[2686] [Sidenote: Fol. 382.]

(_August 16th_) On the Festival-day[2687] (_Monday 10th_) Hindū Beg was presented with a special head-to-foot, an inlaid dagger with belt; also a _pargana_ worth 7 _laks_[2688] was bestowed on Ḥasan-i-`alī, well-known among the Turkmāns[2689] for a Chaghatāī.[2690]

936 AH.-SEP. 5TH 1529 TO AUGUST 25TH 1530 AD.

(_a. Raḥīm-dād's affairs._)

(_Sep. 7th_) On Wednesday the 3rd of Muḥarram, Shaikh Muḥammad _Ghaus̤_[2691] came in from Gūālīār with Khusrau's (son) Shihābu'd-dīn to plead for Raḥīm-dād. As Shaikh Muḥammad _Ghaūṣ_ was a pious and excellent person, Raḥīm-dād's faults were forgiven for his sake. Shaikh Gūran and Nūr Beg were sent off for Gūālīār, so that the place having been made over to their charge....[2692]

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE ON 936 TO 937 AH.-1529 TO 1530 AD.

It is difficult to find material for filling the _lacuna_ of some 15 months, which occurs in Bābur's diary after the broken passage of Muḥarram 3rd 936 AH. (Sept. 7th 1529 AD.) and down to the date of his death on Jumāda 1. 6th 937 AH. (Dec. 26th 153O AD.). The known original sources are few, their historical matter scant, their contents mainly biographical. Gleanings may yet be made, however, in unexpected places, such gleanings as are provided by Aḥmad-i-yādgār's interpolation of Tīmūrid history amongst his lives of Afghān Sulṯāns.

The earliest original source which helps to fill the gap of 936 AH. is Ḥaidar Mīrzā's _Tārīkh-i-rashīdī_, finished as to its Second Part which contains Bābur's biography, in 948 AH. (1541 AD.), 12 years therefore after the year of the gap 936 AH. It gives valuable information about the affairs of Badakhshān, based on its author's personal experience at 30 years of age, and was Abū'l-faẓl's authority for the _Akbar-nāma_.

The next in date of the original sources is Gul-badan Begīm's _Humāyūn-nāma_, a chronicle of family affairs, which she wrote in obedience to her nephew Akbar's command, given in about 995 AH. (1587 AD.), some 57 years after her Father's death, that whatever any person knew of his father (Humāyūn) and grandfather (Bābur) should be written down for Abū'l-faẓl's use. It embodies family memories and traditions, and presumably gives the recollections of several ladies of the royal circle.[2693]

The _Akbar-nāma_ derives much of its narrative for 936-937 AH. from Ḥaidar Mīrzā and Gul-badan Begīm, but its accounts of Bābur's self-surrender and of his dying address to his chiefs presuppose the help of information from a contemporary witness. It is noticeable that the _Akbar-nāma_ records no public events as occurring in Hindūstān during 936-937 AH., nothing of the sequel of rebellion by Raḥīm-dād[2694] and `Abdu'l-`azīz, nothing of the untiring Bīban and Bāyazīd. That something could have been told is shown by what Aḥmad-i-yādgār has preserved (_vide post_); but 50 years had passed since Bābur's death and, manifestly, interest in filling the _lacunæ_ in his diary was then less keen than it is over 300 years later. What in the _Akbar-nāma_ concerns Bābur is likely to have been written somewhat early in the _cir._ 15 years of its author's labours on it,[2695] but, even so, the elder women of the royal circle had had rest after the miseries Humāyūn had wrought, the forgiveness of family affection would veil his past, and certainly has provided Abū'l-faẓl with an over-mellowed estimate of him, one ill-assorting with what is justified by his Bābur-nāma record.

The contribution made towards filling the gap of 936-937 AH. in the body of Niẕāmu-'d-dīn Aḥmad's _T̤abaqāt-i-akbarī_ is limited to a curious and doubtfully acceptable anecdote about a plan for the supersession of Humāyūn as Pādshāh, and about the part played by Khwāja Muqīm _Harāwī_ in its abandonment. A further contribution is made, however, in Book VII which contains the history of the Muḥammadan Kings of Kashmīr, namely, that Bābur despatched an expedition into that country. As no such expedition is recorded or referred to in surviving Bābur-nāma writings, it is likely to have been sent in 936 AH. during Bābur's tour to and from Lāhor. If it were made with the aim of extending Tīmūrid authority in the Himālayan borderlands, a hint of similar policy elsewhere may be given by the ceremonious visit of the Rāja of Kahlūr to Bābur, mentioned by Aḥmad-i-yādgār (_vide post_).[2696] The T̤.-i-A. was written within the term of Abū'l-faẓl's work on the _Akbar-nāma_, being begun later, and ended about 9 years earlier, in 1002 AH.-1593 AD. It appears to have been Abū'-l-faẓl's authority for his account of the campaign carried on in Kashmīr by Bābur's chiefs (_Āyīn-i-akbarī_ vol. ii, part i, Jarrett's trs. p. 389).

An important contribution, seeming to be authentic, is found interpolated in Aḥmad-i-yādgār's _Tārīkh-i-salāṯīn-i-afāghana_, one which outlines a journey made by Bābur to Lāhor in 936 AH. and gives circumstantial details of a punitive expedition sent by him from Sihrind at the complaint of the Qāẓī of Samāna against a certain Mundāhir Rājpūt. The whole contribution dovetails into matters found elsewhere. Its precision of detail bespeaks a closely-contemporary written source.[2697] As its fullest passage concerns the Samāna Qāẓī's affair, its basis of record may have been found in Samāna. Some considerations about the date of Aḥmad-i-yādgār's own book and what Niamatu'l-lāh says of Haibat Khān of Samāna, his own generous helper in the _Tārīkhi-Khan-i-jahān Lūdī_, point towards Haibat Khān as providing the details of the Qāẓī's wrongs and avenging. The indication is strengthened by the circumstance that what precedes and what follows the account of the punitive expedition is outlined only.[2698] Aḥmad-i-yādgār interpolates an account of Humāyūn also, which is a frank plagiarism from the _T̤abaqāt-i-akbarī_. He tells too a story purporting to explain why Bābur "selected" Humāyūn to succeed him, one parallel with Niẕāmu'd-dīn Aḥmad's about what led Khalīfa to abandon his plan of setting the Mīrzā aside. Its sole value lies in its testimony to a belief, held by its first narrator whoever he was, that choice was exercised in the matter by Bābur. Reasons for thinking Niẕāmu'd-dīn's story, as it stands, highly improbable, will be found later in this note.

Muḥammad Qāsim Hindū Shāh _Firishta's Tārīkh-i-firishta_ contains an interesting account of Bābur but contributes towards filling the gap in the events of 936-937 AH. little that is not in the earlier sources. In M. Jules Mohl's opinion it was under revision as late as 1623 AD. (1032-3 AH.).

(_a. Humāyūn and Badakhshān._)

An occurrence which had important results, was the arrival of Humāyūn in Āgra, unsummoned by his Father, from the outpost station of Badakhshān. It will have occurred early in 936 AH. (autumn 1529 AD.), because he was in Kābul in the first ten days of the last month of 935 AH. (_vide post_). Curiously enough his half-sister Gul-badan does not mention his coming, whether through avoidance of the topic or from inadvertence; the omission may be due however to the loss of a folio from the only known MS. of her book (that now owned by the British Museum), and this is the more likely that Abū'l-faẓl writes, at some length, about the arrival and its motive, what the Begīm might have provided, this especially by his attribution of filial affection as Humāyūn's reason for coming to Āgra.

Ḥaidar Mīrzā is the authority for the Akbar-nāma account of Humāyūn's departure from Qila`-i-ẕafar and its political and military sequel. He explains the departure by saying that when Bābur had subdued Hindūstān, his sons Humāyūn and Kāmrān were grown-up; and that wishing to have one of them at hand in case of his own death, he summoned Humāyūn, leaving Kāmrān in Qandahār. No doubt these were the contemporary impressions conveyed to Ḥaidar, and strengthened by the accomplished fact before he wrote some 12 years later; nevertheless there are two clear indications that there was no royal order for Humāyūn to leave Qila`-i-ẕafar, _viz._ that no-one had been appointed to relieve him even when he reached Āgra, and that Abū'l-faẓl mentions no summons but attributes the Mīrzā's departure from his post to an overwhelming desire to see his Father. What appears probable is that Māhīm wrote to her son urging his coming to Āgra, and that this was represented as Bābur's wish. However little weight may be due to the rumour, preserved in anecdotes recorded long after 935 AH., that any-one, Bābur or Khalīfa, inclined against Humāyūn's succession, that rumour she would set herself to falsify by reconciliation.[2699]

When the Mīrzā's intention to leave Qila`-i-ẕafar became known there, the chiefs represented that they should not be able to withstand the Aūzbeg on their frontier without him (his troops implied).[2700] With this he agreed, said that still he must go, and that he would send a Mīrzā in his place as soon as possible. He then rode, in one day, to Kābul, an item of rapid travel preserved by Abū'l-faẓl.

Humāyūn's departure caused such anxiety in Qila`-i-ẕafar that some (if not all) of the Badakhshī chiefs hurried off an invitation to Sa`īd Khān _Chaghatāī_, the then ruler in Kāshghar in whose service Ḥaidar Mīrzā was, to come at once and occupy the fort. They said that Faqīr-i-`alī who had been left in charge, was not strong enough to cope with the Aūzbeg, begged Sa`īd to come, and strengthened their petition by reminding him of his hereditary right to Badakhshān, derived from Shāh Begīm _Badakhshī_. Their urgency convincing the Khān that risk threatened the country, he started from Kāshghar in Muḥarram 936 AH. (Sept-Oct. 1529 AD.). On reaching Sārīgh-chūpān which by the annexation of Abā-bakr Mīrzā _Dūghlāt_ was now his own most western territory[2701] but which formerly was one of the upper districts of Badakhshān, he waited while Ḥaidar went on towards Qila`-i-ẕafar only to learn on his road, that Hind-āl (_æt._ 10) had been sent from Kābul by Humāyūn and had entered the fort 12 days before.

The Kāshgharīs were thus placed in the difficulty that the fort was occupied by Bābur's representative, and that the snows would prevent their return home across the mountains till winter was past. Winter-quarters were needed and asked for by Ḥaidar, certain districts being specified in which to await the re-opening of the Pāmīr routes. He failed in his request, "They did not trust us," he writes, "indeed suspected us of deceit." His own account of Sa`īd's earlier invasion of Badakhshān (925 AH.-1519 AD.) during Khān Mīrzā's rule, serves to explain Badakhshī distrust of Kāshgharīs. Failing in his negotiations, he scoured and pillaged the country round the fort, and when a few days later the Khān arrived, his men took what Ḥaidar's had left.

Sa`īd Khān is recorded to have besieged the fort for three months, but nothing serious seems to have been attempted since no mention of fighting is made, none of assault or sally, and towards the end of the winter he was waited on by those who had invited his presence, with apology for not having admitted him into the fort, which they said they would have done but for the arrival of Hind-āl Mīrzā. To this the Khān replied that for him to oppose Bābur Pādshāh was impossible; he reminded the chiefs that he was there by request, that it would be as hurtful for the Pādshāh as for himself to have the Aūzbeg in Badakhshān and, finally, he gave it as his opinion that, as matters stood, every man should go home. His view of the general duty may include that of Badakhshī auxiliaries such as Sulṯān Wais of Kūl-āb who had reinforced the garrison. So saying, he himself set out for Kāshghar, and at the beginning of Spring reached Yārkand.

_b. Humāyūn's further action._

Humāyūn will have reached Kābul before Ẕū'l-ḥijja 10th 935 AH. (Aug. 26th 1529 AD.) because it is on record that he met Kāmrān on the Kābul 'Īd-gāh, and both will have been there to keep the `Īdu'l-kabīr, the Great Festival of Gifts, which is held on that day. Kāmrān had come from Qandahār, whether to keep the Feast, or because he had heard of Humāyūn's intended movement from Badakhshān, or because changes were foreseen and he coveted Kābul, as the _Bābur-nāma_ and later records allow to be inferred. He asked Humāyūn, says Abū'l-faẓl, why he was there and was told of his brother's impending journey to Āgra under overwhelming desire to see their Father.[2702] Presumably the two Mīrzās discussed the position in which Badakhshān had been left; in the end Hind-āl was sent to Qila'-i-ẕafar, notwithstanding that he was under orders for Hindūstān.

Humāyūn may have stayed some weeks in Kābul, how many those familiar with the seasons and the routes between Yārkand and Qila`-i-ẕafar, might be able to surmise if the date of Hind-āl's start northward for which Humāyūn is likely to have waited, were found by dovetailing the Muḥarram of Sa`īd's start, the approximate length of his journey to Sārīgh-chūpān, and Ḥaidar's reception of news that Hind-āl had been 12 days in the fort.

Humāyūn's arrival in Āgra is said by Abū'l-faẓl to have been cheering to the royal family in their sadness for the death of Alwar (end of 935 AH.) and to have given pleasure to his Father. But the time is all too near the date of Bābur's letter (f.348) to Humāyūn, that of a dissatisfied parent, to allow the supposition that his desertion of his post would fail to displease.

That it was a desertion and not an act of obedience seems clear from the circumstance that the post had yet to be filled. Khalīfa is said to have been asked to take it and to have refused;[2703] Humāyūn to have been sounded as to return and to have expressed unwillingness. Bābur then did what was an honourable sequel to his acceptance in 926 AH. of the charge of the fatherless child Sulaimān, by sending him, now about 16, to take charge where his father Khān Mīrzā had ruled, and by still keeping him under his own protection.

Sulaimān's start from Āgra will not have been delayed, and (accepting Aḥmad-i-yādgār's record,) Bābur himself will have gone as far as Lāhor either with him or shortly after him, an expedition supporting Sulaimān, and menacing Sa`īd in his winter leaguer round Qila`-i-ẕafar. Meantime Humāyūn was ordered to his fief of Saṃbhal.

After Sulaimān's appointment Bābur wrote to Sa`īd a letter of which Ḥaidar gives the gist:—It expresses surprise at Sa`īd's doings in Badakhshān, says that Hind-āl has been recalled and Sulaimān sent, that if Sa`īd regard hereditary right, he will leave "Sulaimān Shāh Mīrzā"[2704] in possession, who is as a son to them both,[2705] that this would be well, that otherwise he (Bābur) will make over responsibility to the heir (Sulaimān);[2706] and, "The rest you know."[2707]

_c. Bābur visits Lāhor._

If Aḥmad-i-yādgār's account of a journey made by Bābur to Lāhor and the Panj-āb be accepted, the _lacuna_ of 936 AH. is appropriately filled. He places the expedition in the 3rd year of Bābur's rule in Hindūstān, which, counting from the first reading of the _khuṯba_ for Bābur in Dihlī (f. 286), began on Rajab 15th 935 AH. (March 26th 1529 AD.). But as Bābur's diary-record for 935 AH. is complete down to end of the year, (minor _lacunæ_ excepted), the time of his leaving Āgra for Lāhor is relegated to 936 AH. He must have left early in the year, (1) to allow time, before the occurrence of the known events preceding his own death, for the long expedition Aḥmad-i-yādgār calls one of a year, and (2) because an early start after Humāyūn's arrival and Sulaimān's departure would suit the position of affairs and the dates mentioned or implied by Ḥaidar's and by Aḥmad-i-yādgār's narratives.

Two reasons of policy are discernible, in the known events of the time, to recommend a journey in force towards the North-west; first, the sedition of `Abdu'l-`azīz in Lāhor (f. 381), and secondly, the invasion of Badakhshān by Sa`īd Khān with its resulting need of supporting Sulaimān by a menace of armed intervention.[2708]

In Sihrind the Rāja of Kahlūr, a place which may be one of the Simla hill-states, waited on Bābur, made offering of 7 falcons and 3 _mans_[2709] of gold, and was confirmed in his fief.[2710]

In Lāhor Kāmrān is said to have received his Father, in a garden of his own creation, and to have introduced the local chiefs as though he were the Governor of Lāhor some writers describe him as then being. The best sources, however, leave him still posted in Qandahār. He had been appointed to Multān (f. 359) when `Askarī was summoned to Āgra (f. 339), but whether he actually went there is not assured; some months later (Ẕū'l-ḥijja 10th 935 AH.) he is described by Abū'l-faẓl as coming to Kābul from Qandahār. He took both Multān[2711] and Lāhor by force from his (half-)brother Humāyūn in 935 AH. (1531 AD.) the year after their Father's death. That he should wait upon his Father in Lāhor would be natural, Hind-āl did so, coming from Kābul. Hind-āl will have come to Lāhor after making over charge of Qila`-i-ẕafar to Sulaimān, and he went back at the end of the cold season, going perhaps just before his Father started from Lāhor on his return journey, the gifts he received before leaving being 2 elephants, 4 horses, belts and jewelled daggers.[2712]

Bābur is said to have left Lāhor on Rajab 4th (936 AH.)-(March 4th, 1530 AD.). From Aḥmad-i-yādgār's outline of Bābur's doings in Lāhor, he, or his original, must be taken as ill-informed or indifferent about them. His interest becomes greater when he writes of Samāna.

_d. Punishment of the Mundāhirs._

When Bābur, on his return journey, reached Sihrind, he received a complaint from the Qāẓī of Samāna against one Mohan _Mundāhir_ (or _Mundhār_)[2713] _Rājpūt_ who had attacked his estates, burning and plundering, and killed his son. Here-upon `Alī-qulī of Hamadān[2714] was sent with 3000 horse to avenge the Qāzī's wrongs, and reached Mohan's village, in the Kaithal _pargana_, early in the morning when the cold was such that the archers "could not pull their bows."[2715] A marriage had been celebrated over-night; the villagers, issuing from warm houses, shot such flights of arrows that the royal troops could make no stand; many were killed and nothing was effected; they retired into the jungle, lit fires, warmed themselves(?), renewed the attack and were again repulsed. On hearing of their failure, Bābur sent off, perhaps again from Sihrind, Tarsam Bahādur and Naurang Beg with 6000 horse and many elephants. This force reached the village at night and when marriage festivities were in progress. Towards morning it was formed into three divisions,[2716] one of which was ordered to go to the west of the village and show itself. This having been done, the villagers advanced towards it, in the pride of their recent success. The royal troops, as ordered beforehand, turned their backs and fled, the Mundāhirs pursuing them some two miles. Meantime Tarsam Bahādur had attacked and fired the village, killing many of its inhabitants. The pursuers on the west saw the flames of their burning homes, ran back and were intercepted on their way. About 1000 men, women and children were made prisoner; there was also great slaughter, and a pillar of heads was raised. Mohan was captured and later on was buried to the waist and shot to death with arrows.[2717] News of the affair was sent to the Pādshāh.[2718]

As after being in Sihrind, Bābur is said to have spent two months hunting near Dihlī, it may be that he followed up the punitive expedition sent into the Kaithal _pargana_ of the Karnāl District, by hunting in Nardak, a favourite ground of the Tīmūrids, which lies in that district.

Thus the gap of 936 AH. with also perhaps a month of 937 AH. is filled by the "year's" travel west of Dihlī. The record is a mere outline and in it are periods of months without mention of where Bābur was or what affairs of government were brought before him. At some time, on his return journey presumably, he will have despatched to Kashmīr the expedition referred to in the opening section of this appendix. Something further may yet be gleaned from local chronicles, from unwritten tradition, or from the witness of place-names commemorating his visit.

_e. Bābur's self-surrender to save Humāyūn._

The few months, perhaps 4 to 5, between Bābur's return to Āgra from his expedition towards the North-west, and the time of his death are filled by Gul-badan and Abū'l-faẓl with matters concerning family interests only.

The first such matter these authors mention is an illness of Humāyūn during which Bābur devoted his own life to save his son's.[2719] Of this the particulars are, briefly:—That Humāyūn, while still in Saṃbhal, had had a violent attack of fever; that he was brought by water to Āgra, his mother meeting him in Muttra; and that when the disease baffled medical skill, Bābur resolved to practise the rite believed then and now in the East to be valid, of intercession and devotion of a suppliant's most valued possession in exchange for a sick man's life. Rejecting counsel to offer the Koh-i-nūr for pious uses, he resolved to supplicate for the acceptance of his life. He made intercession through a saint his daughter names, and moved thrice round Humāyūn's bed, praying, in effect, "O God! if a life may be exchanged for a life, I, who am Bābur, give my life and my being for Humāyūn." During the rite fever surged over him, and, convinced that his prayer and offering had prevailed, he cried out, "I have borne it away! I have borne it away!"[2720] Gul-badan says that he himself fell ill on that very day, while Humāyūn poured water on his head, came out and gave audience; and that they carried her Father within on account of his illness, where he kept his bed for 2 or 3 months.

There can be no doubt as to Bābur's faith in the rite he had practised, or as to his belief that his offering of life was accepted; moreover actual facts would sustain his faith and belief. Onlookers also must have believed his prayer and offering to have prevailed, since Humāyūn went back to Saṃbhal,[2721] while Bābur fell ill at once and died in a few weeks.[2722]

_f. A plan to set Bābur's sons aside from the succession._

Reading the _Akbar-nāma_ alone, there would seem to be no question about whether Bābur ever intended to give Hindūstān, at any rate, to Humāyūn, but, by piecing together various contributory matters, an opposite opinion is reached, _viz._ that not Khalīfa only whom Abū'l-faẓl names perhaps on Niẕāmu'd-dīn Aḥmad's warrant, but Bābur also, with some considerable number of chiefs, wished another ruler for Hindūstān. The starting-point of this opinion is a story in the _T̤abaqāt-i-akbarī_ and, with less detail, in the _Akbar-nāma_, of which the gist is that Khalīfa planned to supersede Humāyūn and his three brothers in their Father's succession.[2723]

The story, in brief, is as follows:—At the time of Bābur's death Niẕāmu'd-dīn Aḥmad's father Khwāja Muḥammad Muqīm _Harāwī_ was in the service of the Office of Works.[2724] Amīr Niẕāmu'd-dīn `Alī Khalīfa, the Chief of the Administration, had dread and suspicion about Humāyūn and did not favour his succession as Pādshāh. Nor did he favour that of Bābur's other sons. He promised "Bābur Pādshāh's son-in-law (_dāmād_)" Mahdī Khwāja who was a generous young man, very friendly to himself, that he would make him Pādshāh. This promise becoming known, others made their _salām_ to the Khwāja who put on airs and accepted the position. One day when Khalīfa, accompanied by Muqīm, went to see Mahdī Khwāja in his tent, no-one else being present, Bābur, in the pangs of his disease, sent for him[2725] when he had been seated a few minutes only. When Khalīfa had gone out, Mahdī Khwāja remained standing in such a way that Muqīm could not follow but, the Khwāja unaware, waited respectfully behind him. The Khwāja, who was noted for the wildness of youth, said, stroking his beard, "Please God! first, I will flay thee!" turned round and saw Muqīm, took him by the ear, repeated a proverb of menace, "The red tongue gives the green head to the wind," and let him go. Muqīm hurried to Khalīfa, repeated the Khwāja's threat against him, and remonstrated about the plan to set all Bābur's sons aside in favour of a stranger-house.[2726] Here-upon Khalīfa sent for Humāyūn,[2727] and despatched an officer with orders to the Khwāja to retire to his house, who found him about to dine and hurried him off without ceremony. Khalīfa also issued a proclamation forbidding intercourse with him, excluded him from Court, and when Bābur died, supported Humāyūn.

As Niẕāmu'd-dīn Aḥmad was not born till 20 years after Bābur died, the story will have been old before he could appreciate it, and it was some 60 years old when it found way into the _T̤abaqāt-i-akbarī_ and, with less detail, into the _Akbar-nāma_.

Taken as it stands, it is incredible, because it represents Khalīfa, and him alone, planning to subject the four sons of Bābur to the suzerainty of Mahdī Khwāja who was not a Tīmūrid, who, so far as well-known sources show, was not of a ruling dynasty or personally illustrious,[2728] and who had been associated, so lately as the autumn of 1529 AD., with his nephew Raḥīm-dād in seditious action which had so angered Bābur that, whatever the punishment actually ordered, rumour had it both men were to die.[2729] In two particulars the only Mahdī Khwāja then of Bābur's following, does not suit the story; he was not a young man in 1530 AD.,[2730] and was not a _dāmād_ of Bābur, if that word be taken in its usual sense of son-in-law, but he was a _yazna_, husband of a Pādshāh's sister, in his case, of Khān-zāda Begīm.[2731] Some writers style him Sayyid Mahdī Khwāja, a double title which may indicate descent on both sides from religious houses; one is suggested to be that of Tirmiẕ by the circumstance that in his and Khān-zāda Begīm's mausoleum was buried a Tirmiẕ sayyid of later date, Shāh Abū'l-ma`ālī. But though he were of Tirmiẕ, it is doubtful if that religious house would be described by the word _khānwāda_ which so frequently denotes a ruling dynasty.

His name may have found its way into Niẕāmu'd-dīn Aḥmad's story as a gloss mistakenly amplifying the word _dāmād_, taken in its less usual sense of brother-in-law. To Bābur's contemporaries the expression "Bābur Pādshāh's _dāmād_" (son-in-law) would be explicit, because for some 11 years before he lay on his death-bed, he had one son-in-law only, _viz._ Muḥammad-i-zamān Mīrzā _Bāī-qarā_,[2732] the husband of Ma`ṣūma Sulṯān Begīm. If that Mīrzā's name were where Mahdī Khwāja's is entered, the story of an exclusion of Bābur's sons from rule might have a core of truth.

It is incredible however that Khālīfa, with or without Bābur's concurrence, made the plan attributed to him of placing any man not a Tīmūrid in the position of Pādshāh over all Bābur's territory. I suggest that the plan concerned Hindūstān only and was one considered in connection with Bābur's intended return to Kābul, when he must have left that difficult country, hardly yet a possession, in charge of some man giving promise of power to hold it. Such a man Humāyūn was not. My suggestion rests on the following considerations:—

(1) Bābur's outlook was not that of those in Āgra in 1587 AD. who gave Abū'l-faẓl his Bāburiana material, because at that date Dihlī had become the pivot of Tīmūrid power, so that not to hold Hindūstān would imply not to be Pādshāh. Bābur's outlook on his smaller Hindūstān was different; his position in it was precarious, Kābul, not Dihlī, was his chosen centre, and from Kābul his eyes looked northwards as well as to the East. If he had lost the Hindūstān which was approximately the modern United Provinces, he might still have held what lay west of it to the Indus, as well as Qandahār.

(2) For several years before his death he had wished to return to Kābul. Ample evidence of this wish is given by his diary, his letters, and some poems in his second _Dīwān_ (that found in the Rāmpūr MS.). As he told his sons more than once, he kept Kābul for himself.[2733] If, instead of dying in Āgra, he had returned to Kābul, had pushed his way on from Badakhshān, whether as far as Samarkand or less, had given Humāyūn a seat in those parts,—action foreshadowed by the records—a reasonable interpretation of the story that Humāyūn and his brothers were not to govern Hindūstān, is that he had considered with Khalīfa the apportionment of his territories according to the example of his ancestors Chīngīz Khān, Tīmūr and Abū-sa`īd; that by his plan of apportionment Humāyūn was not to have Hindūstān but something Tramontane; Kāmrān had already Qandahār; Sulaimān, if Humāyūn had moved beyond the out-post of Badakhshān, would have replaced him there; and Hindūstān would have gone to "Bābur Pādshāh's _dāmād_".

(3) Muḥammad-i-zamān had much to recommend him for Hindūstān:—Tīmūrid-born, grandson and heir of Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā, husband of Ma`ṣūma who was a Tīmūrid by double descent,[2734] protected by Bābur after the Bāī-qarā _débacle_ in Herāt, a landless man leading such other exiles as Muḥammad Sulṯān Mīrzā,[2735] `Ādil Sulṯān, and Qāsim-i-ḥusain Sulṯān, half-Tīmūrids all, who with their Khurāsānī following, had been Bābur's guests in Kābul, had pressed on its poor resources, and thus had helped in 932 AH. (1525 AD.) to drive him across the Indus. This Bāī-qarā group needed a location; Muḥammad-i-zamān's future had to be cared for and with his, Ma`ṣūma's.

(4) It is significant of intention to give Muḥammad-i-zamān ruling status that in April 1529 AD. (Sha`bān 935 AH.) Bābur bestowed on him royal insignia, including the umbrella-symbol of sovereignty.[2736] This was done after the Mīrzā had raised objections, unspecified now in the _Bābur-nāma_ against Bihār; they were overcome, the insignia were given and, though for military reasons he was withheld from taking up that appointment, the recognition of his royal rank had been made. His next appointment was to Jūnpūr, the capital of the fallen Sharqī dynasty. No other chief is mentioned by Bābur as receiving the insignia of royalty.

(5) It appears to have been within a Pādshāh's competence to select his successor; and it may be inferred that choice was made between Humāyūn and another from the wording of more than one writer that Khalīfa "supported" Humāyūn, and from the word "selected" used in Aḥmad-i-yādgār's anecdote.[2737] Much more would there be freedom of choice in a division of territory such as there is a good deal to suggest was the basis of Niẕāmu'd-dīn Aḥmad's story. Whatever the extent of power proposed for the _dāmād_, whether, as it is difficult to believe, the Pādshāh's whole supremacy, or whether the limited sovereignty of Hindūstān, it must have been known to Bābur as well as to Khalīfa. Whatever their earlier plan however, it was changed by the sequel of Humāyūn's illness which led to his becoming Pādshāh. The _dāmād_ was dropped, on grounds it is safe to believe more impressive than his threat to flay Khalīfa or than the remonstrance of that high official's subordinate Muqīm of Herāt.

Humāyūn's arrival and continued stay in Hindūstān modified earlier dispositions which included his remaining in Badakhshān. His actions may explain why Bābur, when in 936 AH. he went as far as Lāhor, did not go on to Kābul. Nothing in the sources excludes the surmise that Māhīm knew of the bestowal of royal insignia on the Bāī-qarā Mīrzā, that she summoned her son to Āgra and there kept him, that she would do this the more resolutely if the _dāmād_ of the plan she must have heard of, were that Bāī-qarā, and that but for Humāyūn's presence in Āgra and its attendant difficulties, Bābur would have gone to Kābul, leaving his _dāmād_ in charge of Hindūstān.

Bābur, however, turned back from Lāhor for Āgra, and there he made the self-surrender which, resulting in Humāyūn's "selection" as Pādshāh, became a turning point in history.

Humāyūn's recovery and Bābur's immediate illness will have made the son's life seem Divinely preserved, the father's as a debt to be paid. Bābur's impressive personal experience will have dignified Humāyūn as one whom God willed should live. Such distinction would dictate the bestowal on him of all that fatherly generosity had yet to give. The imminence of death defeating all plans made for life, Humāyūn was nominated to supreme power as Pādshāh.

_g. Bābur's death._

Amongst other family matters mentioned by Gul-badan as occurring shortly before her Father's death, was his arrangement of marriages for Gul-rang with Aīsān-tīmūr and for Gul-chihra with Tūkhta-būghā _Chaghatāī_. She also writes of his anxiety to see Hind-āl who had been sent for from Kābul but did not arrive till the day after the death.

When no remedies availed, Humāyūn was summoned from Saṃbhal. He reached Āgra four days before the death; on the morrow Bābur gathered his chiefs together for the last of many times, addressed them, nominated Humāyūn his successor and bespoke their allegiance for him. Abū'l-faẓl thus summarizes his words, "Lofty counsels and weighty mandates were imparted. Advice was given (to Humāyūn) to be munificent and just, to acquire God's favour, to cherish and protect subjects, to accept apologies from such as had failed in duty, and to pardon transgressors. And, he (Bābur) exclaimed, the cream of my testamentary dispositions is this, 'Do naught against your brothers, even though they may deserve it.' In truth," continues the historian, "it was through obedience to this mandate that his Majesty Jannat-ashiyānī suffered so many injuries from his brothers without avenging himself." Gul-badan's account of her Father's last address is simple:—"He spoke in this wise, 'For years it has been in my heart to make over the throne to Humāyūn and to retire to the Gold-scattering Garden. By the Divine grace I have obtained in health of body everything but the fulfilment of this wish. Now that illness has laid me low, I charge you all to acknowledge Humāyūn in my stead. Fail not in loyalty towards him. Be of one heart and mind towards him. I hope to God that he, for his part, will bear himself well towards men. Moreover, Humāyūn, I commit you and your brothers and all my kinsfolk and your people and my people to God's keeping, and entrust them all to you.'"

It was on Monday Jumāda 1. 5th 937 AH. (Dec. 26th 153O AD.) that Bābur made answer to his summons with the _Adsum_ of the Musalmān, "Lord! I am here for Thee."

"Black fell the day for children and kinsfolk and all," writes his daughter;

"Alas! that time and the changeful heaven should exist without thee; Alas! and Alas! that time should remain and thou shouldst be gone;"

mourns Khwāja Kalān in the funeral ode from which Badāyūnī quoted these lines.[2738]

The body was laid in the Garden-of-rest (_Ārām-bāgh_) which is opposite to where the Tāj-i-maḥāll now stands. Khwāja Muḥammad `Alī _`asas_[2739] was made the guardian of the tomb, and many well-voiced readers and reciters were appointed to conduct the five daily Prayers and to offer supplication for the soul of the dead. The revenues of Sīkrī and 5 _laks_ from Bīāna were set aside for the endowment of the tomb, and Māhīm Begīm, during the two and a half years of her remaining life, sent twice daily from her own estate, an allowance of food towards the support of its attendants.

In accordance with the directions of his will, Bābur's body was to be conveyed to Kābul and there to be laid in the garden of his choice, in a grave open to the sky, with no building over it, no need of a door-keeper.

Precisely when it was removed from Āgra we have not found stated. It is known from Gul-badan that Kāmrān visited his Father's tomb in Āgra in 1539 AD. (946 AH.) after the battle of Chausa; and it is known from Jauhar that the body had been brought to Kābul before 1544 AD. (952 AH.), at which date Humāyūn, in Kābul, spoke with displeasure of Kāmrān's incivility to "Bega Begīm", the "Bībī" who had conveyed their Father's body to that place.[2740] That the widow who performed this duty was the Afghān Lady, Bībī Mubārika[2741] is made probable by Gul-badan's details of the movements of the royal ladies. Bābur's family left Āgra under Hind-āl's escort, after the defeat at Chausa (June 7th, 1539 AD.); whoever took charge of the body on its journey to Kābul must have returned at some later date to fetch it. It would be in harmony with Sher Shāh's generous character if he safe-guarded her in her task.

The terraced garden Bābur chose for his burial-place lies on the slope of the hill Shāh-i-Kābul, the Sher-darwāza of European writers.[2742] It has been described as perhaps the most beautiful of the Kābul gardens, and as looking towards an unsurpassable view over the Chār-dih plain towards the snows of Paghmān and the barren, rocky hills which have been the hunting-grounds of rulers in Kābul. Several of Bābur's descendants coming to Kābul from Āgra have visited and embellished his burial-garden. Shāh-i-jahān built the beautiful mosque which stands near the grave; Jahāngīr seems to have been, if not the author, at least the prompter of the well-cut inscription adorning the upright slab of white marble of Māīdān, which now stands at the grave-head. The tomb-stone itself is a low grave-covering, not less simple than those of relations and kin whose remains have been placed near Bābur's. In the thirties of the last century [the later Sir] Alexander Burnes visited and admirably described the garden and the tomb. With him was Munshī Mohan Lāl who added to his own account of the beauties of the spot, copies of the inscriptions on the monumental slab and on the portal of the Mosque.[2743] As is shown by the descriptions these two visitors give, and by Daniel's drawings of the garden and the tomb, there were in their time two upright slabs, one behind the other, near the head of the grave. Mr. H. H. Hayden who visited the garden in the first decade of the present century, shows in his photograph of the grave, one upright stone only, the place of one of the former two having been taken by a white-washed lamp holder (_chirāghdān_).

The purport of the verses inscribed on the standing-slab is as follows:—

A ruler from whose brow shone the Light of God was that[2744] Back-bone of the Faith (_ẕahīru'd-dīn_) Muḥammad Bābur Pādshāh. Together with majesty, dominion, fortune, rectitude, the open-hand and the firm Faith, he had share in prosperity, abundance and the triumph of victorious arms. He won the material world and became a moving light; for his every conquest he looked, as for Light, towards the world of souls. When Paradise became his dwelling and Ruẓwān[2745] asked me the date, I gave him for answer, "Paradise is forever Bābur Pādshāh's abode."

_h. Bābur's wives and children._[2746]

Bābur himself mentions several of his wives by name, but Gul-badan is the authority for complete lists of them and their children.

1. `Āyisha Sulṯān Begīm, daughter of Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā _Mīrān-shāhī_ was betrothed, when Bābur was _cir._ 5 years old, in 894 AH. (1488-89 AD.), bore Fakhru'n-nisa' in 906 AH. [who died in about one month], left Bābur before 909 AH. (1503 AD.).

2. Zainab Sl. Begīm, daughter of Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā _Mīrān-shāhī_, was married in 910 AH. (1504-5 AD.), died childless two or three years later.

3. Māhīm Begīm, whose parentage is not found stated, was married in 912 AH. (1506 AD.), bore Bār-būd, Mihr-jān, Āīsān-daulat, Farūq [who all died in infancy], and Humāyūn.

4. Ma`ṣūma Sl. Begīm, daughter of Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā _Mīrān-shāhī_, was married in 913 AH. (1507 AD.), bore Ma`ṣūma and died at her birth, presumably early in the _lacuna_ of 914-925 AH. (1508-19 AD.).

5. Gul-rukh Begīm, whose parentage is not found stated, was perhaps a Begchīk Mughūl, was married between 914 AH. and 925 AH. (1508-19 AD.), probably early in the period, bore Shāh-rukh, Aḥmad [who both died young], Gul`iẕār [who also may have died young], Kamrān and `Askarī.

6. Dil-dār Begīm, whose parentage is not found stated, was married in the same period as Gul-rukh, bore Gul-rang, Gul-chihra, Hind-āl, Gul-badan and Alwar, [who died in childhood].

7. The Afghān Lady (Afghānī Āghācha), Bībī Mubārika _Yūsufzāī_, was married in 925 AH. (1519 AD.), and died childless.

The two Circassian slaves Gul-nār Āghācha and Nār-gul Āghācha of whom T̤ahmāsp made gift to Bābur in 933 AH. (f. 305), became recognized ladies of the royal household. They are mentioned several times by Gul-badan as taking part in festivities and in family conferences under Humāyūn. Gul-nār is said by Abū'l-faẓl to have been one of Gul-badan's pilgrim band in 983 AH. (1575 AD.).

The above list contains the names of three wives whose parentage is not given or is vaguely given by the well-known sources,—namely, Māhīm, Gul-rukh and Dil-dār. What would sufficiently explain the absence of mention by Bābur of the parentage of Gul-rukh and Dil-dār is that his record of the years within which the two Begīms were married is not now with the _Bābur-nāma_. Presumably it has been lost, whether in diary or narrative form, in the _lacuna_ of 914-25 AH. (1508-19 AD.). Gul-rukh appears to have belonged to the family of Begchīk Mughūls described by Ḥaidar Mīrzā[2747]; her brothers are styled Mīrzā; she was of good but not royal birth. Dil-dār's case is less simple. Nothing in her daughter Gul-badan's book suggests that she and her children were other than of the highest rank; numerous details and shades of expression show their ease of equality with royal personages. It is consistent with Gul-badan's method of enumerating her father's wives that she should not state her own mother's descent; she states it of none of her "mothers". There is this interest in trying to trace Dil-dār's parentage, that she may have been the third daughter of Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā and Pasha Begīm, and a daughter of hers may have been the mother of Salīma Sulṯān Begīm who was given in marriage by Humāyūn to Bairām Khān, later was married by Akbar, and was a woman of charm and literary accomplishments. Later historians, Abū'l-faẓl amongst their number, say that Salīma's mother was a daughter of Bābur's wife Sālḥa Sulṯān Begīm, and vary that daughter's name as Gul-rang-rukh-barg or -`iẕār (the last form being an equivalent of _chihra_, face). As there cannot have been a wife with her daughter growing up in Bābur's household, who does not appear in some way in Gul-badan's chronicle, and as Salīma's descent from Bābur need not be questioned, the knot is most readily loosened by surmising that "Sālḥa" is the real name of Gul-badan's "Dildār". Instances of double names are frequent, _e.g._ Māhīm, Māh-chīchām, Qarā-gūz, Āq, (My Moon, My Moon sister, Black-eyed, Fair). "Heart-holding" (Dil-dār) sounds like a home-name of affection. It is the _Ma`āsir-ī-raḥīmī_ which gives Sālḥa as the name of Bābur's wife, Pasha's third daughter. Its author may be wrong, writing so late as he did (1025 AH.-1616 AD.), or may have been unaware that Sālḥa was (if she were) known as Dil-dār. It would not war against seeming facts to take Pasha's third daughter to be Bābur's wife Dil-dār, and Dil-dār's daughter Gul-chihra to be Salīma's mother. Gul-chihra was born in about 1516 AD., married to Tūkhta-būghā in 1530 AD., widowed in cir. 1533 AD., might have remarried with Nūru'd-dīn _Chaqānīānī_ (Sayyid Amīr), and in 945 AH. might have borne him Salīma; she was married in 1547 AD. (954 AH.) to `Abbās Sulṯān _Aūzbeg_.[2748] Two matters, neither having much weight, make against taking Dil-dār to be a _Mīrān-shāhī_; the first being that the anonymous annotator who added to the archetype of Kehr's Codex what is entered in Appendix L.—_On Māhīm's adoption of Hind-āl_, styles her Dil-dār Āghācha; he, however, may have known no more than others knew of her descent; the second, that Māhīm forcibly took Dil-dār's child Hind-āl to rear; she was the older wife and the mother of the heir, but could she have taken the upper hand over a Mīrān-shāhī? A circumstance complicating the question of Salīma's maternal descent is, that historians searching the _Bābur-nāma_ or its Persian translation the _Wāqi`āt-i-bāburī_ for information about the three daughters of Maḥmūd _Mīrān-shāhī_ and Pasha _Bahārlū Turkmān_, would find an incomplete record, one in which the husbands of the first and second daughters are mentioned and nothing is said about the third who was Bābur's wife and the grandmother of Salīma. Bābur himself appears to have left the record as it is, meaning to fill it in later; presumably he waited for the names of the elder two sisters to complete his details of the three. In the Ḥaidarabad Codex, which there is good ground for supposing a copy of his original manuscript, about three lines are left blank (f. 27) as if awaiting information; in most manuscripts, however, this indication of intention is destroyed by running the defective passage on to join the next sentence. Some chance remark of a less well-known writer, may clear up the obscurity and show that Sālḥa was Dil-dār.

Māhīm's case seems one having a different cause for silence about her parentage. When she was married in Herāt, shortly after the death of Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā, Bābur had neither wife nor child. What Abū'l-faẓl tells about her is vague; her father's name is not told; she is said to have belonged to a noble Khurāsān family, to have been related (_nisbat-i-khwesh_) to Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā and to have traced her descent to Shaikh Aḥmad of Jām. If her birth had been high, even though not royal, it is strange that it is not stated by Bābur when he records the birth of her son Humāyūn, incidentally by Gul-badan, or more precisely by Abū'l-faẓl. Her brothers belonged to Khost, and to judge from a considerable number of small records, seem to have been quiet, unwarlike Khwājas. Her marriage took place in a year of which a full record survives; it is one in the composed narrative, not in the diary. In the following year, this also being one included in the composed narrative, Bābur writes of his meeting with Ma`ṣūma _Mīrān-shāhī_ in Herāt, of their mutual attraction, and of their marriage. If the marriage with Humāyūn's mother had been an equal alliance, it would agree with Bābur's custom to mention its occurrence, and to give particulars about Māhīm's descent.[2749]

_i. Mr. William Erskine's estimate of Bābur._

"Z̤ahīru'd-dīn Muḥammad Bābur was undoubtedly one of the most illustrious men of his age, and one of the most eminent and accomplished princes that ever adorned an Asiatic throne. He is represented as having been above the middle size, of great vigour of body, fond of all field and warlike sports, an excellent swordsman, and a skilful archer. As a proof of his bodily strength, it is mentioned, that he used to leap from one pinnacle to another of the pinnacled ramparts used in the East, in his double-soled boots; and that he even frequently took a man under each arm and went leaping along the rampart from one of the pointed pinnacles to another. Having been early trained to the conduct of business, and tutored in the school of adversity, the powers of his mind received full development. He ascended the throne at the age of twelve, and before he had attained his twentieth year, had shared every variety of fortune; he had not only been the ruler of subject provinces but had been in thraldom to his own ambitious nobles, and obliged to conceal every sentiment of his heart; he had been alternately hailed and obeyed as a conqueror and deliverer by rich and extensive kingdoms, and forced to lurk in the deserts and mountains of Farghāna as a houseless wanderer. Down to the last dregs of life, we perceive in him strong feelings of affection for his early friends and early enjoyments. * * * He had been taught betimes, by the voice of events that cannot lie, that he was a man dependent on the kindness and fidelity of other men; and, in his dangers and escapes with his followers, had learned that he was only one of an association. * * * The native benevolence and gaiety of his disposition seems ever to overflow on all around him; * * * of his companions in arms he speaks with the frank gaiety of a soldier. * * * Ambitious he was and fond of conquest and glory in all its shapes; the enterprise in which he was for a season engaged, seems to have absorbed his whole soul, and all his faculties were exerted to bring it to a fortunate issue. His elastic mind was not broken by discomfiture, and few who have achieved such glorious conquests, have suffered more numerous or more decisive defeats. His personal courage was conspicuous during his whole life. Upon the whole, if we review with impartiality the history of Asia, we find few princes entitled to rank higher than Bābur in genius and accomplishments. * * * In activity of mind, in the gay equanimity and unbroken spirit with which he bore the extremes of good and bad fortune, in the possession of the manly and social virtues, in his love of letters and his success in the cultivation of them, we shall probably find no other Asiatic prince who can justly be placed beside him."

THE END.

APPENDICES.

A.—THE SITE AND DISAPPEARANCE OF OLD AKHSĪ.

Some modern writers, amongst whom are Dr. Schuyler, General Nalivkine and Mr. Pumpelly, have inferred from the Bābur-nāma account of Akhsī, (in its translations?) that the landslip through which Bābur's father died and the disappearance of old Akhsī were brought about by erosion. Seen by the light of modern information, this erosion theory does not seem to cover the whole ground and some other cause seems necessary in explanation of both events.

For convenience of reference, the Bābur-nāma passages required, are quoted here, with their translations.

Ḥai. MS. f. 4b. _Saiḥūn daryā-sī qūrghānī astīdīn āqār. Qūrghānī baland jar austīdā wāqī' būlūb tūr. Khandaqī-nīng aūrunīgha `umīq jārlār dūr. `Umar Shaikh M. kīm mūnī pāy-takht qīldī, bīr īkī martaba tāshrāq-dīn yana jarlār sāldī._

Of this the translations are as follows:—

(_a_) Pers. trans. (I.O. 217, f. 3_b_): _Daryā-i Saiḥūn az pāyhā qila`-i o mīrezad u qila`-i o bar jar balandī wāqi` shuda ba jāy khandaq jarhā-i `umīq uftāda. `U. Sh. M. kah ānrā pāy-takht sākhta, yak du martaba az bīrūn ham bāz jarhā andākht._

(_b_) Erskine (p. 5, translating from the Persian): 'The river Saiḥūn flows under the walls of the castle. The castle is situated on a high precipice, and the steep ravines around serve instead of a moat. When U. Sh. M. made it his capital he, in one or two instances, scarped the ravines outside the fort.'

(_c_) De Courteille (i, 8, translating from Ilminsky's imprint, p. 6): 'Le Seihoun coule au pied de la fortresse qui se dresse sur le sommet d'un ravin, dont les profondeurs lui tiennent lieu d'un fossé. `U. Sh. M. à l'époque où il en avait fait son capitale, avait augmenté à une ou deux réprises, les escarpements qui la ceignent naturellement.'

Concerning `Umar Shaikh's death, the words needed are (f. 6_b_);—

_Maẕkūr būlūb aīdī kīm Akhsī qūrghānī buland jar austīdā wāqi` būlūb tūr. `Imāratlār jar yāqāsīdā aīrdī.... Mīrzā jardīn kabūtar u kabūtar-khāna bīla aūchūb shunqār būldī_;—'It has been mentioned that the walled-town of Akhsī is situated above ravine(s). The royal dwellings are along a ravine. The Mīrzā, having flown with his pigeons and their house from the ravine, became a falcon (_i.e._ died).'

A few particulars about Akhsī will shew that, in the translations just quoted, certain small changes of wording are dictated by what, amongst other writers, Kostenko and von Schwarz have written about the oases of Turkistān.

The name Akhsī, as used by Ibn Haukal, Yāqūt and Bābur, describes an oasis township, _i.e._ a walled-town with its adjacent cultivated lands. In Yāqūt's time Akhsī had a second circumvallation, presumably less for defence than for the protection of crops against wild animals. The oasis was created by the Kāsān-water,[2750] upon the riverain loess of the right and higher bank of the Saiḥūn (Sīr), on level ground west of the junction of the Nārīn and the Qarā-daryā, west too of spurs from the northern hills which now abut upon the river. Yāqūt locates it in the 12th century, at one _farsākh_ (_circa_ 4 m.) north of the river.[2751] Depending as it did solely on the Kāsān-water, nothing dictated its location close to the Sīr, along which there is now, and there seems to have been in the 12th century, a strip of waste land. Bābur says of Akhsī what Kostenko says (i, 321) of modern Tāshkīnt, that it stood above ravines (_jarlār_). These were natural or artificial channels of the Kāsān-water.[2752]

To turn now to the translations;—Mr. Erskine imaged Akhsī as a castle, high on a precipice in process of erosion by the Sīr. But Bābur's word, _qūrghān_ means the walled-town; his word for a castle is _ark_, citadel; and his _jar_, a cleft, is not rendered by 'precipice.' Again;—it is no more necessary to understand that the Sīr flowed close to the walls than it is to understand, when one says the Thames flows past below Richmond, that it washes the houses on the hill.

The key to the difficulties in the Turkī passage is provided by a special use of the word _jar_ for not only natural ravines but artificial water-cuts for irrigation. This use of it makes clear that what `Umar Shaikh did at Akhsī was not to make escarpments but to cut new water-channels. Presumably he joined those 'further out' on the deltaic fan, on the east and west of the town, so as to secure a continuous defensive cleft round the town[2753] or it may be, in order to bring it more water.

Concerning the historic pigeon-house (f. 6_b_), it can be said safely that it did not fall into the Sīr; it fell from a _jar_, and in this part of its course, the river flows in a broad bed, with a low left bank. Moreover the Mīrzā's residence was in the walled-town (f. 110_b_) and there his son stayed 9 years after the accident. The slip did not affect the safety of the residence therefore; it may have been local to the birds' house. It will have been due to some ordinary circumstance since no cause for it is mentioned by Bābur, Ḥaidar or Abū'l-faẓl. If it had marked the crisis of the Sīr's approach, Akhsī could hardly have been described, 25 years later, as a strong fort.

Something is known of Akhsī, in the 10th, the 12th, the 15th and the 19th centuries, which testifies to sæcular decadence. Ibn Haukal and Yāqūt give the township an extent of 3 _farsākh_ (12 miles), which may mean from one side to an opposite one. Yāqūt's description of it mentions four gates, each opening into well-watered lands extending a whole _farsākh_, in other words it had a ring of garden-suburb four miles wide.

Two meanings have been given to Bābur's words indicating the status of the oasis in the 15th century. They are, _maḥallātī qūrghān-dīn bīr shar`ī yurāqrāq tūshūb tūr_. They have been understood as saying that the suburbs were two miles from their _urbs_. This may be right but I hesitate to accept it without pointing out that the words may mean, 'Its suburbs extend two miles farther than the walled-town.' Whichever verbal reading is correct, reveals a decayed oasis.

In the 19th century, Nalivkine and Ujfalvy describe the place then bearing the name Akhsī, as a small village, a mere winter-station, at some distance from the river's bank, that bank then protected from denudation by a sand-bank.

Three distinctly-marked stages of decadence in the oasis township are thus indicated by Yāqūt, Bābur and the two modern travellers.

It is necessary to say something further about the position of the suburbs in the 15th century. Bābur quotes as especially suitable to Akhsī, the proverbial questions, 'Where is the village?'[2754] (qy. Akhsī-kīnt.) 'Where are the trees?' and these might be asked by some-one in the suburbs unable to see Akhsī or _vice versâ_. But granting that there were no suburbs within two miles of the town, why had the whole inner circle, two miles of Yāqūt's four, gone out of cultivation? Erosion would have affected only land between the river and the town.

Again;—if the Sīr only were working in the 15th century to destroy a town standing on the Kāsān-water, how is it that this stream does not yet reach the Sīr?

Various ingatherings of information create the impression that failure of Kāsān-water has been the dominant factor in the loss of the Akhsī township. Such failure might be due to the general desiccation of Central Asia and also to increase of cultivation in the Kāsān-valley itself. There may have been erosion, and social and military change may have had its part, but for the loss of the oasis lands and for, as a sequel, the decay of the town, desiccation seems a sufficient cause.

The Kāsān-water still supports an oasis on its riverain slope, the large Aūzbeg town of Tūpa-qūrghān (Town-of-the-hill), from the modern castle of which a superb view is had up the Kāsān-valley, now thickly studded with villages.[2755]

B.—THE BIRDS, QĪL QŪYIRŪGH AND BĀGHRĪ QARĀ.

Describing a small bird (_qūsh-qīna_), abundant in the Qarshī district (f. 49_b_), Bābur names it the _qīl-qūyirūgh_, horse-tail, and says it resembles the _bāghrī qarā_.

Later on he writes (f. 280) that the _bāghrī qarā_ of India is smaller and more slender than 'those' _i.e._ of Transoxiana (f. 49_b_, n. 1), the blackness of its breast less deep, and its cry less piercing.

We have had difficulty in identifying the birds but at length conclude that the _bāghrī qarā_ of Transoxiana is _Pterocles arenarius_, Pallas's black-bellied sand-grouse and that the Indian one is a smaller sand-grouse, perhaps a _Syrrhaptes_. As the _qīl qūyirūgh_ resembles the other two, it may be a yet smaller _Syrrhaptes_.

Muḥ. Ṣāliḥ, writing of sport Shaibāq Khān had in Qarshī (_Shaibānī-nāma_, Vambéry, p. 192) mentions the 'Little bird (_murghak_) of Qarshī,' as on all sides making lament. The Sang-lākh[2756] gives its Persian name as _khar-pala_, ass-hair, says it flies in large flocks and resembles the _bāghrī qarā_. Of the latter he writes as abundant in the open country and as making noise (_bāghīr_).

The Sang-lākh (f. 119) gives the earliest and most informing account we have found of the _bāghrī qarā_. Its says the bird is larger than a pigeon, marked with various colours, yellow especially, black-breasted and a dweller in the stony and waterless desert. These details are followed by a quotation from `Alī-sher _Nawā'ī_, in which he likens his own heart to that of the bird of the desert, presumably referring to the gloom of the bird's plumage. Three synonyms are then given; Ar. _qiṯā_, one due to its cry (Meninsky); Pers. _sang-shikan_, stone-eating, (Steingass, _sang-khwāra_, stone-eating); and Turkī _bāghīr-tīlāq_ which refers, I think, to its cry.

Morier (Ḥājī Bābā) in his _Second journey through Persia_ (Lond. 1818, p. 181), mentions that a bird he calls the black-breasted partridge, (_i.e._ _Francolinus vulgaris_) is known in Turkish as _bokara kara_ and in Persian as _siyāh-sīna_, both names, (he says), meaning black-breast; that it has a horse-shoe of black feathers round the forepart of the trunk, more strongly marked in the female than in the male; that they fly in flocks of which he saw immense numbers near Tabrīz (p. 283), have a soft note, inhabit the plains, and, once settled, do not run. Cock and hen alike have a small spur,—a characteristic, it may be said, identifying rather with _Francolinus vulgaris_ than with _Pterocles arenarius_. Against this identification, however, is Mr. Blandford's statement that _siyāh-sīna_ (Morier's _bokara kara_) is _Pterocles arenarius_ (Report of the Persian Boundary Commission, ii, 271).

In Afghānistān and Bikanir, the sand-grouse is called _tūtūrak_ and _boora kurra_ (Jerdon, ii, 498). Scully explains _baghītāq_ as _Pterocles arenarius_.

Perhaps I may mention something making me doubt whether it is correct to translate _bāghrī qarā_ by _black-liver_ and _gorge-noir_ or other names in which the same meaning is expressed. To translate thus, is to understand a Turkī noun and adjective in Persian construction, and to make exception to the rule, amply exemplified in lists of birds, that Turkī names of birds are commonly in Turkī construction, _e.g._ _qarā bāsh_ (black-head), _āq-bāsh_ (white-head), _sārīgh-sūndūk_ (yellow-headed wagtail). _Bāghīr_ may refer to the cry of the bird. We learn from Mr. Ogilvie Grant that the Mongol name for the sand-grouse _njūpterjūn_, is derived from its cry in flight, _truck_, _truck_, and its Arabic name _qiṯā_ is said by Meninsky to be derived from its cry _kaetha_, _kaetha_. Though the dissimilarity of the two cries is against taking the _njūpterjūn_ and the _qiṯā_ to be of one class of sand-grouse, the significance of the derivation of the names remains, and shows that there are examples in support of thinking that when a sand-grouse is known as _bāghrī qarā_, it may be so known because of its cry (_bāghir_).

The word _qarā_ finds suggestive interpretation in a B. N. phrase (f. 72_b_) _Taṃbal-nīng qarā-sī_, Taṃbal's blackness, _i.e._ the dark mass of his moving men, seen at a distance. It is used also for an indefinite number, _e.g._ 'family, servants, retainers, followers, _qarā_,' and I think it may imply a massed flock.

Bābur's words (f. 280) _bāghrī-nīng qarā-sī ham kam dūr_, [its belly (lit. liver) also is less black], do not necessarily contradict the view that the word _bāghrī_ in the bird's name means crying. The root _bāgh_ has many and pliable derivatives; I suspect both Bābur (here) and Muḥ. Ṣāliḥ (l. c.) of ringing changes on words.

We are indebted for kind reply to our questions to Mr. Douglas Carruthers, Mr. Ogilvie Grant and to our friend, Mr. R. S. Whiteway.

C.—ON THE GOSHA-GĪR.

I am indebted to my husband's examination of two Persian MSS. on archery for an explanation of the word _gosha-gīr_, in its technical sense in archery. The works consulted are the Cyclopædia of Archery (_Kulliyatu'r-rāmī_ I. O. 2771) and the Archer's Guide (_Hidāyatu'r-rāmī_ I. O. 2768).

It should be premised that in archery, the word _gosha_ describes, in the arrow, the notch by which it grips and can be carried on the string, and, in the bow, both the tip (horn) and the notch near the tip in which the string catches. It is explained by Vullers as _cornu et crena arcûs cui immititur nervus_.

Two passages in the Cyclopædia of Archery (f. 9 and f. 36_b_) shew _gosha_ as the bow-tip. One says that to bend the bow, two men must grasp the two _gosha_; the other reports a tradition that the Archangel Gabriel brought a bow having its two _gosha_ (tips) made of ruby. The same book directs that the _gosha_ be made of seasoned ivory, the Archer's Guide prescribing seasoned mulberry wood.

The C. of A. (f. 125_b_) says that a bowman should never be without two things, his arrows and his _gosha-gīr_. The _gosha-gīr_ may be called an item of the repairing kit; it is an implement (f. 53) for making good a warped bow-tip and for holding the string into a displaced notch. It is known also as the _chaprās_, brooch or buckle, and the _kardāng_; and is said to bear these names because it fastens in the string. Its shape is that of the upper part of the Ar. letter _jīm_, two converging lines of which the lower curves slightly outward. It serves to make good a warped bow, without the use of fire and it should be kept upon the bow-tip till this has reverted to its original state. Until the warp has been straightened by the _gosha-gīr_, the bow must be kept from the action of fire because it, (composite of sinew and glutinous substance,) is of the nature of wax.

The same implement can be used to straighten the middle of the bow, the _kamān khāna_. It is then called _kar-dāng_. It can be used there on condition that there are not two _daur_ (curves) in the bow. If there are two the bow cannot be repaired without fire. The _halāl daur_ is said to be characteristic of the Turkish bow. There are three _daur_. I am indebted to Mr. Inigo Simon for the suggestions that _daur_ in this connection means _warp_ and that the three twists (_daur_) may be those of one horn (_gosha_), of the whole bow warped in one curve, and of the two horns warped in opposite directions.

Of repair to the _kamān-khāna_ it is said further that if no _kardāng_ be available, its work can be done by means of a stick and string, and if the damage be slight only, the bow and the string can be tightly tied together till the bow comes straight. 'And the cure is with God!'

Both manuscripts named contain much technical information. Some parts of this are included in my husband's article, _Oriental Crossbows_ (A. Q. R. 1911, p. 1). Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey's interesting book on the Cross-bow allows insight into the fine handicraft of Turkish bow-making.

D.—ON THE RESCUE PASSAGE.

I have omitted from my translation an account of Bābur's rescue from expected death, although it is with the Ḥaidarābād Codex, because closer acquaintance with its details has led both my husband and myself to judge it spurious. We had welcomed it because, being with the true Bābur-nāma text, it accredited the same account found in the Kehr-Ilminsky text, and also because, however inefficiently, it did something towards filling the gap found elsewhere within 908 AH.

It is in the Ḥaidarābād MS. (f. 118_b_), in Kehr's MS. (p. 385), in Ilminsky's imprint (p. 144), in _Les Mémoires de Bābour_ (i, 255) and with the St. P. University Codex, which is a copy of Kehr's.

On the other hand, it is not with the Elphinstone Codex (f. 89_b_); that it was not with the archetype of that codex the scribe's note shews (f. 90); it is with neither of the _Wāqi`āt-i-bāburī_ (Pers. translations) nor with Leyden and Erskine's _Memoirs_ (p. 122).[2757]

Before giving our grounds for rejecting what has been offered to fill the gap of 908 AH. a few words must be said about the lacuna itself. Nothing indicates that Bābur left it and, since both in the Elphinstone Codex and its archetype, the sentence preceding it lacks the terminal verb, it seems due merely to loss of pages. That the loss, if any, was of early date is clear,—the Elph. MS. itself being copied not later than 1567 AD. (JRAS. 1907, p. 137).

Two known circumstances, both of earlier date than that of the Elphinstone Codex, might have led to the loss,—the first is the storm which in 935 AH. scattered Bābur's papers (f. 376_b_), the second, the vicissitudes to which Humāyūn's library was exposed in his exile.[2758] Of the two the first seems the more probable cause.

The rupture of a story at a point so critical as that of Bābur's danger in Karnān would tempt to its completion; so too would wish to make good the composed part of the Bābur-nāma. Humāyūn annotated the archetype of the Elphinstone Codex a good deal but he cannot have written the Rescue passage if only because he was in a position to avoid some of its inaccuracies.

CONTEXT AND TRANSLATION OF THE RESCUE PASSAGE.

To facilitate reference, I quote the last words preceding the gap purported to be filled by the Rescue passage, from several texts;—

(_a_) Elphinstone MS. f. 89_b_,—_Qūptūm. Bāgh gosha-sī-gha bārdīm. Aūzūm bīla andesha qīldīm. Dīdīm kīm kīshī agar yūz u agar mīng yāshāsā, ākhir hech...._

(_b_) The Ḥai. MS. (f. 118_b_) varies from the Elphinstone by omitting the word _hech_ and adding _aūlmāk kīrāk_, he must die.

(_c_) Pāyanda-ḥasan's _Wāqi`āt-i-bāburī_ (I. O. 215, f. 96_b_),—_Barkhwāstam u dar gosha-i bāgh raftam. Ba khūd andesha karda, guftam kah agar kase ṣad sāl yā hazār sāl `umr dāshta bāshad, ākhir hech ast._ (It will be seen that this text has the _hech_ of the Elph. MS.)

(_d_) `Abdu'r-raḥīm's _Wāqi`āt-i-bāburī_ (I. O. 217, f. 79),—_Barkhwāstam u ba gosha-i-bāgh raftam. Ba khūd andeshīdam u guftam kah agar kase ṣad sāl u agar hazār sāl `umr bayābad ākhir...._

(_e_) Muḥ. _Shīrāzī's_ lith. ed. (p. 75) finishes the sentence with _ākhir khūd bāyad murd_, at last one must die,—varying as it frequently does, from both of the _Wāqi`āt_.

(_f_) Kehr's MS. (p. 383-454), Ilminsky, p. 144,—_Qūpūb bāghnīng bīr būrjī-ghā bārīb, khāṯirīm-ghā kīltūrdīm kīm agar adam yūz yīl u agar mīng yīl tīrīk būlsā, ākhir aūlmāk dīn aūzkā chāra yūq tūr._ (I rose. Having gone to a tower of the garden, I brought it to my mind that if a person be alive 100 years or a thousand years, at last he has no help other than to die.)

The Rescue passage is introduced by a Persian couplet, identified by my husband as from Niẕāmī's _Khusrau u Shīrīn_, which is as follows;—

If you stay a hundred years, and if one year, Forth you must go from this heart-delighting palace.

I steadied myself for death (_qarār bīrdīm_). In that garden a stream came flowing;[2759] I made ablution; I recited the prayer of two inclinations (_ra`kat_); having raised my head for silent prayer, I was making earnest petition when my eyes closed in sleep.[2760] I am seeing[2761] that Khwāja Yaq`ūb, the son of Khwāja Yaḥyā and grandson of His Highness Khwāja `Ubaidu'l-lāh, came facing me, mounted on a piebald horse, with a large company of piebald horsemen (_sic_).[2762] He said: 'Lay sorrow aside! Khwāja _Aḥrār_ (_i.e._ `Ubaidu'l-lāh) has sent me to you; he said, "We, having asked help for him (_i.e._ Bābur), will seat him on the royal throne;[2763] wherever difficulty befalls him, let him look towards us (lit. bring us to sight) and call us to mind; there will we be present." Now, in this hour, victory and success are on your side; lift up your head! awake!'

At that time I awoke happy, when Yūsuf and those with him[2764] were giving one another advice. 'We will make a pretext to deceive; to seize and bind[2765] is necessary.' Hearing these words, I said, 'Your words are of this sort, but I will see which of you will come to my presence to take me.' I was saying this when outside the garden wall[2766] came the noise of approaching horsemen. Yūsuf _darogha_ said, 'If we had taken you to Taṃbal our affairs would have gone forward. Now he has sent again many persons to seize you.' He was certain that this noise might be the footfall of the horses of those sent by Taṃbal. On hearing those words anxiety grew upon me; what to do I did not know. At this time those horsemen, not happening to find the garden gate, broke down the wall where it was old (and) came in. I saw (_kūrsām_, lit. might see) that Qutluq Muḥ. _Barlās_ and Bābā-i _Pargharī_, my life-devoted servants, having arrived [with], it may be, ten, fifteen, twenty persons, were approaching. Having flung themselves from their horses,[2767] bent the knee from afar and showed respect, they fell at my feet. In that state (_ḥal_) such ecstasy (_ḥāl_) came over me that you might say (_goyā_) God gave me life from a new source (_bāsh_). I said, 'Seize and bind that Yūsuf _darogha_ and these here (_tūrghān_) hireling mannikins.' These same mannikins had taken to flight. They (_i.e._ the rescuers), having taken them, one by one, here and there, brought them bound. I said, 'Where do you come from? How did you get news?' Qutluq Muḥ. _Barlās_ said: 'When, having fled from Akhsī, we were separated from you in the flight, we went to Andijān when the Khāns also came to Andijān. I saw a vision that Khwāja `Ubaidu'l-lāh said, "Bābur _pādshāh_[2768] is in a village called Karnān; go and bring him, since the royal seat (_masnad_) has become his possession (_ta`alluq_)." I having seen this vision and become happy, represented (the matter) to the Elder Khān (and) the Younger Khān. I said to the Khāns, "I have five or six younger brothers (and) sons; do you add a few soldiers. I will go through the Karnān side and bring news." The Khāns said, "It occurs to our minds also that (he) may have gone that same road (?)." They appointed ten persons; they said, "Having gone in that direction (_sārī_) and made very sure, bring news. Would to God you might get true news!" We were saying this when Bābā-i _Parghārī_ said, "I too will go and seek." He also having agreed with two young men, (his) younger brothers, we rode out. It is three days to-day that we are on the road. Thank God! we have found you.' They said (_dīdīlār_, for _dīb_). They spoke (_aītīlār_), 'Make a move! Ride off! Take these bound ones with you! To stay here is not well; Taṃbal has had news of your coming here; go, in whatever way, and join yourself to the Khāns!' At that time we having ridden out, moved towards Andijān. It was two days that we had eaten no food; the evening prayer had come when we found a sheep, went on, dismounted, killed, and roasted. Of that same roast we ate as much as a feast. After that we rode on, hurried forward, made a five days' journey in a day and two nights, came and entered Andijān. I saluted my uncle the Elder Khān (and) my uncle the Younger Khān, and made recital of past days. With the Khāns I spent four months. My servants, who had gone looking in every place, gathered themselves together; there were more than 300 persons. It came to my mind (_kīm_), 'How long must I wander, a vagabond (_sar-gardān_),[2769] in this Farghāna country? I will make search (_ṯalab_) on every side (_dīb_).' Having said, I rode out in the month of Muḥarram to seek Khurāsān, and I went out from the country of Farghāna.[2770]

REASONS AGAINST THE REJECTION OF THE RESCUE PASSAGE.

Two circumstances have weight against rejecting the passage, its presence with the Ḥaidarābād Codex and its acceptance by Dr. Ilminsky and M. de Courteille.

That it is with the Codex is a matter needing consideration and this the more that it is the only extra matter there found. Not being with the Persian translations, it cannot be of early date. It seems likely to owe its place of honour to distinguished authorship and may well be one of the four portions (_juzwe_) mentioned by Jahāngīr in the Tuzūk-i-jahāngīrī,[2771] as added by himself to his ancestor's book. If so, it may be mentioned, it will have been with Bābur's autograph MS. [now not to be found], from which the Ḥaidarābād Codex shews signs of being a direct copy.[2772]

[The incongruity of the Rescue passage with the true text has been indicated by foot-notes to the translation of it already given. What condemns it on historic and other grounds will follow.]

On linguistic grounds it is a strong argument in its favour that Dr. Ilminsky and M. de Courteille should have accepted it but the argument loses weight when some of the circumstances of their work are taken into account.

In the first place, it is not strictly accurate to regard Dr. Ilminsky as accepting it unquestioned, because it is covered by his depreciatory remarks, made in his preface, on Kehr's text. He, like M. de Courteille, worked with a single Turkī MS. and neither of the two ever saw a complete true text. When their source (the Kehr-Ilminsky) was able to be collated with the Elph. and Ḥai. MSS. much and singular divergence was discovered.

I venture to suggest what appears to me to explain M. de Courteille's acceptance of the Rescue passage. Down to its insertion, the Kehr-Ilminsky text is so continuously and so curiously corrupt that it seems necessary to regard it as being a re-translation into Turkī from one of the Persian translations of the _Bābur-nāma_. There being these textual defects in it, it would create on the mind of a reader initiated through it, only, in the book, an incorrect impression of Bābur's style and vocabulary, and such a reader would feel no transition when passing on from it to the Rescue passage.

In opposition to this explanation, it might be said that a wrong standard set up by the corrupt text, would or could be changed by the excellence of later parts of the Kehr-Ilminsky one. In words, this is sound, no doubt, and such reflex criticism is now easy, but more than the one defective MS. was wanted even to suggest the need of such reflex criticism. The _Bābur-nāma_ is lengthy, ponderous to poise and grasp, and work on it is still tentative, even with the literary gains since the Seventies.

Few of the grounds which weigh with us for the rejection of the Rescue passage were known to Dr. Ilminsky or M. de Courteille;—the two good Codices bring each its own and varied help; Teufel's critique on the 'Fragments,' though made without acquaintance with those adjuncts as they stand in Kehr's own volume, is of much collateral value; several useful oriental histories seem not to have been available for M. de Courteille's use. I may add, for my own part, that I have the great advantage of my husband's companionship and the guidance of his wide acquaintance with related oriental books. In truth, looking at the drawbacks now removed, an earlier acceptance of the passage appears as natural as does today's rejection.

GROUNDS FOR REJECTING THE RESCUE PASSAGE.

The grounds for rejecting the passage need here little more than recapitulation from my husband's article in the JASB. 1910, p. 221, and are as follows;—

i. The passage is in neither of the _Wāqi`āt-i-bāburī_.