Chapter XLVII: Section III: Hindūstān (21)

[2296] Rope (Shaw); _corde qui sert à attacher le bagage sur
les chameaux_ (de Courteille); a thread of 20 cubits long for
weaving (Steingass); I have the impression that an _arghamchī_
is a horse's tether.

[2297] For information about this opponent of Bābur in the
battle of Kānwa, _see_ the _Asiatic Review_, Nov. 1915, II.
Beveridge's art. _Silhadī, and the Mirāt-i-sikandarī_.

[2298] Colonel Luard has suggested to us that the Bābur-nāma
word Sūkhjana may stand for Salwai or Sukhalhari, the names of
two villages near Gūālīār.

[2299] Presumably of night, 6-9 p.m., of Saturday Muḥ.
18th-Oct. 2nd.

[2300] f. 330_b_ and f. 339_b_.

[2301] Between the last explicit date in the text, _viz._
Sunday, Muḥ. 19th, and the one next following, _viz._
Saturday, Ṣafar 3rd, the diary of six days is wanting. The gap
seems to be between the unfinished account of doings in
Dhūlpūr and the incomplete one of those of the Monday of the
party. For one of the intermediate days Bābur had made an
appointment, when in Gūālīār (f. 343), with the envoys of
Bikramājīt, the trysting-day being Muḥ. 23rd (_i.e._ 9 days
after Muḥ. 14th). Bābur is likely to have gone to Bīāna as
planned; that envoys met him there may be surmised from the
circumstance that when negociations with Bikramājīt were
renewed in Āgra (f. 345), two sets of envoys were present, a
"former" one and a "later" one, and this although all envoys
had been dismissed from Gūālīār. The "former" ones will have
been those who went to Bīāna, were not given leave there, but
were brought on to Āgra; the "later" ones may have come to
Āgra direct from Ranthaṃbhor. It suits all round to take it
that pages have been lost on which was the record of the end
of the Dhūlpūr visit, of the journey to the, as yet unseen,
fort of Bīāna, of tryst kept by the envoys, of other doings in
Bīāna where, judging from the time taken to reach Sīkrī, it
may be that the _ma`jūn_ party was held.

[2302] Anglicé, Tuesday after 6 p.m.

[2303] _aghaz aīchīb nīma yīb_, which words seem to imply the
breaking of a fast.

[2304] Doubtless the garden owes its name to the eight heavens
or paradises mentioned in the Qurān (Hughes' _Dictionary of
Islām_ _s.n._ Paradise). Bābur appears to have reached Āgra on
the 1st of Ṣafar; the 2nd may well have been spent on the home
affairs of a returned traveller.

[2305] The great, or elder trio were daughters of Sl.
Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā, Bābur's paternal-aunts therefore, of his
dutiful attendance on whom, Gul-badan writes.

[2306] "Lesser," _i.e._ younger in age, lower in rank as not
being the daughters of a sovereign Mīrzā, and held in less
honour because of a younger generation.

[2307] Gul-badan mentions the arrival in Hindūstān of a khānīm
of this name, who was a daughter of Sl. Maḥmūd Khān
_Chaghatāī_, Bābur's maternal-uncle; to this maternal
relationship the word _chīcha_ (mother) may refer. _Yīnkā_,
uncle's or elder brother's wife, has occurred before (ff. 192,
207), _chīcha_ not till now.

[2308] Cf. f. 344_b_ and n.5 concerning the surmised movements
of this set of envoys.

[2309] This promise was first proffered in Gūālīār (f.343).

[2310] These may be Bāī-qarā kinsfolk or Mīrān-shāhīs married
to them. No record of Shāh Qāsim's earlier mission is
preserved; presumably he was sent in 934 AH. and the record
will have been lost with much more of that year's. Khwānd-amīr
may well have had to do with this second mission, since he
could inform Bābur of the discomfort caused in Herī by the
near leaguer of `Ubaidu'l-lāh _Aūzbeg_.

[2311] _Albatta aūzūmīznī har nu` qīlīb tīgūrkūmīz dūr._ The
following versions of this sentence attest its
difficulty:—_Wāqi`āt-i-bāburī_, 1st trs. I.O. 215 f. 212,
_albatta khūdrā ba har nū`ī ka bāshad dar ān khūb khẉāhīm
rasānad_; and 2nd trs. I.O. 217 f. 238_b_, _albatta dar har
nu` karda khūdrā mī rasānīm_; _Memoirs_ p. 388, "I would make
an effort and return in person to Kābul"; _Mémoires_ ii, 356,
_je ferais tous mes efforts pour pousser en avant_. I surmise,
as Pāyanda-i-ḥasan seems to have done (1st Pers. trs.
_supra_), that the passage alludes to Bābur's aims in
Hindūstān which he expects to touch in the coming spring. What
seems likely to be implied is what Erskine says and more,
_viz._ return to Kābul, renewal of conflict with the Aūzbeg
and release of Khurāsān kin through success. As is said by
Bābur immediately after this, T̤ahmāsp of Persia had defeated
`Ubaidu'l-lah _Aūzbeg_ before Bābur's letter was written.

[2312] _Sīmāb yīmāknī bunyād qīldīm_, a statement which would
be less abrupt if it followed a record of illness. Such a
record may have been made and lost.

[2313] The preliminaries to this now somewhat obscure section
will have been lost in the gap of 934 AH. They will have given
Bābur's instructions to Khwāja Dost-i-khāwand and have thrown
light on the unsatisfactory state of Kābul, concerning which a
good deal comes out later, particularly in Bābur's letter to
its Governor Khwāja Kalān. It may be right to suppose that
Kāmrān wanted Kābul and that he expected the Khwāja to bring
him an answer to his request for it, whether made by himself
or for him, through some-one, his mother perhaps, whom Bābur
now sent for to Hindūstān.

[2314] 934 AH.-August 26th 1528 AD.

[2315] The useful verb _tībrāmāk_ which connotes agitation of
mind with physical movement, will here indicate anxiety on the
Khwāja's part to fulfil his mission to Humāyūn.

[2316] Kāmrān's messenger seems to repeat his master's words,
using the courteous imperative of the 3rd person plural.

[2317] Though Bābur not infrequently writes of _e.g._ Bengalīs
and Aūzbegs and Turks in the singular, the Bengalī, the
Aūzbeg, the Turk, he seems here to mean `Ubaidu'l-lāh, the
then dominant Aūzbeg, although Kūchūm was Khāqān.

[2318] This muster preceded defeat near Jām of which Bābur
heard some 19 days later.

[2319] Humāyūn's wife was Bega Begīm, the later Ḥājī Begīm;
Kāmrān's bride was her cousin perhaps named Māh-afrūz
(Gul-badan's _Humāyūn-nāma_ f. 64_b_). The hear-say tense used
by the messenger allows the inference that he was not
accredited to give the news but merely repeated the rumour of
Kābul. The accredited bearer-of-good-tidings came later (f.
346_b_).

[2320] There are three enigmatic words in this section. The
first is the Sayyid's cognomen; was he _daknī_, rather dark of
hue, or _zaknī_, one who knows, or _ruknī_, one who props,
erects scaffolding, _etc._? The second mentions his
occupation; was he a _ghaiba-gar_, diviner (Erskine,
water-finder), a _jība-gar_, cuirass-maker, or a _jibā-gar_,
cistern-maker, which last suits with well-making? The third
describes the kind of well he had in hand, perhaps the stone
one of f. 353_b_; had it scaffolding, or was it for
drinking-water only (_khwāralīq_); had it an arch, or was it
chambered (_khwāzalīq_)? If Bābur's orders for the work had
been preserved,—they may be lost from f. 344_b_, trouble would
have been saved to scribes and translators, as an example of
whose uncertainty it may be mentioned that from the third word
(_khwāralīq_?) Erskine extracted "jets d'eau and artificial
water-works", and de Courteille "_taillé dans le roc vif_".

[2321] All Bābur's datings in Ṣafar are inconsistent with his
of Muḥarram, if a Muḥarram of 30 days [as given by Gladwin and
others].

[2322] _ḥarārat._ This Erskine renders by "so violent an
illness" (p. 388), de Courteille by "_une inflammation
d'entrailles_" (ii, 357), both swayed perhaps by the earlier
mention, on Muh. 10th, of Bābur's medicinal quick-silver, a
drug long in use in India for internal affections (Erskine).
Some such ailment may have been recorded and the record lost
(f. 345_b_ and n. 8), but the heat, fever, and trembling in
the illness of Ṣafar 23rd, taken with the reference to last's
year's attack of fever, all point to climatic fever.

[2323] _aīndīnī_ (or, _āndīnī_). Consistently with the
readings quoted in the preceding note, E. and de C. date the
onset of the fever as Sunday and translate _aīndīnī_ to mean
"two days after". It cannot be necessary however to specify
the interval between Friday and Sunday; the text is not
explicit; it seems safe to surmise only that the cold fit was
less severe on Sunday; the fever had ceased on the following
Thursday.

[2324] Anglicé, Monday after 6 p.m.

[2325] The _Rashaḥāt-i-´aīnu'l-ḥayāt_ (Tricklings from the
fountain of life) contains an interesting and almost
contemporary account of the Khwāja and of his
_Wālidiyyah-risāla_. A summary of what in it concerns the
Khwāja can be read in the JRAS. Jan. 1916, H. Beveridge's art.
The tract, so far as we have searched, is now known in
European literature only through Bābur's metrical translation
of it; and this, again, is known only through the _Rāmpūr
Dīwān_. [It may be noted here, though the topic belongs to the
beginning of the _Bābur-nāma_ (f. 2), that the _Rashaḥāt_
contains particulars about Aḥrārī's interventions for peace
between Bābur's father ´Umar Shaikh and those with whom he
quarrelled.]

[2326] "Here unfortunately, Mr. Elphinstone's Turki copy
finally ends" (Erskine), that is to say, the Elphinstone Codex
belonging to the Faculty of Advocates of Edinburgh.

[2327] This work, Al-buṣīrī's famous poem in praise of the
Prophet, has its most recent notice in M. René Basset's
article of the _Encyclopædia of Islām_ (Leyden and London).

[2328] Bābur's technical terms to describe the metre he used
are, _ramal musaddas makhbūn ´arūẓ_ and _ẓarb gāh abtar gāh
makhbūn muhẕūf wazn_.

[2329] _aūtkān yīl (u) har maḥal mūndāq ´āriẓat kīm būldī_,
from which it seems correct to omit the _u_ (and), thus
allowing the reference to be to last year's illnesses only;
because no record, of any date, survives of illness lasting
even one full month, and no other year has a _lacuna_ of
sufficient length unless one goes improbably far back: for
these attacks seem to be of Indian climatic fever. One in last
year (934 AH.) lasting 25-26 days (f. 331) might be called a
month's illness; another or others may have happened in the
second half of the year and their record be lost, as several
have been lost, to the detriment of connected narrative.

[2330] Mr. Erskine's rendering (_Memoirs_ p. 388) of the above
section shows something of what is gained by acquaintance
which he had not, with the _Rashaḥāt-i-´āinu'l-ḥayāt_ and with
Bābur's versified _Wālidiyyah-risāla_.

[2331] This gap, like some others in the diary of 935 AH. can
be attributed safely to loss of pages, because preliminaries
are now wanting to several matters which Bābur records shortly
after it. Such are (1) the specification of the three articles
sent to Naṣrat Shāh, (2) the motive for the feast of f.
351_b_, (3) the announcement of the approach of the surprising
group of envoys, who appear without introduction at that
entertainment, in a manner opposed to Bābur's custom of
writing, (4) an account of their arrival and reception.

[2332] Land-holder (_see_ _Hobson-Jobson_ _s.n._ talookdar).

[2333] The long detention of this messenger is mentioned in
Bābur's letter to Humāyūn (f. 349).

[2334] These words, if short _a_ be read in Shăh, make 934 by
_abjad_. The child died in infancy; no son of Humāyūn's had
survived childhood before Akbar was born, some 14 years later.
Concerning Abū'l-wajd _Fārighī_, _see_ _Ḥabību's-siyar_, lith.
ed. ii, 347; _Muntakhabu't-tawārikh_, Bib. Ind. ed. i, 3; and
Index _s.n._

[2335] I am indebted to Mr. A. E. Hinks, Secretary of the
Royal Geographical Society, for the following approximate
estimate of the distances travelled by Bīān Shaikh:—(_a_) From
Kishm to Kābul 240m.—from Kābul to Peshāwar 175m.—from
Peshāwar to Āgra (railroad distance) 759 m.—total 1174 m.;
daily average _cir._ 38 miles; (_b_) Qila`-i-ẕafar to Kābul
264m.—Kābul to Qandahār 316m.—total 580m.; daily average
_cir._ 53 miles. The second journey was made probably in 913
AH. and to inform Bābur of the death of the Shāh of Badakhshān
(f. 213_b_).

[2336] On Muḥ. 10th 934 AH.-Sep. 26th 1528 AD. For accounts of
the campaign _see_ Rieu's Suppl. Persian Cat. under _Histories
of T̤ahmāsp_ (Churchill Collection); the _Ḥabību's-siyar_ and
the _`Ālam-ārāī-`abbāsī_, the last a highly rhetorical work,
Bābur's accounts (Index _s.n._ Jām) are merely repetitions of
news given to him; he is not responsible for mistakes he
records, such as those of f. 354. It must be mentioned that
Mr. Erskine has gone wrong in his description of the battle,
the starting-point of error being his reversal of two events,
the encampment of T̤ahmāsp at Rādagān and his passage through
Mashhad. A century ago less help, through maps and travel, was
available than now.

[2337] _tufak u arāba_, the method of array Bābur adopted from
the Rūmī-Persian model.

[2338] T̤ahmāsp's main objective, aimed at earlier than the
Aūzbeg muster in Merv, was Herāt, near which `Ubaid Khān had
been for 7 months. He did not take the shortest route for
Mashhad, _viz._ the Dāmghān-Sabzawār-Nīshāpūr road, but went
from Dāmghān for Mashhad by way of Kālpūsh (_`Ālam-ārāī_ lith.
ed. p. 45) and Rādagān. Two military advantages are obvious on
this route; (1) it approaches Mashhad by the descending road
of the Kechef-valley, thus avoiding the climb into that valley
by a pass beyond Nīshāpūr on the alternative route; and (2) it
passes through the fertile lands of Rādagān. [For Kālpūsh and
the route _see_ Fr. military map, Sheets Astarābād and Merv,
n.e. of Basṯām.]

[2339] 7 m. from Kushan and 86 m. from Mashhad. As Lord Curzon
reports (_Persia_, ii, 120) that his interlocutors on the spot
were not able to explain the word "Radkan," it may be useful
to note here that the town seems to borrow its name from the
ancient tower standing near it, the _Mīl-i-rādagān_, or, as
Réclus gives it, _Tour de méimandan_, both names meaning,
Tower of the bounteous (or, beneficent, highly-distinguished,
_etc._). (Cf. Vullers Dict. _s.n._ _rād_; Réclus' _L'Asie
Antérieure_ p. 219; and O'Donovan's _Merv Oasis_.) Perhaps
light on the distinguished people (_rādagān_) is given by the
_Dābistān's_ notice of an ancient sect, the Rādīyān, seeming
to be fire-worshippers whose chief was Rād-gūna, an eminently
brave hero of the latter part of Jāmshīd's reign (800 B.C.?).
Of the town Rādagān Daulat Shāh makes frequent mention. A
second town so-called and having a tower lies north of
Ispahān.

[2340] In these days of trench-warfare it would give a wrong
impression to say that T̤ahmāsp entrenched himself; he did
what Bābur did before his battles at Panīpat and Kānwa
(_q.v._).

[2341] The Aūzbegs will have omitted from their purview of
affairs that T̤ahmāsp's men were veterans.

[2342] The holy city had been captured by `Ubaid Khān in 933
AH. (1525 AD.), but nothing in Bīān Shaikh's narrative
indicates that they were now there in force.

[2343] Presumably the one in the Rādagān-meadow.

[2344] using the _yada-tāsh_ to ensure victory (Index _s.n._).

[2345] If then, as now, Scorpio's appearance were expected in
Oct.-Nov., the Aūzbegs had greatly over-estimated their power
to check T̤ahmāsp's movements; but it seems fairly clear that
they expected Scorpio to follow Virgo in Sept.-Oct. according
to the ancient view of the Zodiacal Signs which allotted two
houses to the large Scorpio and, if it admitted Libra at all,
placed it between Scorpio's claws (Virgil's _Georgics_ i, 32
and Ovid's _Metamorphoses_, ii, 195.—H. B.).

[2346] It would appear that the Aūzbegs, after hearing that
T̤ahmāsp was encamped at Rādagān, expected to interpose
themselves in his way at Mashhad and to get their 20,000 to
Rādagān before he broke camp. T̤āhmāsp's swiftness spoiled
their plan; he will have stayed at Rādagān a short time only,
perhaps till he had further news of the Aūzbegs, perhaps also
for commissariat purposes and to rest his force. He visited
the shrine of Imām Reza, and had reached Jām in time to
confront his adversaries as they came down to it from
Zawarābād (Pilgrims'-town).

[2347] or, Khirjard, as many MSS. have it. It seems to be a
hamlet or suburb of Jām. The _`Ālam-ārāī_ (lith. ed. p. 40)
writes Khusrau-jard-i-Jām (the Khusrau-throne of Jām), perhaps
rhetorically. The hamlet is Maulānā `Abdu'r-raḥmān _Jāmī's_
birthplace (Daulat Shāh's _Taẕkirat_, E. G. Browne's ed. p.
483). Jām now appears on maps as Turbat-i-Shaikh Jāmī, the
tomb (_turbat_) being that of the saintly ancestor of Akbar's
mother Ḥamīda-bānū.

[2348] The _`Ālam-ārāī_ (lith. ed. p. 31) says, but in
grandiose language, that `Ubaid Khān placed at the foot of his
standard 40 of the most eminent men of Transoxania who prayed
for his success, but that as his cause was not good, their
supplications were turned backwards, and that all were slain
where they had prayed.

[2349] Here the 1st Pers. trs. (I.O. 215 f. 214) mentions that
it was Chalma who wrote and despatched the exact particulars
of the defeat of the Aūzbegs. This information explains the
presumption Bābur expresses. It shows that Chalma was in Ḥiṣār
where he may have written his letter to give news to Humāyūn.
At the time Bīān Shaikh left, the Mīrzā was near Kishm; if he
had been the enterprising man he was not, one would surmise
that he had moved to seize the chance of the sulṯāns'
abandonment of Ḥiṣār, without waiting for his father's urgency
(f. 348_b_). Whether he had done so and was the cause of the
sulṯāns' flight, is not known from any chronicle yet come to
our hands. Chalma's father Ibrāhīm _Jānī_ died fighting for
Bābur against Shaibāq Khān in 906 AH. (f. 90_b_).

As the sense of the name-of-office Chalma is still in doubt, I
suggest that it may be an equivalent of _aftābachī_, bearer of
the water-bottle on journeys. _T. chalma_ can mean a
water-vessel carried on the saddle-bow; one Chalma on record
was a _safarchī_; if, in this word, _safar_ be read to mean
journey, an approach is made to _aftābachī_ (fol. 15_b_ and
note; Blochmann's A.-i-A. p. 378 and n. 3).

[2350] The copies of Bābur's Turkī letter to Humāyūn and the
later one to Khwāja Kalān (f. 359) are in some MSS. of the
Persian text translated only (I.O. 215 f. 214); in others
appear in Turkī only (I.O. 217 f. 240); in others appear in
Turkī and Persian (B. M. Add. 26,000 and I.O. 2989); while in
Muḥ. Shīrāzī's lith. ed. they are omitted altogether (p. 228).

[2351] Trans- and Cis-Hindukush. Pāyanda-ḥasan (in one of his
useful glosses to the 1st Pers. trs.) amplifies here by
"Khurāsān, Mā warā'u'n-nahr and Kābul".

[2352] The words Bābur gives as mispronunciations are somewhat
uncertain in sense; manifestly both are of ill-omen:—Al-amān
itself [of which the _alāmā_ of the Ḥai. MS. and Ilminsky
maybe an abbreviation,] is the cry of the vanquished,
"Quarter! mercy!"; _Aīlāmān_ and also _ālāman_ can represent a
Turkmān raider.

[2353] Presumably amongst Tīmūrids.

[2354] Perhaps Bābur here makes a placatory little joke.

[2355] _i.e._ that offered by T̤ahmāsp's rout of the Aūzbegs
at Jām.

[2356] He was an adherent of Bābur. Cf. f. 353.

[2357] The plural "your" will include Humāyūn and Kāmrān.
Neither had yet shewn himself the heritor of his father's
personal dash and valour; they had lacked the stress which
shaped his heroism.

[2358] My husband has traced these lines to Niẕāmī's _Khusrau_
and _Shīrīn_. [They occur on f. 256_b_ in his MS. of 317
folios.] Bābur may have quoted from memory, since his version
varies. The lines need their context to be understood; they
are part of Shīrīn's address to Khusrau when she refuses to
marry him because at the time he is fighting for his sovereign
position; and they say, in effect, that while all other work
stops for marriage (_kadkhudāī_), kingly rule does not.

[2359] _Aūlūghlār kūtārīmlīk kīrāk_; 2nd Pers. trs. _buzurgān
bardāsht mī bāīd kardand_. This dictum may be a quotation. I
have translated it to agree with Bābur's reference to the ages
of the brothers, but _aūlūghlār_ expresses greatness of
position as well as seniority in age, and the dictum may be
taken as a Turkī version of "_Noblesse oblige_", and may also
mean "The great must be magnanimous". (Cf. de C.'s Dict.
_s.n._ _kūtārīmlīk_.) [It may be said of the verb _bardāshlan_
used in the Pers. trs., that Abū'l-faẓl, perhaps translating
_kūtārīmlīk_ reported to him, puts it into Bābur's mouth when,
after praying to take Humāyūn's illness upon himself, he cried
with conviction, "I have borne it away" (A.N. trs. H.B. i,
276).]

[2360] If Bābur had foreseen that his hard-won rule in
Hindūstān was to be given to the winds of one son's
frivolities and the other's disloyalty, his words of scant
content with what the Hindūstān of his desires had brought
him, would have expressed a yet keener pain (_Rāmpūr Dīwān_
E.D.R.'s ed. p. 15 l. 5 fr. ft.).

[2361] _Bostān_, cap. _Advice of Noshirwān to Hurmuz_ (H.B.).

[2362] A little joke at the expense of the mystifying letter.

[2363] For _yā_, Mr. Erskine writes _be_. What the mistake was
is an open question; I have guessed an exchange of _ī_ for
_ū_, because such an exchange is not infrequent amongst Turkī
long vowels.

[2364] That of reconquering Tīmūrid lands.

[2365] of _Kūlāb_; he was the father of Ḥaram Begīm, one of
Gul-badan's personages.

[2366] _aūn altī gūnlūk m:ljār bīla_, as on f. 354_b_, and
with exchange of T. _m:ljār_ for P. _mī`ād_, f. 355_b_.

[2367] Probably into Rājpūt lands, notably into those of
Ṣalāḥu'd-dīn.

[2368] _tukhmalīq chakmānlār_; as _tukhma_ means both button
and gold-embroidery, it may be right, especially of Hindūstān
articles, to translate sometimes in the second sense.

[2369] These statements of date are consistent with Bābur's
earlier explicit entries and with Erskine's equivalents of the
Christian Era, but at variance with Gladwin's and with
Wüstenfeldt's calculation that Rabī` II. 1st was Dec. 13th.
Yet Gladwin (_Revenue Accounts_, ed. 1790 AD. p. 22) gives
Rabī` I. 30 days. Without in the smallest degree questioning
the two European calculations, I follow Bābur, because in his
day there may have been allowed variation which finds no entry
in methodical calendars. Erskine followed Bābur's statements;
he is likely nevertheless to have seen Gladwin's book.

[2370] Erskine estimated this at £500, but later cast doubts
on such estimates as being too low (_History of India_, vol.
i, App. D.).

[2371] The bearer of the stamp (_ṯamghā_) who by impressing it
gave quittance for the payment of tolls and other dues.

[2372] Either 24ft. or 36ft. according to whether the short or
long _qārī_ be meant (_infra_). These towers would provide
resting-place, and some protection against ill-doers. They
recall the two _mīl-i-rādagān_ of Persia (f. 347 _n._ 9), the
purpose of which is uncertain. Bābur's towers were not "_kos
mīnārs_", nor is it said that he ordered each _kuroh_ to be
marked on the road. Some of the _kos mīnārs_ on the "old
Mughal roads" were over 30ft. high; a considerable number are
entered and depicted in the _Annual Progress Report_ of the
Archæological Survey for 1914 (Northern Circle, p. 45 and
Plates 44, 45). Some at least have a _lower_ chamber.

[2373] Four-doored, open-on-all-sides. We have not found the
word with this meaning in Dictionaries. It may translate H.
_chaukandī_.

[2374] Erskine makes 9 _kos_ (_kurohs_) to be 13-14 miles,
perhaps on the basis of the smaller _gaz_ of 24 inches.

[2375] _altī yām-ātī bāghlāghāīlār_ which, says one of
Erskine's manuscripts, is called a _dāk-choki_.

[2376] Neither Erskine (_Mems._ p. 394), nor de Courteille
(_Méms._ ii, 370) recognized the word _Mubīn_ here, although
each mentions the poem later (p. 431 and ii, 461), deriving
his information about it from the _Akbar-nāma_, Erskine
direct, de Courteille by way of the Turkī translation of the
same _Akbar-nāma_ passage, which Ilminsky found in Kehr's
volume and which is one of the much discussed "Fragments", at
first taken to be extra writings of Bābur's (cf. Index _in
loco_ _s.n._ Fragments). Ilminsky (p. 455) prints the word
clearly, as one who knows it; he may have seen that part of
the poem itself which is included in Berésine's _Chrestomathie
Turque_ (p. 226 to p. 272), under the title _Fragment d'un
poème inconnu de Bābour_, and have observed that Bābur himself
shews his title to be _Mubīn_, in the lines of his colophon
(p. 271),

_Chū bīān qīldīm āndā shar`īyāt,
Nī `ajab gar Mubīn dīdīm āt?_

(Since in it I have made exposition of Laws, what wonder if I
named it _Mubīn_ (exposition)?) Cf. _Translator's Note_, p.
437. [Berésine says (Ch. T.) that he prints half of his
"_unique manuscrit_" of the poem.]

[2377] The passage Bābur quotes comes from the _Mubīn_ section
on _tayammum masā'la_ (purification with sand), where he tells
his son sand may be used, _Sū yurāq būlsā sīndīn aīr bīr mīl_
(if from thee water be one _mīl_ distant), and then interjects
the above explanation of what the _mīl_ is. Two lines of his
original are not with the _Bābur-nāma_.

[2378] The _ṯanāb_ was thus 120 ft. long. Cf. A.-i-A. Jarrett
i, 414; Wilson's _Glossary of Indian Terms_ and Gladwin's
_Revenue Accounts_, p. 14.

[2379] Bābur's customary method of writing allows the
inference that he recorded, in due place, the coming and
reception of the somewhat surprising group of guests now
mentioned as at this entertainment. That preliminary record
will have been lost in one or more of the small gaps in his
diary of 935 AH. The envoys from the Samarkand Aūzbegs and
from the Persian Court may have come in acknowledgment of the
_Fātḥ-nāma_ which announced victory over Rānā Sangā; the
guests from Farghāna will have accepted the invitation sent,
says Gul-badan, "in all directions," after Bābur's defeat of
Sl. Ibrāhīm _Lūdī_, to urge hereditary servants and Tīmūrid
and Chīngīz-khānid kinsfolk to come and see prosperity with
him now when "the Most High has bestowed sovereignty" (f.
293a; Gul-badan's H.N. f. 11).

[2380] Hindū here will represent Rājpūt. D'Herbélot's
explanation of the name Qīzīl-bāsh (Red-head) comes in
usefully here:—"KEZEL BASCH or KIZIL BASCH. Mot Turc qui
signifie _Tête rouge_. Les Turcs appellent les Persans de ce
nom, depuis qu'Ismaël Sofi, fondateur de la Dynastie des
princes qui regnent aujourd'hui en Perse, commanda à ses
soldats de porter un bonnet rouge autour duquel il y a une
écharpe ou Turban à douze plis, en mémoire et à l'honneur des
12 Imams, successeurs d'Ali, desquels il prétendoit descendre.
Ce bonnet s'appelle en Persan, _Tāj_, et fut institué l'an
907^e de l'Hég." T̤ahmāsp himself uses the name Qīzīl-bāsh;
Bābur does so too. Other explanations of it are found
(Steingass), but the one quoted above suits its use without
contempt. (Cf. f. 354 n. 3).

[2381] _cir._ 140-150ft. or more if the 36in. _qārī_ be the
unit.

[2382] _Andropogon muricatus_, the scented grass of which the
roots are fitted into window spaces and moistened to mitigate
dry, hot winds. Cf. _Hobson-Jobson_ _s.n._ _Cuscuss_.

[2383] A nephew and a grandson of Aḥrāri's second son Yahya
(f. 347_b_) who had stood staunch to Bābur till murdered in
906 AH.-1500 AD. (80_b_). They are likely to be those to whom
went a copy of the _Mubīn_ under cover of a letter addressed
to lawyers of Mā warā'u'n-nahr (f. 351 n. 1). The Khwājas were
in Āgra three weeks after Bābur finished his metrical version
of their ancestor's _Wālidiyyah-risāla_; whether their coming
(which must have been announced some time before their
arrival), had part in directing his attention to the tract can
only be surmised (f. 346).

[2384] He was an Aūzbeg (f. 371) and from his association here
with a Bāī-qarā, and, later with Qāsim-i-ḥusain who was half
Bāī-qarā, half Aūzbeg, seems likely to be of the latter's
family (Index _s.nn._).

[2385] _sāchāq kīūrdī_ (_kīltūrdī_?) No record survives to
tell the motive for this feast; perhaps the gifts made to
Bābur were congratulatory on the birth of a grandson, the
marriage of a son, and on the generally-prosperous state of
his affairs.

[2386] Gold, silver and copper coins.

[2387] Made so by _bhang_ or other exciting drug.

[2388] _ārāl_, presumably one left by the winter-fall of the
Jumna; or, a peninsula.

[2389] Scribes and translators have been puzzled here. My
guess at the Turkī clause is _aūrang aīralīk kīsh jabbah_. In
reading _muslin_, I follow Erskine who worked in India and
could take local opinion; moreover gifts made in Āgra probably
would be Indian.

[2390] For one Ḥāfiẕ of Samarkand see f.237_b_.

[2391] Kūchūm was Khāqān of the Aūzbegs and had his seat in
Samarkand. One of his sons, Abū-sa`īd, mentioned below, had
sent envoys. With Abū-sa`īd is named Mihr-bān who was one of
Kūchūm's wives; Pulād was their son. Mihr-bān was, I think, a
half-sister of Bābur, a daughter of `Umar Shaikh and Umīd of
Andijān (f. 9), and a full-sister of Nāṣir. No doubt she had
been captured on one of the occasions when Bābur lost to the
Aūzbegs. In 925 AH.-1519 AD. (f. 237_b_) when he sent his
earlier _Dīwān_ to Pulād Sl. (_Translator's Note_, p. 438) he
wrote a verse on its back which looks to be addressed to his
half-sister through her son.

[2392] T̤ahmāsp's envoy; the title Chalabī shews high birth.

[2393] This statement seems to imply that the weight made of
silver and the weight made of gold were of the same size and
that the differing specific gravity of the two metals,—that of
silver being _cir._ 10 and that of gold _cir._ 20—gave their
equivalents the proportion Bābur states. Persian Dictionaries
give _sang_ (_tāsh_), a weight, but without further
information. We have not found mention of the _tāsh_ as a
recognized Turkī weight; perhaps the word _tāsh_ stands for an
ingot of unworked metal of standard size. (Cf. _inter alios
libros_, A.-i-A. Blochmann p. 36, Codrington's _Musalman
Numismatics_ p. 117, concerning the _miṣqāl, dīnār, etc._)

[2394] _tarkāsh bīla._ These words are clear in the Ḥai. MS.
but uncertain in some others. E. and de C. have no equivalent
of them. Perhaps the coins were given by the quiverful; that a
quiver of arrows was given is not expressed.

[2395] Bābur's half-nephew; he seems from his name
Keepsake-of-nāṣir to have been posthumous.

[2396] 934 AH.-1528 AD. (f. 336).

[2397] Or, gold-embroidered.

[2398] Wife of Muḥammad-i-zamān Mīrzā.

[2399] These Highlanders of Asfara will have come by
invitation sent after the victory at Panīpat; their welcome
shows remembrance of and gratitude for kindness received a
quarter of a century earlier. Perhaps villagers from Dikh-kat
will have come too, who had seen the Pādshāh run barefoot on
their hills (_Index s.nn._).

[2400] Here gratitude is shewn for protection given in 910
AH.-1504 AD. to the families of Bābur and his men when on the
way to Kābul. Qurbān and Shaikhī were perhaps in Fort Ajar (f.
122_b_, f. 126).

[2401] Perhaps these acrobats were gipsies.

[2402] This may be the one with which Sayyid Daknī was
concerned (f. 346).

[2403] Bābur obviously made the distinction between _pahr_ and
_pās_ that he uses the first for day-watches, the second for
those of the night.

[2404] Anglicé, Tuesday, Dec. 21st; by Muḥammadan plan,
Wednesday 22nd. Dhūlpūr is 34 m. s. of Āgra; the journey of
10hrs. 20m. would include the nooning and the time taken in
crossing rivers.

[2405] The well was to fill a cistern; the 26 spouts with
their 26 supports were to take water into (26?) conduits.
Perhaps _tāsh_ means that they were hewn in the solid rock;
perhaps that they were on the outer side of the reservoir.
They will not have been built of hewn stone, or the word would
have been _sangīn_ or _tāshdīn_.

[2406] One occupation of these now blank days is indicated by
the date of the "_Rāmpūr Dīwān_", Thursday Rabī` II. 15th
(Dec. 27th).

[2407] The demon (or, athlete) sulṯān of Rumelia (_Rūmlū_);
once T̤ahmāsp's guardian (_Taẕkirat-i-T̤ahmāsp_, Bib. Ind. ed.
Phillott, p. 2). Some writers say he was put to death by
T̤ahmāsp (_æt._ 12) in 933 AH.; if this were so, it is strange
to find a servant described as his in 935 AH. (An account of
the battle is given in the _Sharaf-nāma_, written in 1005 AH.
by Sharaf Khān who was reared in T̤ahmāsp's house. The book
has been edited by Veliaminof-Zernof and translated into
French by Charmoy; cf. Trs. vol. ii, part i, p. 555.—_H.
Beveridge._)

[2408] This name, used by one who was with the Shāh's troops,
attracts attention; it may show the composition of the Persian
army; it may differentiate between the troops and their
"Qīzīl-bāsh leader".

[2409] Several writers give Sārū-qamsh (Charmoy, _roseau
jaune_) as the name of the village where the battle was
fought; Sharaf Khān gives `Umarābād and mentions that after
the fight T̤ahmāsp spent some time in the meadow of
Sārū-qamsh.

[2410] The number of T̤ahmāsp's guns being a matter of
interest, reference should be made to Bābur's accounts of his
own battles in which he arrayed in Rūmī (Ottoman) fashion; it
will then be seen that the number of carts does not imply the
number of guns (Index _s.n._ _arāba_, cart).

[2411] This cannot but represent T̤ahmāsp who was on the
battle-field (_see_ his own story _infra_). He was 14 years
old; perhaps he was called Shāh-zāda, and not Shāh, on account
of his youth, or because under guardianship (?). Readers of
the Persian histories of his reign may know the reason. Bābur
hitherto has always called the boy Shāh-zāda; after the
victory at Jām, he styles him Shāh. Jūha Sl. (_Taklū_) who was
with him on the field, was Governor of Ispahān.

[2412] If this Persian account of the battle be in its right
place in Bābur's diary, it is singular that the narrator
should be so ill-informed at a date allowing facts to be
known; the three sulṯāns he names as killed escaped to die,
Kūchūm in 937 AH.-1530 AD., Abū-sa`īd in 940 AH.-1533 AD.,
`Ubaid in 946 AH.-1539 AD. (Lane-Poole's _Muḥammadan
Dynasties_). It would be natural for Bābur to comment on the
mistake, since envoys from two of the sulṯāns reported killed,
were in Āgra. There had been time for the facts to be known:
the battle was fought on Sep. 26th; the news of it was in Āgra
on Nov. 23rd; envoys from both adversaries were at Bābur's
entertainment on Dec. 19th. From this absence of comment and
for the reasons indicated in note 3 (_infra_), it appears that
matter has been lost from the text.

[2413] T̤ahmāsp's account of the battle is as follows
(_T.-i-T̤._ p. 11):—"I marched against the Aūzbegs. The battle
took place outside Jām. At the first onset, Aūzbeg prevailed
over Qīzīl-bāsh. Ya`qūb Sl. fled and Sl. Wālāma _Taklū_ and
other officers of the right wing were defeated and put to
flight. Putting my trust in God, I prayed and advanced some
paces.... One of my body-guard getting up with `Ubaid struck
him with a sword, passed on, and occupied himself with
another. Qūlīj Bahādur and other Aūzbegs carried off the
wounded `Ubaid; Kūchkūnjī (Kūchūm) Khān and Jānī Khān Beg,
when they became aware of this state of affairs, fled to Merv.
Men who had fled from our army rejoined us that day. That
night I spent on the barren plain (_ṣaḥra'_). I did not know
what had happened to `Ubaid. I thought perhaps they were
devising some stratagem against me." The `A.-`A. says that
`Ubaid's assailant, on seeing his low stature and contemptible
appearance, left him for a more worthy foe.

[2414] Not only does some comment from Bābur seem needed on an
account of deaths he knew had not occurred, but loss of matter
may be traced by working backward from his next explicit date
(_Friday 19th_), to do which shows fairly well that the "same
day" will be not Tuesday the 16th but Thursday the 18th.
Ghīāṣu'd-dīn's reception was on the day preceding Friday 19th,
so that part of Thursday's record (as shewn by "on this same
day"), the whole of Wednesday's, and (to suit an expected
comment by Bābur on the discrepant story of the Aūzbeg deaths)
part of Tuesday's are missing. The gap may well have contained
mention of Ḥasan _Chalabī's_ coming (f. 357), or explain why
he had not been at the feast with his younger brother.

[2415] _qūrchī_, perhaps body-guard, life-guardsman.

[2416] As on f. 350_b_ (_q.v._ p. 628 n. 1) _aūn altī gūnlūk
bŭljār_ (or, _m:ljār_) _bīla_.

[2417] A sub-division of the Ballia district of the United
Provinces, on the right bank of the Ghogrā.

[2418] _i.e._ in 16 days; he was 24 or 25 days away.

[2419] The envoy had been long in returning; Kanwā was fought
in March, 1527; it is now the end of 1528 AD.

[2420] Rabī` II. 20th—January 1st 1529 AD.; Anglicé, Friday,
after 6p.m.

[2421] This "Bengalī" is territorial only; Naṣrat Shāh was a
Sayyid's son (f.271).

[2422] Ismā`īl Mītā (f. 357) who will have come with Mullā
Maẕhab.

[2423] _mī`ād_, cf. f. 350_b_ and f. 354_b_. Ghīāṣu'd-dīn may
have been a body-guard.

[2424] Lūdī Afghāns and their friends, including Bīban and
Bāyazīd.

[2425] _yūllūq tūrālīk_; _Memoirs_, p. 398, "should act in
every respect in perfect conformity to his commands";
_Mémoires_ ii, 379, "_chacun suivant son rang et sa dignité_."

[2426] _tawāchī._ Bābur's uses of this word support Erskine in
saying that "the _tawāchī_ is an officer who corresponds very
nearly to the Turkish _chāwush_, or special messenger"
(Zenker, p. 346, col. iii) "but he was also often employed to
act as a commissary for providing men and stores, as a
commissioner in superintending important affairs, as an
aide-de-camp in carrying orders, _etc._"

[2427] Here the Ḥai. MS. has the full-vowelled form, _būljār_.
Judging from what that Codex writes, _būljār_ may be used for
a rendezvous of troops, _m:ljār_ or _b:ljār_ for any other
kind of tryst (f. 350, p. 628 n. 1; Index _s.nn._), also for a
shelter.

[2428] _yāwūshūb aīdī_, which I translate in accordance with
other uses of the verb, as meaning approach, but is taken by
some other workers to mean "near its end".

[2429] Though it is not explicitly said, Chīn-tīmūr may have
been met with on the road; as the "also" (_ham_) suggests.

[2430] To the above news the _Akbar-nāma_ adds the important
item reported by Humāyūn, that there was talk of peace. Bābur
replied that, if the time for negotiation were not past,
Humāyūn was to make peace until such time as the affairs of
Hindūstān were cleared off. This is followed in the A. N. by a
seeming quotation from Bābur's letter, saying in effect that
he was about to leave Hindūstān, and that his followers in
Kābul and Tramontana must prepare for the expedition against
Samarkand which would be made on his own arrival. None of the
above matter is now with the _Bābur-nāma_; either it was there
once, was used by Abū'l-faẓl and lost before the Persian trss.
were made; or Abū'l-faẓl used Bābur's original, or copied,
letter itself. That desire for peace prevailed is shewn by
several matters:—T̤ahmāsp, the victor, asked and obtained the
hand of an Aūzbeg in marriage; Aūzbeg envoys came to Āgra, and
with them Turk Khwājas having a mission likely to have been
towards peace (f. 357_b_); Bābur's wish for peace is shewn
above and on f. 359 in a summarized letter to Humāyūn. (Cf.
Abū'l-ghāzī's _Shajarat-i-Turk_ [_Histoire des Mongols_,
Désmaisons' trs. p. 216]; _Akbar-nāma_, H. B.'s trs. i, 270.)

A here-useful slip of reference is made by the translator of
the _Akbar-nāma_ (_l.c._ n. 3) to the Fragment (_Mémoires_ ii,
456) instead of to the _Bābur-nāma_ translation (_Mémoires_
ii, 381). The utility of the slip lies in its accompanying
comment that de C.'s translation is in closer agreement with
the _Akbar-nāma_ than with Bābur's words. Thus the
_Akbar-nāma_ passage is brought into comparison with what it
is now safe to regard as its off-shoot, through Turkī and
French, in the Fragment. When the above comment on their
resemblance was made, we were less assured than now as to the
genesis of the Fragment (Index _s.n._ Fragment).

[2431] Hind-āl's guardian (G. B.'s _Humāyūn-nāma_ trs. p. 106,
n. 1).

[2432] Nothing more about Humāyūn's expedition is found in the
B. N.; he left Badakhshān a few months later and arrived in
Āgra, after his mother (f. 380_b_), at a date in August of
which the record is wanting.

[2433] under 6 m. from Āgra. Gul-badan (f. 16) records a visit
to the garden, during which her father said he was weary of
sovereignty. Cf. f. 331_b_, p. 589 n. 2.

[2434] _kūrnīsh kīlkān kīshīlār._

[2435] MSS. vary or are indecisive as to the omitted word. I
am unable to fill the gap. Erskine has "_Sir Māwineh_ (or
hair-twist)" (p. 399), De Courteille, _Sir-mouïneh_ (ii, 382).
_Mūīna_ means ermine, sable and other fine fur
(_Shamsu'l-lūghāt_, p 274, col. 1).

[2436] His brother Ḥaẓrat Makhdūmī Nūrā (Khwāja Khāwand
Maḥmūd) is much celebrated by Ḥaidar Mīrzā, and Bābur
describes his own visit in the words he uses of the visit of
an inferior to himself. Cf. _Tārīkh-i-rashīdī_ trs. pp. 395,
478; _Akbar-nāma_ trs., i, 356, 360.

[2437] No record survives of the arrival of this envoy or of
why he was later in coming than his brother who was at Bābur's
entertainment. Cf. f. 361_b_.

[2438] Presumably this refers to the appliances mentioned on
f. 350_b_.

[2439] f. 332, n. 3.

[2440] _zarbaft m:l:k._ Amongst gold stuffs imported into
Hindūstān, Abū'l-faẓl mentions _mīlak_ which may be Bābur's
cloth. It came from Turkistān (A.-i-A. Blochmann, p. 92 and
n.).

[2441] A _tang_ is a small silver coin of the value of about a
penny (Erskine).

[2442] _tānglāsī_, lit. at its dawning. It is not always clear
whether _tānglāsī_ means, Anglicé, next dawn or day, which
here would be Monday, or whether it stands for the dawn
(daylight) of the Muḥammadan day which had begun at 6 p. m. on
the previous evening, here Sunday. When Bābur records, _e.g._
a late audience, _tānglāsī_, following, will stand for the
daylight of the day of audience. The point is of some
importance as bearing on discrepancies of days, as these are
stated in MSS., with European calendars; it is conspicuously
so in Bābur's diary sections.

[2443] _risālat ṯarīqī bīla_; their special mission may have
been to work for peace (f. 359_b_, n. 1).

[2444] He may well be Kāmrān's father-in-law Sl. `Alī Mīrzā
T̤aghāī _Begchīk_.

[2445] _nīmcha u takband._ The _tak-band_ is a silk or woollen
girdle fastening with a "hook and eye" (Steingass), perhaps
with a buckle.

[2446] This description is that of the contents of the
"_Rāmpūr Dīwān_"; the _tarjuma_ being the _Wālidiyyah-risāla_
(f. 361 and n.). What is said here shows that four copies went
to Kābul or further north. Cf. Appendix Q.

[2447] _Sar-khaṯ_ may mean "copies" set for Kāmrān to imitate.

[2448] _bīr pahr yāwūshūb aīdī_; I.O. 215 f. 221, _qarīb yak
pās roz būd_.

[2449] _ākhar_, a word which may reveal a bad start and
uncertainty as to when and where to halt.

[2450] This, and not Chandwār (f. 331_b_), appears the correct
form. Neither this place nor Ābāpūr is mentioned in the G. of
I.'s Index or shewn in the I.S. Map of 1900 (cf. f. 331_b_ n.
3). Chandawār lies s.w. of Fīrūzābād, and near a village
called Ṣufīpūr.

[2451] Anglicé, Wednesday after 6 p.m.

[2452] or life-guardsman, body-guard.

[2453] This higher title for T̤ahmāsp, which first appears
here in the B.N., may be an early slip in the Turkī text,
since it occurs in many MSS. and also because "Shāh-zāda"
reappears on f. 359.

[2454] Slash-face, _balafré_; perhaps Ibrāhīm _Begchīk_ (Index
_s.n._), but it is long since he was mentioned by Bābur, at
least by name. He may however have come, at this time of
reunion in Āgra, with Mīrzā Beg T̤aghāī (his uncle or
brother?), father-in-law of Kāmrān.

[2455] The army will have kept to the main road connecting the
larger towns mentioned and avoiding the ravine district of the
Jumna. What the boat-journey will have been between high banks
and round remarkable bends can be learned from the G. of I.
and Neave's _District Gazetteer of Mainpūrī_. Rāprī is on the
road from Fīrūzābād to the ferry for Bateswar, where a large
fair is held annually. (It is misplaced further east in the
I.S. Map of 1900.) There are two Fatḥpūrs, n. e. of Rāprī.

[2456] _aūlūgh tūghāīnīng tūbī._ Here it suits to take the
Turkī word _tūghāī_ to mean bend of a river, and as referring
to the one shaped (on the map) like a soda-water bottle, its
neck close to Rāprī. Bābur avoided it by taking boat below its
mouth.—In neither Persian translation has _tūghāī_ been read
to mean a bend of a river; the first has _az pāyān rūīa
Rāprī_, perhaps referring to the important ford (_pāyān_); the
second has _az zīr bulandī kalān Rāprī_, perhaps referring to
a height at the meeting of the bank of the ravine down which
the road to the ford comes, with the high bank of the river.
Three examples of _tūghāī_ or _tūqāī_ [a synonym given by
Dictionaries], can be seen in Abū'l-ghāzī's _Shajrat-i-Turk_,
Fraehn's imprint, pp. 106, 107, 119 (Désmaisons' trs. pp. 204,
205, 230). In each instance Désmaisons renders it by _coude_,
elbow, but one of the examples may need reconsideration, since
the word has the further meanings of wood, dense forest by the
side of a river (Vambéry), prairie (Zenker), and reedy plain
(Shaw).

[2457] Blochmann describes the apparatus for marking lines to
guide writing (A.-i-A. trs. p. 52 n. 5):—On a card of the size
of the page to be written on, two vertical lines are drawn
within an inch of the edges; along these lines small holes are
pierced at regular intervals, and through these a string is
laced backwards and forwards, care being taken that the
horizontal strings are parallel. Over the lines of string the
pages are placed and pressed down; the strings then mark the
paper sufficiently to guide the writing.

[2458] _tarkīb (nīng) khaṯī bīla tarjuma bīlīr aūchūn._ The
_Rāmpūr Dīwān_ may supply the explanation of the uncertain
words _tarkīb khaṯī_. The "translation" (_tarjuma_), mentioned
in the passage quoted above, is the _Wālidiyyah-risāla_, the
first item of the _Dīwān_, in which it is entered on crowded
pages, specially insufficient for the larger hand of the
chapter-headings. The number of lines per page is 13; Bābur
now fashions a line-marker for 11. He has already despatched 4
copies of the translation (f. 357_b_); he will have judged
them unsatisfactory; hence to give space for the mixture of
hands (_tarkīb khaṯī_), _i.e._ the smaller hand of the poem
and the larger of the headings, he makes an 11 line marker.

[2459] Perhaps Aḥrārī's in the _Wālidiyyah-risāla_, perhaps
those of Muḥammad. A quatrain in the _Rāmpūr Dīwān_ connects
with this admonishment [Plate xiv_a_, 2nd quatrain].

[2460] Jākhān (_G. of Mainpūrī_). The _G. of Etāwa_
(Drake-Brockman) p. 213, gives this as some 18 m. n.w. of
Etāwa and as lying amongst the ravines of the Jumna.

[2461] f. 359_b_ allows some of the particulars to be known.

[2462] Mahdī may have come to invite Bābur to the luncheon he
served shortly afterwards. The Ḥai. MS. gives him the
honorific plural; either a second caller was with him or an
early scribe has made a slip, since Bābur never so-honours
Mahdī. This small point touches the larger one of how Bābur
regarded him, and this in connection with the singular story
Niẕāmu'd-dīn Aḥmad tells in his _T̤abaqāt-i-akbarī_ about
Khalīfa's wish to supplant Humāyūn by Mahdī Khwāja (Index
_s.nn._).

[2463] _yīgītlārnī shokhlūqgha sāldūq_, perhaps set them to
make fun. Cf. f. 366, _yīgītlār bīr pāra shokhlūq qīldīlār_.
Muḥ. _Shīrāzī_ (p. 323 _foot_) makes the startling addition of
_dar āb_ (_andākhtīm_), _i.e._ he says that the royal party
flung the braves into the river.

[2464] The _Gazetteer of Etāwa_ (Drake-Brockman) p. 186,
_s.n._ Bāburpūr, writes of two village sites [which from their
position are Mūrī-and-Adūsa], as known by the name Sarāī
Bāburpūr from having been Bābur's halting-place. They are 24m.
to the s.e. of Etāwa, on the old road for Kālpī. Near the name
Bāburpūr in the Gazetteer Map there is Muhuri (Mūrī?); there
is little or no doubt that Sarāī Bāburpūr represents the
camping-ground Mūrī-and-Adūsa.

[2465] This connects with Kītīn-qarā's complaints of the
frontier-begs (f. 361), and with the talk of peace (f.
356_b_).

[2466] This injunction may connect with the desired peace; it
will have been prompted by at least a doubt in Bābur's mind as
to Kāmrān's behaviour perhaps _e.g._ in manifested dislike for
a Shīa`. Concerning the style Shāh-zāda _see_ f. 358, p. 643,
n. 1.

[2467] Kāmrān's mother Gul-rukh _Begchīk_ will have been of
the party who will have tried in Kābul to forward her son's
interests.

[2468] f. 348, p. 624, n. 2.

[2469] Kābul and Tramontana.

[2470] Presumably that of Shamsu'd-dīn Muḥammad's mission. One
of Bābur's couplets expresses longing for the fruits, and also
for the "running waters", of lands other than Hindūstān, with
conceits recalling those of his English contemporaries in
verse, as indeed do several others of his short poems (_Rāmpūr
Dīwān_ Plate xvii A.).

[2471] Ḥai. MS. _nā marbūṯlīghī_; so too the 2nd Pers. trs.
but the 1st writes _wairānī u karābī_ which suits the matter
of defence.

[2472] _qūrghān_, walled-town; from the _maẓbūt_ following,
the defences are meant.

[2473] _viz._ Governor Khwāja Kalān, on whose want of
dominance his sovereign makes good-natured reflection.

[2474] _`alūfa u qūnāl_; cf. 364_b_.

[2475] Following _aīlchī_ (envoys) there is in the Ḥai. MS.
and in I.O. 217 a doubtful word, _būmla_, _yūmla_; I.O. 215
(which contains a Persian trs. of the letter) is obscure,
Ilminsky changes the wording slightly; Erskine has a free
translation. Perhaps it is _yaumī_, daily, misplaced (_see_
above).

[2476] Perhaps, endow the Mosque so as to leave no right of
property in its revenues to their donor, here Bābur. Cf.
Hughes' _Dict. of Islām_ s.nn. _sharī`_, _masjid_ and _waqf_.

[2477] f. 139. Khwāja Kalān himself had taken from Hindūstān
the money for repairing this dam.

[2478] _sāpqūn ālīp_; the 2nd Pers. trs. as if from _sātqūn
ālīp_, _kharīda_, purchasing.

[2479] _naẕar-gāh_, perhaps, theatre, as showing the play
enacted at the ford. Cf. ff. 137, 236, 248_b_. Tūtūn-dara will
be Masson's Tūtām-dara. Erskine locates Tūtūn-dara some 8
_kos_ (16 m.) n. w. of Hūpīān (Ūpīān). Masson shews that it
was a charming place (_Journeys in Biluchistan, Afghanistan
and the Panj-āb_, vol. iii, cap. vi and vii).

[2480] _jībachī._ Bābur's injunction seems to refer to the
maintaining of the corps and the manufacture of armour rather
than to care for the individual men involved.

[2481] Either the armies in Nīl-āb, or the women in the
Kābul-country (f. 375).

[2482] Perhaps what Bābur means is, that both what he had said
to `Abdu'l-lāh and what the quatrain expresses, are dissuasive
from repentance. Erskine writes (_Mems._ p. 403) but without
textual warrant, "I had resolution enough to persevere"; de
Courteille (_Mems._ ii, 390), "_Voici un quatrain qui exprime
au juste les difficultés de ma position._"

[2483] The surface retort seems connected with the jacket,
perhaps with a request for the gift of it.

[2484] Clearly what recalled this joke of Banāī's long-silent,
caustic tongue was that its point lay ostensibly in a baffled
wish—in `Alī-sher's professed desire to be generous and a
professed impediment, which linked in thought with Bābur's
desire for wine, baffled by his abjuration. So much Banāī's
smart verbal retort shows, but beneath this is the
_double-entendre_ which cuts at the Beg as miserly and as
physically impotent, a defect which gave point to another jeer
at his expense, one chronicled by Sām Mīrzā and translated in
Hammer-Purgstall's _Geschichte von schönen Redekünste
Persiens_, art. CLV. (Cf. f. 179-80.)—The word _mādagī_ is
used metaphorically for a button-hole; like _nā-mardī_, it
carries secondary meanings, miserliness, impotence, _etc._
(Cf. Wollaston's _English-Persian Dictionary_ _s.n._
button-hole, where only we have found _mādagī_ with this
sense.)

[2485] The 1st Pers. trs. expresses "all these jokes", thus
including with the double-meanings of _mādagī_, the jests of
the quatrain.

[2486] The 1st Pers. trs. fills out Bābur's allusive phrase
here with "of the _Wālidiyyah_". His wording allows the
inference that what he versified was a prose Turkī translation
of a probably Arabic original.

[2487] Erskine comments here on the non-translation into
Persian of Bābur's letters. Many MSS., however, contain a
translation (f. 348, p. 624, n. 2 and E.'s n. f. 377_b_).

[2488] Anglicé, Thursday after 6 p.m.

[2489] What would suit measurement on maps and also Bābur's
route is "Jumoheen" which is marked where the Sarāī
Bāburpūr-Atsu-Phaphand road turns south, east of Phaphand
(I.S. Map of 1900, Sheet 68).

[2490] var. _Qabāq_, _Qatāk_, _Qanāk_, to each of which a
meaning might be attached. Bābur had written to Humāyūn about
the frontier affair, as one touching the desired peace (f.
359).

[2491] This will refer to the late arrival in Āgra of the
envoy named, who was not with his younger brother at the feast
of f. 351_b_ (f. 357, p. 641, n. 2).—As to T̤ahmāsp's style,
see f. 354, f. 358.

[2492] Shāh-qulī may be the ill-informed narrator of f. 354.

[2493] Both are marked on the southward road from Jumoheen
(Jumandnā?) for Auraiya.

[2494] The old Kālpī _pargana_ having been sub-divided,
Dīrapūr is now in the district of Cawnpore (Kānhpūr).

[2495] That this operation was not hair-cutting but
head-shaving is shewn by the verbs T. _qīrmāq_ and its Pers.
trs. _tarāsh kardan_. To shave the head frequently is common
in Central Asia.

[2496] This will be Chaparghatta on the
Dīrapūr-Bhognīpūr-Chaparghatta-Mūsanagar road, the affixes
_kada_ and _ghatta_ both meaning house, temple, _etc._

[2497] Māhīm, and with her the child Gul-badan, came in
advance of the main body of women. Bābur seems to refer again
to her assumption of royal style by calling her Walī, Governor
(f. 369 and n.). It is unusual that no march or halt is
recorded on this day.