About this time I went, after taking leave of Husain Khán, from Lucknow to Badáún, where I formed a suitable nuptial alliance for my brother, Shaikh Muhammad, whom I loved from my very soul, nay, better than my own soul, for he was endowed with every excellent and angelic quality. Three months did not elapse before he died, he, as well as 'Abdu-l Latíf, the light of my eyes, the earliest fruits of the garden of my life (my first-born), who, when time cast an evil eye upon him, was carried off, in the twinkling of an eye,* from the cradle to the tomb, and I was suddenly reduced from the happiest to the saddest of men. God created me, and to God shall I return!

[Text, vol. ii. p. 136.] In the year 979 A.H. the palace at Ágra and the palace at the new town of Fathpúr were completed. * * * At the close of the month of Ramazán of this year, Shaikh Salím Chishtí, of Fathpúr, died. He was one of the chief saints of Hindústán, and his sayings are worthy of commemoration. I will hereafter give a notice of him, please God, in the supplement to this history.

During this year an unfortunate accident befell the author, of which the following are the particulars. At the period when Kánt and Gola was held in jágír by Muhammad Husain Khán, and when it pleased fate to associate me with him for some time, as I was appointed Judge of that district,* I went on a pilgrimage to Makanpúr, a dependency of Kanauj, where is the tomb of the holy Shaikh, Badí'u-l Hakk wau-d dín Sháh Madár (may God sanctify his tomb!). This son of man, through the disposition which he inherited from his sinful and ignorant nature (which he imbibed with his mother's crude milk, and which is the cause of shame and reproach), and through innate darkness and ignorance (which are the source of presumption and baseness, and which came down to him by inheritance from father Adam), the eyes of his wisdom were covered with a film of lust, and he was inclosed in the net of lasciviousness, so that he committed all of a sudden, as was of old forewilled by Providence, a gross impropriety within that shrine. Since the chastisement as well as the mercy of God was upon me, I received upon earth the punishment of my sin, by his ordaining that several connexions of the girl whom I fell in love with should inflict nine sword wounds upon my head, hands, and shoulders. They were all slight, but one penetrated the bone of my skull, and reached to the brain, exposing me as a brainless fellow, and another partially severed the veins of the little finger of my left hand. I fainted away, and appeared to be travelling to another world. May God bless my resurrection!

I met with an excellent surgeon in Bángarmau, who closed my wounds within a week, and in the midst of my pain and illness, I made a vow, that if I recovered I would go to Mecca—a vow which I have not yet been able to perform, but which I hope, God willing, to do before I die, and before any obstacle intervenes to prevent the execution of that excellent resolve. The rest is with God!

Afterwards, I arrived at Kánt and Gola, and had no sooner bathed after my recovery, than I was again laid on my bed by sickness, the wound having become ulcerous from the effect of excessive cold. Husain Khán (may God bless him with eternal Paradise! for he showed himself more than a father or a brother to me) administered some medicine, in the shape of a plaster and electuary, both made from the wood of the tamarisk, and enabled me to proceed on my journey to Badáún. There another surgeon took off the dressings, and re-opened the would on my head. I was nearly expiring from the intensity of the pain. * * *

During this year a dreadful fire broke out at Badáún, and an immense number of Musulmáns and Hindús perished in the flames. Carts full of the remains of those who were burnt were driven down to the river, and no one could tell who was a believer, and who an infidel. Many who escaped being burnt rushed to the ramparts, and were so scorched by the flames, that men and women precipitated themselves from the wall in despair. Some had their skins burnt and disfigured. Water seemed only to add fuel to the flames. All this I witnessed with my own eyes, and heard the noise of the flames with my own ears. Some it warned, others it destroyed. A short time before this, a half-witted fellow came from the Doáb, whom I took into my own house and society. He said to me one day in private, that I ought to flee out of that city, as some infliction of Providence was about to befall it. But I paid no attention to him, as he was a frequenter of taverns.

[Text, vol. ii. p. 145.] One day in the year 980, the King went to look at the fort of Surat, and gave orders to repair the portions that had been battered and destroyed. During his inspection he saw the large mortars, which had been despatched with a powerful fleet and army by Sulaimán Sultán, the Turkish Em­peror, to assist in capturing the harbours of Gujarát, and had been left on the sea-shore, covered with rust, because Sulaimán Ágá, the admiral, had abandoned the enterprise through meeting with some obstacle.* There they remained, until Khudáwand Khán wazír had them carried into the fort of Surat, at the time it was building. The few which remained had been taken to Júnagarh* by the Governor. The King inspected them, and gave orders that some of them, which were not wanted there, should be sent to Ágra.*

The reason assigned for Khudáwand Khán's* building the fort of Surat is, that the Firingís used to oppress the Musulmáns in every kind of manner, devastating the country, and tormenting God's servants. At the time of laying the foundations of the fort, they tried to throw every obstacle in the way, by firing cannon from their ships,* but all without effect.

That expert engineer laid the foundations of one side within the sea, dug a deep ditch round the two sides which faced the land, and built the walls with stones and burnt bricks. The wall was thirty-five yards long.* The breadth of the four walls was fifteen yards, and their height twenty yards, and the breadth of the ditch was twenty yards. All the stones, the joints and interstices were fastened together with iron clamps, and made firm with molten lead. The battlements and embrasures are lofty, and so beautiful that every one was astonished at beholding them. On the bastions, which projected into the sea, was erected a gallery (ghurfa), which the Firingís, especially the Portuguese, profess to say is an invention of their own. When the Musulmáns began to erect this chaukandí,* the Firingís exerted every kind of op­position to obstruct it; and when they found they could not prevail by force, they offered large sums of money to prevent its being built; but Khudáwand Khán, through the regard which he bore to his own religion, sternly refused, and plied the work till it was finished, in contemptuous defiance of the Christians.