In Hindustan, especially in the province of Sylhet,* which is a dependency of Bengal, it was the custom for the people of those parts to make eunuchs of some of their sons and give them to the governor in place of revenue (māl-wājibī). This custom by degrees has been adopted in other provinces, and every year some children are thus ruined and cut off from procreation. This practice has become common. At this time I issued an order that hereafter no one should follow this abominable custom, and that the traffic in young eunuchs should be completely done away with. Islām Khān and the other governors of the Subah of Bengal received firmans that whoever should commit such acts should be capitally punished, and that they should seize eunuchs of tender years who might be in anyone's possession. No one of the former kings had obtained this success. Please Almighty God, in a short time this objectionable practice will be completely done away with, and the traffic in eunuchs being forbidden, no one shall venture on this unpleasant and unprofitable proceeding. I presented the Khānkhānān with a bay horse out of those sent me by Shāh ‘Abbās; it was the head of the stable of my private horses. He was so rejoiced over it that it would be difficult to describe. In truth a horse of this great size and beauty has hardly come to Hindustan. I also gave him the elephant Futūḥ, that is unrivalled in fighting, with twenty other elephants. As Kishan Singh, who was accompanying Mahābat Khān, performed laudable service, and was wounded in the leg by a spear in the fight with the Rānā's men, so that about twenty noblemen of his were killed and about 3,000 made captive, he was promoted to the rank of 2,000 personal and 1,000 horse. On the 14th of the same month I gave an order for Mīrzā Ghāzī to betake himself to Qandahar. A strange occurrence was that as soon as the aforesaid Mīrzā started from Bakhar for that province the news of the death of Sardār Khān, the governor of that place, came. Sardār Khān was one of the permanent and intimate attendants of my uncle Muḥammad Ḥakīm, and was known as Tukhta* Beg. I gave half his rank (the pay of it) to his sons. On Monday, the 17th, I went on foot on my pilgrimage to the enlightened mausoleum of the late king. If it had been possible, I would have traversed this road with my eyelashes and head. My revered father, on account of my birth, had gone on foot on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Khwāja Mu‘īnu-d-dīn Sanjarī Chishtī, from Fatḥpūr to Ajmir, a distance of 120 kos: if I should traverse this road with my head and eyes, what should I have done? When I was dignified with the good fortune of making this pilgrimage, I saw the building that had been erected in the cemetery. It did not come up to my idea of what it ought to be, for that would be approved which the wayfarers of the world should point to as one the like of which was not in the inhabited world. Inasmuch as at the time of erecting the aforesaid building the affair of the ill-starred Khusrau took place, I started for Lahore, and the architects had built it after a design of their own. At last a certain expenditure was made until a large sum was expended, and work went on for three or four years. I ordered that experienced architects should again lay the foundations, in agreement with men of experience, in several places, on a settled plan. By degrees a lofty building was erected, and a very bright garden was arranged round the building of the shrine, and a large and lofty gateway with minarets of white stone was built. On the whole they told me the cost of this lofty edifice was 1,500,000 rupees, equivalent to 50,000 current tumans of Persia and 4,500,000 khanis, according to the currency of Tūrān.
On Sunday, the 23rd, I went with a band of courtiers
who had not seen it to look at the reservoir in the
house of Ḥakīm ‘Alī, like one that had been made at
Lahore in the time of my father. The reservoir is
6 gaz by 6 gaz. At its side has been erected a well-