And in the year 761 H. (1359-60 A.D.) the Sulān proceeded by continuous marches by way of Pauḍūah* to Jaunpūr where he spent the rains, and at the close of this year he marched with a lightly equipped force* by way of Behār towards Jājnagar, and sent his elephants and baggage to Kaṛṛa, and by uninterrupted marches arrived at Satgaṛh* the Rāi of which place* withdrew, and thence he came to Bārānasī* which was the abode of the Chief Rāi, and crossed the river Mahandūrī,* and the Rāi of Bārānasī having taken to flight made with all haste for Tilang. The Sulān pur­sued him part of the way turned back to hunt,* and arrived at the country of Rāi Parīhān Dev* who sent a present of thirty-two * elephants and other costly offerings. From thence the Sulān coming to Padmāwatī and Param Talāo* which was the haunt of elephants of enormous size, engaged in hunting them and killed two [and they took the other three alive]* and Malik īau-l-Mulk* wrote a quatrain upon this:

Verse.

The Shāh who of right* assumed a lasting kingdom
Seized the ends of the earth like the glorious Sun
To hunt elephants he came to Jājnagar,
Two he killed and thirty-three* he took alive.

And thence by way of Kaṛṛa he returned with all possible haste.*

^248. And in the year 762 H. (1360-61 A.D.) victorious and trium­phant he came to Dehli, and after a short time he gave orders for an expedition to the river Salīma,* which is a river issuing from a large mound of sand and falling into the river Sutlej which they also call Satlaz.* The Salīma is also called the Sarsuti,* and this river consists of two large streams which are always flowing, and situated between these two streams there is a high mound or dyke, and if this were dug through the water of the Sarsuti would flow into this stream, and it flows through Sihrind and Mansūrpūr and Sāmāna.*

The Sulān gave orders for fifty thousand men with spades to be collected and to occupy themselves in digging through that barrier. Out of it they obtained many bones of elephants and human beings. Every bone belonging to the arm of a man was three gaz* (in length). They were partly converted into stone and had partly remained bone, just as they were. That stream however could not be diverted,* and* in the meantime he made Sihrind and for ten krohs beyond into one district, which he put under the control of Ẓīāul Mulk Shamsu-d-Dīn Abū Rijā, and ordered them to build a fort there and called it Fīrūzpūr which is in fact Sihrind,* and the Sulān from thence, went to Nagarkoṭ whose Rājā after a siege and some fighting came in and submitted and met with royal treatment.* The Sulān gave to Nagarkoṭ the name of Muḥammadābād after the deceased Sulān Muḥam-mad; and when they brought the Sulān ice on that mountain fort he said,* “when Sulān Muḥammad, who is now dead and whom I regarded as a god, arrived in this place they brought him a sharbat mixed with ice, but he had* no inclination for that bever­age because I was not with him.” Accordingly they made an iced sharbat with several elephant and camel loads of cane-sugar which was carried with Sulān Fīrūz, and he ordered them to read the whole of the Qur'ān for the soul of Sulān Maḥammad and distribute the sharbat among the entire army. Under these cir- ^249. cumstances they informed the Sulān* that from the time when Sulān Sikandar Zūl Qarnain arrived at this place the people of that city have preserved an image of Noshāba* and keep it in a room, where they worship it. There are one thousand three hundred books of the Brahmans of olden time in that idol temple which is commonly known as Jawālamukhī;* a flame of fire rises from it towards heaven and is not to be extinguished, No, not by thousands of mashks* of water. The Sulān having sum­moned the Brahmans, ordered some of his translators to trans­late some of those books* into Persian. Among those translators ‘Izzu-d-Dīn Khālid Khānī,* who was one of the poets and mūnshīs of the time of Fīrūz wrote in verse a translation of a book on the risings and settings of the seven planets, and their good and evil import, and of auguries and omens. Its name is called up to the present day* Dalāil-i-Fīrūzī, and the author of this Muntakhab read it in Lāhor in the year 1000 H. (1591-92 A.D.) from beginning to end. It is moderately good, neither free from beauties nor defects; and I saw some other books before that also which were translated in the name of Sulān Fīrūz, some of them on the Science of “Pingal”* that is to say on Music, and the kinds of Akhāra* which they call Pātur bāzī, and some on other subjects. I found most of them to be profitless, and their paucity of interest is for the most part due to the triviality of their subject matter, and the difficulty of explaining it, as is evident.

The Sulān leaving there proceeded to Thatha, and the Jām,* by which title the ruler of Thatha is called, entrenched himself so that the Sulān was induced by the vehemence of the rainy season, and the amount of water which was out, as well as by the dearness of grain, to abandon the siege and make with all haste for Gujrāt,* which country he placed under the control of afar Khān; then having deposed Niāmu-l Mulk* and appointed him Nāib Wazīr of Dihlī, he returned to Thatha; and on this occasion the Jām asking for quarter* had an interview with the Sulān, and with all the Zamīndārs accompanied him to Dihlī, and from there took ^250. his leave after being kindly treated and confirmed on his former footing as ruler of Thatha.* In the year 772 H. (1370 A.D.) Khān-i-jahān the Vazīr, died, and his son Jūnā Shāh obtained that title;* and the book Chandāban* which is a Manavī in the Hindī language relating the loves of Lūrak and Chāndā, a lover and his mistress, a very graphic work, was put into verse in his honour by Maulānā Dā'ūd. There is no need for me to praise it because of its great fame in that country, and Makhdūm Shaikh* Taqīu-d-Dīn Wāi Rabbānī used to read some occasional poems of his from the pulpit,* and the people used to be strangely influenced by hearing them, and* when certain learned men of that time asked the Shaikh* saying, what is the reason for this Hindī Manavī being selected? he answered, the whole of it is divine truth and pleasing in subject, worthy of the ecstatic contempla­tion of devout lovers, and conformable to the interpretation of some of the Āyats of the Qur‘ān, and the sweet singers of Hin­dūstān. Moreover by its public recitation human hearts are taken captive.