On Tuesday, the 16th, they caught Kaukab, the son of Qamar Khān. He had in Burhanpur put on a faqir's dress and gone off into the wilds. The brief account of his case is this:—He was the grandson of Mīr ‘Abdu-l-Laīf, who was one of the Saifī Sayyids and was attached to this Court. Kaukab had been appointed to the Deccan army, and had spent some days with it in poverty and wretchedness. When for a long time he did not get promotion he suspected that I was unfavourable to him, and foolishly took the dress of asceticism and went off to the wilderness. In the course of six months he traversed the whole of the Deccan, including Daulatabad, Bidar, Bijapur, the Carnatic, and Golconda, and came to the port of Dābul.* From there he came by ship to the port of Gogā, and after visiting the ports of Surat, Broach, etc., he reached Ahmadabad. At this time Zāhid, a servant of Shāh Jahān, arrested him and brought him to Court. I ordered them to bring him before me heavily bound. When I saw him I said to him, “Con­sidering the obligations of service of your father and grandfather, and your position as a houseborn one, why have you behaved in such an inauspicious manner?” He replied that he could not tell a lie in the presence of his qibla and real teacher, and that the truth was that he had hoped for favours, but as he was unlucky he had left outward ties and gone into the wilderness of exile. As his words bore the marks of truth they made an impression on me, and I abandoned my harsh tone and asked him if in his misfortunes he had waited upon ‘Ādil Khān, or Qubu-l-Mulk, or ‘Ambar. He replied that though he had been unsuccessful at this Court and had remained thirsty in this boundless ocean of beneficence, he had never—God forbid that he should—approached with his lips other fountains. Might his head be cut off if it had bowed at this Court and then lowered itself at another! From the time that he went into exile he had kept a diary showing what he had done, and by examining it it would be seen how he had conducted himself. These words of his increased my compassion for him, and I sent for his papers and read them. It appeared from them that he had encountered great hard­ship, and that he had spent much time on foot, and that he had suffered from want of food. On this account I felt kindly disposed towards him. Next day I sent for him and ordered them to remove the bonds from his arms and legs, and gave him a robe of honour, a horse, and 1,000 rupees for his expenses. I also increased his rank by one half, and showed him such kindness as he never had imagined. He repeated this verse—

“What I see, is it, O God, waking or in a trance?
Do I behold myself in such comfort after such torture?”

On Wednesday, the 17th, I marched 6 kos and halted at the village of Bārasīnor (Bālasīnor). It has already been mentioned that the plague had appeared in Kashmir. On this day a report of the chronicler of events arrived, stating that the plague had taken firm hold of the country and that many had died. The symptoms were that the first day there was headache and fever and much bleeding at the nose. On the second day the patient died. In the house where one person died all the inmates were carried off. Whoever went near the sick person or a dead body was affected in the same way. In one instance the dead body was thrown on the grass, and it chanced that a cow came and ate some of the grass. It died; and some dogs that had eaten its flesh also all died. Things had come to such a pass that from fear of death fathers would not approach their children, and children would not go near their fathers. A strange thing was that in the ward in which the disease began, a fire broke out and nearly 3,000 houses were burnt. During the height of the plague, one morning when the people of the city and environs got up, they saw circles on their doors. There were three large circles, and on the face of these (i.e. inside them) there were two circles of middle size and one small one. There were also other circles which did not contain any whiteness* (i.e. there were no inner circles). These figures were found on all the houses and even on the mosques. From the day when the fire took place and these circles appeared, they say there was a diminution of the plague. This has been recorded as it seems a strange affair. It certainly does not agree with the canons of reason, and my intellect cannot accept it. Wisdom is with God! I trust that the Almighty will have mercy on his sinful slaves, and that they will be altogether freed from such calamity.

On Thursday, the 18th, I marched 2 1/2 kos and halted on the bank of the Mahī. On this day the Jām zamindar* had the good fortune to kiss the ground. He presented 50 horses, 100 muhrs, and 100 rupees. His name is Jassā, and Jām is his title. Whoever succeeds is called Jām. He is one of the chief zamindars of Gujarat, and, indeed, he is one of the noted rajas of India. His country is close to the sea. He always maintains 5,000 or 6,000 horse, and in time of war can supply as many as 10,000 or 12,000. There are many horses in his country; Kachhī horses fetch as much as 2,000 rupees. I gave him a dress of honour.

On the same day Lachmī Narāyan, Raja of Kūch (Bihār), which adjoins Bengal, did homage and presented 500 muhrs. He received a dress of honour and an ornamented dagger.

Nawāzish Khān, son of Sa‘īd Khān, who had been appointed to Jūnagaṛh, had the good fortune to pay his respects. On Friday, the 19th, I halted, and on Saturday, the 20th, I marched 3 3/4 kos and halted at the tank of Jhanūd. On Sunday I marched 4 1/2 kos and halted at the tank of Badarwālā. On this day there came the news of the death of ‘Aamat Khān Gujarātī. On account of illness he had remained in Ahmadabad. He was a servant who knew one's disposition, and did good work. As he had thorough knowledge of the Deccan and Gujarat, I was grieved at his death. In the tank above mentioned I noticed a plant which at the approach of the finger or the end of a stick contracts its leaves. After a while it opens them out again. Its leaves resemble those of the tamarind, and it is called in Arabic Shajaru-l-ḥayā, ‘the plant of modesty.’ In Hindī it is called Lajvantī. Lāj means modesty. It is certainly not void of strange­ness. They also call it naghzak, and say that it also grows on dry land.

On Monday, the 22nd, I halted. My scouts reported that there was a tiger in the neighbourhood which vexed wayfarers, and in the forest where it was they had seen a skull and some bones lying. After midday I went out to shoot it, and killed it with one discharge. Though it was a large tiger, I had killed several that were larger. Among them was a tiger which I killed in the fort of Māndū, and which was 8 1/2 maunds. This one weighed 7 1/2 maunds, or 1 maund less.

On Tuesday, the 23rd, I marched over 3 1/2 kos and alighted on the bank of the River Bāyab.* On Wednesday I marched nearly 6 kos and halted at the tank of Hamda.* On Thursday I ordered a halt and had a wine party, and gave cups to my special servants. I promoted Nawāzish Khān to the rank of 3,000 with 2,000 horse, which was an increase of 500 personal, and gave him a robe of honour and an elephant, and allowed him to go to his fief. Muḥammad Ḥusain Sabzak,* who had been sent to Balkh to buy horses, came to Court to-day and paid his respects. Of the horses he brought, one was piebald and was of fine shape and colour. I had never seen a piebald horse of this colour before. He had also brought other good roadsters. I therefore gave him the title of Tijāratī Khān.

On Friday, the 26th, I marched 5 1/4 kos and halted at the village of Jālod.* Rāja Lachmī Narāyan, the paternal uncle of the Raja of Kūch, to whom I had now given the territory of Kūch, was presented with a horse. On Saturday I marched 3 kos and halted at Boda.* On Sunday I marched 5 kos and set up the royal standards at Doḥad. It is on the borders of Malwa and Gujarat.

Pahluwān Bahā'u-d-dīn, the musketeer, brought a young monkey (langūr) with a goat, and represented that on the road one of his marksmen had seen the female langur with a young one in its arms on a tree. The cruel man had shot the mother, which on being struck had left the young one on a branch, and had herself dropped on the ground and died. Pahluwān Bahā'u-d-dīn had then come up and taken down the young one, and had put it beside the goat to be suckled. God had inspired the goat with affection for it, and it began to lick the monkey and to fondle it. In spite of difference of species she showed such love as if it had come out of her own womb. I told them to separate them, but the goat immediately began to lament, and the young langur also became much distressed. The affection of the monkey is not so remarkable, as it wanted to get milk, but the affection of the goat for it is remarkable. The langur is an animal belonging to the monkey tribe. But the hair of the monkey (maimūn) is yellowish and its face is red, while the hair of the langur is white and its face is black. Its tail, too, is twice as long as the maimun's. I have written these things on account of their strangeness. On Monday, the 29th, I halted and went to hunt nilgaw. I shot two, one male and one female. On Tuesday also, the 30th, I halted.

End of the twelfth year of the Emperor's reign, in the Tūzuk-i-Jahāngīrī.