Vaqi'at-i Bāburī - The Memoirs of Bābur, Volume 1

5. ILĀK

Ilāk, probably, is not a separate district, but comprehends the rich pastoral country on both sides of the Sirr, on the southern side, reaching up the skirts, and among the valleys of the hills of Uratippa that branch towards the Sirr, and belong to Uratippa; and on the north having some similar tracts subject to Tāshkend and Shāhrokhīa. It is by some ancient geographers made to comprehend the whole country between the northern hills of Tāshkend and the river, including Tāshkend and Benāket, or Shāhrokhīa. It is little known, and is probably dependent on Tāshkend to the north of the Sirr, and on Uratippa to the south.

6. TURKESTĀN

The country peculiarly called Turkestān by Bābur, lies below Seirām, between it and the sea of Aral. It lies on the right bank of the Sirr, and stretches considerably to the north, along the banks of some small rivers that come from the east and north. Some part of it was rich, and had been populous. A city of the same name stands on one of these inferior streams. In the time of the Arabs it is said to have been a rich and flourishing country, full of considerable towns, such as Jund, Yangikent, &c. In the time of Bābur it seems to have had few towns, but was the chief seat of the Uzbeks, who had recently settled there, and whose territories extended a considerable way to the north; though Sheibāni Khan never recovered the great kingdom of Tūra, whence his grandfather Abulkhair had been expelled, the succession of which was continued in another branch of the family. It was to this Turkestān that Sheibāni Khan retired when unsuccessful in his first attempt on Samarkand; and it was from the deserts around this tract, and from Tāshkend, which they had conquered, that his successors called the Tartars, who assisted them in expelling Bābur from Māweralnaher, after Sheibāni’s death.

Such is a general outline of the divisions of the country of Uzbek Turkestān, which may deserve that name, from having had its principal districts chiefly occupied for upwards of three centuries past by Uzbek tribes. The face of the country, it is obvious, is extremely broken, and divided by lofty hills; and even the plains are diversified by great varieties of soil, some extensive districts along the Kohik river, nearly the whole of Ferghāna, the greater part of Khwārizm along the branches of the Amu, with large portions of Balkh, Badakhshān, Késh, and Hissār, being of uncommon fertility; while the greater part of the rest is a barren waste, and in some places a sandy desert. Indeed, the whole country north of the Amu has a decided tendency to degenerate into desert; and many of its most fruitful districts are nearly surrounded by barren sands; so that the population of all these districts still, as in the time of Bābur, consists of the fixed inhabitants of the cities and fertile lands, and of the unsettled and roving wanderers of the desert, the Īls and the Ulūses of Bābur, who dwell in tents of felt, and live on the produce of their flocks. The cultivated spots are rich in wheat, barley, millet, and cotton; and the fruits, particularly the peaches, apricots, plums, grapes, apples, quinces, pomegranates, figs, melons, cucumbers, &c., are among the finest in the world. The mulberry abounds, and a considerable quantity of silk is manufactured. The cultivation is managed, as far as is practicable, by means of irrigation. The breed of horses is excellent. The less fertile parts of the country are pastured by large flocks of sheep. They have also bullocks, asses, and mules, in sufficient numbers, and some camels. The climate, though in the low lands extremely cold in winter,¹ and hot in summer, brings to perfection most of the fruits and grains of temperate climates; and perhaps there are few countries in the world to which Nature has been more bountiful.

This felicity of climate and fruitfulness of soil have, in most ages of the world, rendered the country along the Kohik the seat of very considerable kingdoms. The earliest inhabitants, at least, of the desert tracts, were probably the Scythians, who, in this quarter, appear to have been of the Tūrki race. When Alexander advanced to the Sirr, he marched by Marakanda, a name the termination of which, as has already been remarked, seems to speak a Tūrki origin. The Turanian monarchs, so long the rivals and terror of those of Irān, seem also to have been Tūrks. After the Arab conquest, in the first century of the Hijira, many Persians were probably induced, by the security of the government and fertility of the soil, to settle to the north of the Amu; though it is likely that long before, when Balkh was the chief seat of the Persian government, the rich lands of Māweralnaher were cultivated and the larger towns inhabited chiefly by men of Persian extraction, and speaking the Persian tongue. Down to the age of Chingiz Khan, when the grand desolation of the country began, the Persian was the common language all over the towns and cultivated lands from the Amu to the Sirr, as well as in the great and flourishing cities that then existed along the northern banks of that river, such as Tāshkend, Benāket, Jund, and Yangikent; the Tūrki being, however, understood and familiarly used in the bazars and markets of all these northern districts. The Persian language also crossed the Ala-tāgh hills, and was the language of the towns of eastern Tūrkestān, such as Kāshgar and Yārkand, as it continues to be at this day as far east as Terfān. A proof of the remote period from which the language of Persia was spoken in Māweralnaher is to be found in the present state of the hill country of Karatigīn. The language of that mountainous and sequestered tract is Persian; and as it has not been exposed to any conquest of Persians for many hundred years, it would seem that the Persian has been the language in familiar use ever since the age of the Khwārizmian kings, if not from a much more remote era. It is probable, therefore, that, in the days of Bābur, the Persian was the general language of the cultivated country of the districts of Balkh, Badakhshān, the greater part of Khutlān, Karatigīn, Hissār, Késh, Bokhāra, Uratippa, Ferghāna, and Tāshkend, while the surrounding deserts were the haunts of various roving tribes of Tūrki race, as in all ages, from the earliest dawn of history, they appear to have been.

While the Tūrks and Persians, the pastoral and agricultural races, thus from the earliest times divided the country north of the Amu, and considerable tracts to the south, the hills of Belūt-tāgh, towards the source of that river, extending for a considerable extent to the north and north-west, as well as those of Hindū-kūsh, which stretch along its southern course, were occupied by men of a different language and extraction. The progress of the Arabian conquest through the mountains was extremely slow. Though all the low countries were in the possession of the Arabian Khalifs in the first century of the Hijira, yet in the fourth or fifth, when their power was beginning to wane, the Kāfers, or Infidels, still held the mountains of Ghor, and the lofty range of Hindū-kūsh.¹ Down to the time of Marco Polo, in the thirteenth century, the language of Badakhshān was different from that of the lower country, though we cannot ascertain whether it was the same as that of the Kāfers or Siāhposhes, whose country he calls Bascia, or that of Wakhān, which he denominates Vochan. It is not improbable that one radical tongue may have extended along the Hindū-kūsh and Belūt-tāgh mountains, though the continuity of territory was afterwards broken off by the interposition of the province of Badakhshān, which, being rich and fertile, was overrun earlier than the others. Indeed, Kāferistān, or the country of the Siāhposhes, is still a country untouched, except during one expedition of Taimūr Beg, who crossed the snowy tracts of their mountains with incredible labour, but was unable to reduce them under subjection to his yoke. Some correct specimens of the language of the Dards near Kashmīr, of Kāferistān, of Wakhān, of Wakhīka, of the Pashāi,¹ or any other of the barbarous dialects of these hills, would be of singular curiosity, and of very great value in the history of the originization of nations. The present Afghān language,² if I may judge of it from the specimen which I have seen, is certainly in a great degree composed of Hindu and Persian, with the usual sprinkling of Arabic terms. It would be desirable to ascertain what proportion of the unknown terms can be referred to any of the languages still spoken by the inhabitants of the hills to the north. The settlement of the Afghān tribes in the districts to the north of the road from Kābul to Peshāwer, is not of very ancient date. Their peculiar country has always been to the south of that line.

Besides the Tūrki tribes that have been mentioned, a body of Moghuls had taken up their residence for some years in the country of Hissār; and the whole of Tāshkend, with the desert tract around the Ala-tāgh mountains as far as Kāshgar, though chiefly inhabited by Tūrks, was subject to the principal tribes of the Western Moghuls, who were then ruled by two uncles of Bābur, the brothers of his mother, the elder of whom had fixed the seat of his government at Tāshkend. Where the Moghulistān,¹ so often mentioned by Bābur, may have lain, is not quite clear, though it probably extended round the site of Bishbāligh, the place chosen by Chaghatāi Khan for the seat of his empire, on the banks of the Illi river, before it falls into the Balkash, or Palkati Nor. The eastern division of the tribe, which had remained in its deserts, was governed by the younger brother. They were probably the same race of Moghuls who are mentioned by Taimūr, in his Institutes, as inhabiting Jattah.

The Kazāks, frequently mentioned by Bābur, are the Kirghiz,² who to this day call themselves Sahrā-Kazāk, or robbers of the desert, a name which its etymology proves to be of later origin than the Arabian settlement on the Sirr. It is not clear what country they traversed with their flocks in his age, but they probably occupied their present range, and were dependent on the Moghuls.

The Uzbeks¹ lived far to the north in the desert, along the Jaik river, and on as far as Siberia, as will afterwards be mentioned; but they had more recently occupied the country called Turkestān, which lies below Seirām, and stretches north from the Sirr or Jaxartes, along the Tarās, and the other small rivers that flow into the Sirr, between Tāshkend and the Aral.

The general state of society which prevailed in the age of Bābur, within the countries that have been described, will be much better understood from a perusal of the following Memoirs, than from any prefatory observations that could be offered. It is evident that, in consequence of the protection which had been afforded to the people of Māweralnaher by their regular governments, a considerable degree of comfort, and perhaps still more of elegance and civility, prevailed in the towns. The whole age of Bābur, however, was one of great confusion. Nothing contributed so much to produce the constant wars, and eventual devastation of the country, which the Memoirs exhibit, as the want of some fixed rule of succession to the throne. The ideas of regal descent, according to primogeniture, were very indistinct, as is the case in all oriental, and, in general, in all purely despotic kingdoms. When the succession to the crown, like everything else, is subject to the will of the prince, on his death it necessarily becomes the subject of contention; since the will of a dead king is of much less consequence than the intrigues of an able minister, or the sword of a successful commander. It is the privilege of liberty and of law alone to bestow equal security on the rights of the monarch and of the people. The death of the ablest sovereign was only the signal for a general war. The different parties at court, or in the haram of the prince, espoused the cause of different competitors, and every neighbouring potentate believed himself to be perfectly justified in marching to seize his portion of the spoil. In the course of the Memoirs, we shall find that the grandees of the court, while they take their place by the side of the candidate of their choice, do not appear to believe that fidelity to him is any very necessary virtue. They abandon, with little concern, the prince under whose banner they had ranged themselves, and are received and trusted by the prince to whom they revolt, as if the crime of what we should call treason was not regarded, either by the prince or the nobility, as one of a deep dye. While a government remains in the unsettled state in which it is often found in Asiatic countries, where the allegiance of a nobleman or a city, in the course of a few years, is transferred several times from one sovereign to another, the civil and political advantages of fidelity are not very obvious; and it is not easy for any high principles of honour or duty to be generated. A man, in his choice of a party, having no law to follow, no duty to perform, is decided entirely by those ideas of temporary and personal convenience which he may happen to have adopted. There is no loyal or patriotic sentiment, no love of country condensed into the feeling of hereditary attachment to a particular line of princes, which in happier lands, even under misfortune and persecution, in danger and in death, supports and rewards the sufferer with the proud or tranquil consciousness of a duty well performed. The nobility, unable to predict the events of one twelvemonth, degenerate into a set of selfish, calculating, though perhaps brave partisans. Rank, and wealth, and present enjoyment become their idols. The prince feels the influence of the general want of stability, and is himself educated in the loose principles of an adventurer. In all about him he sees merely the instruments of his power. The subject, seeing the prince consult only his pleasure, learns on his part to consult only his private convenience. In such societies, the steadiness of principle that flows from the love of right and of our country can have no place. It may be questioned whether the prevalence of the Mahommedan religion, by swallowing up civil in religious distinctions, has not a tendency to increase this indifference to country, wherever it is established. A Musulman considers himself as in a certain degree at home, wherever the inhabitants are Musulmans. The ease with which one even of the highest rank abandons his native land, and wanders as a fugitive and almost a beggar in foreign parts, is only exceeded by the facility with which he takes root and educates a family wherever he can procure a subsistence, though in a land of strangers, provided he be among those of the true faith. Unity of religion is the single bond which reconciles him to the neighbours among whom he may be, and religion fills up so much of the mind, and intermingles itself so much with the ordinary tenor of the habitual and almost mechanical conduct of persons of every rank, that of itself it serves to introduce the appearance of considerable uniformity of manners and of feeling in most Asiatic countries.

In Bābur’s age the power of the prince was restrained in a considerable degree, in the countries which have been described, by that of his nobles, each of whom had attached to him a numerous train of followers, while some of them were the heads of ancient and nearly independent tribes, warmly devoted to the interest of their chiefs. It was checked also by the influence of the priesthood, but especially of some eminent Khwājehs or religious guides, who to the character of sanctity often joined the possession of ample domains, and had large bands of disciples and followers ready blindly to fulfil their wishes. Each prince had some religious guide of this description. Bābur mentions more than one, for whom he professes unbounded admiration. The inhabitants were in general devoted to some of these religious teachers, whose dictates they received with submissive reverence. Many of them pretended to supernatural communications, and the words that fell from them were treasured up as omens to regulate future conduct. Many instances occur in the history both of India and Māweralnaher, in which, by the force of their religious character, these saints were of much political consequence, and many cities were lost and won by their influence with the inhabitants.

The religion of the country was mingled with numerous superstitions. One of these, which is wholly of a Tartar origin, is often alluded to by Bābur. It is that of the yadeh-stone. The history of this celebrated superstition, as given by D’Herbelot,¹ is that Japhet, on leaving his father Noah, to go to inhabit his portion of the world, received his father’s blessing, and, at the same time, a stone, on which was engraved the mighty name of God. This stone, called by the Arabs hajar-al-mater, the rain-stone, the Tūrks call yadeh-tāsh, and the Persians sang i yadeh. It had the virtue of causing the rain to fall or to cease; but, in the course of time, this original stone was worn away or lost. It is pretended, however, that others, with a similar virtue, and bearing the same name, are still found among the Tūrks; and the more superstitious affirm, that they were originally produced and multiplied, by some mysterious sort of generation, from the original stone given by Noah to his son.

Izzet-ullah, the intelligent traveller to whom I have already alluded, in giving a description of Yārkand, mentions the yadeh-stone as one of the wonders of the land. He says that it is taken from the head of a horse or cow; and that, if certain ceremonies be previously used, it inevitably produces rain or snow. He who performs the ceremonies is called yadehchī. Izzet-ullah, though, like Bābur, he professes his belief in the virtues of the stone, yet acknowledges that he was never an eyewitness of its effects; he says, however, that he has so often heard the facts concerning its virtues stated over and over again, by men of unimpeachable credit, that he cannot help acquiescing in their evidence. When about to operate, the yadehchī, of whom there are many at this day in Yārkand, steeps the stone in the blood of some animal, and then throws it into water, at the same time repeating certain mysterious words. First of all, a wind is felt blowing, and this is soon succeeded by a fall of snow and rain. The author, aware of the incredulity of his readers, attempts to show that, though these effects certainly follow in the cold country of Yārkand, we are not to look for them in the warm region of Hind; and, further, ingeniously justifies his opinions regarding the unknown and singular qualities of the rain-stone by the equally singular and inexplicable properties of the magnet.

The branch of literature chiefly cultivated to the north of the Oxus, was poetry; and several of the persons mentioned in the progress of the following work had made no mean proficiency in the art. The age which had produced the great divines and philosophers, the Būrhāneddīns and the Avicennas,¹ was past away from Māweralnaher; but every department of science and literature was still successfully cultivated on the opposite side of the southern desert, at Herāt in Khorasān, at the splendid court of Sultan Hussain Mirza Baikera.² It is impossible to contemplate the scene which Khorasān then afforded, without lamenting that the instability, inseparable from despotism, should, in every age, have been communicated to the science and literature of the East. Persia, at several different eras of its history, has only wanted the continuous impulse afforded by freedom and security, to enable its literature to rank with the most refined and useful that has adorned or benefited any country. The most polished court in the west of Europe could not, at the close of the fifteenth century, vie in magnificence with that of Herāt; and if we compare the court of Khorasān even with that of Francis the First—the glory of France, at a still later period—an impartial observer will be compelled to acknowledge that in every important department of literature— in poetry, in history, in morals and metaphysics, as well perhaps as in music and the fine arts—the palm of excellence must be assigned to the court of the oriental prince. But the manners of Bābur’s court, in the early part of his reign, were not very refined; the period was one of confusion, rebellion, and force; and his nobles probably bore rather more visible traces of the rude spirit of the inhabitants of the desert from which their Tūrki ancestors had issued, and in which their own followers still dwelt, than of the polished habits of the courtiers who crowd the palaces of princes that have long reigned over a prosperous and submissive people.

Bābur frequently alludes to the Tūreh or Yāsi, that is, the Institutions of Chingiz Khan; and observes that, though they were certainly not of divine appointment, they had been held in respect by all his forefathers. This Tūreh, or Yāsi, was a set of laws which were ascribed to that great conqueror, and were supposed to have been promulgated by him on the day of his enthronization. They seem to have been a collection of the old usages of the Moghul tribes, comprehending some rules of state and ceremony and some injunctions for the punishment of particular crimes. The punishments were only two—death and the bastinado;¹ the number of blows extending from seven to seven hundred. There is something very Chinese in the whole of the Moghul system of punishment; even princes advanced in years, and in command of large armies, being punished by bastinado with a stick, by their father’s orders. Whether they received their usage in this respect from the Chinese, or communicated it to them, is not very certain. As the whole body of their laws or customs was formed before the introduction of the Musulman religion, and was probably in many respects inconsistent with the Korān, as, for instance, in allowing the use of the blood of animals, and in the extent of toleration granted to other religions, it gradually fell into decay. One of these laws ordered adulterers to be punished with death; in consequence of which we are told that the inhabitants of Kaindu, who, from remote times, had been accustomed to resign their wives to the strangers who visited them, retiring from their own houses during their stay, represented to the Tartar Prince the hardship to which this new enactment would subject them, by preventing the exercise of their accustomed hospitality, when they were relieved by a special exception from the oppressive operation of this law.¹ It is probable that the laws of Chingiz Khan were merely traditionary, and never reduced into writing. In Bābur’s days they were still respected among the wandering tribes, but did not form the law of his kingdom. The present Moghul tribes punish most offences by fines of cattle.

We are so much accustomed to hear the manners and fashions of the East characterized as unchangeable, that it is almost needless to remark that the general manners described by Bābur as belonging to his dominions are as much the manners of the present day as they were of his time. That the fashions of the East are unchanged is, in general, certainly true; because the climate and the despotism, from the one or other of which a very large proportion of them arises, have continued the same. Yet one who observes the way in which a Musulman of rank spends his day will be led to suspect that the maxim has sometimes been adopted with too little limitation. Take the example of his pipe and his coffee. The kaliūn, or hukka, is seldom out of his hand; while the coffee-cup makes its appearance every hour, as if it contained a necessary of life. Perhaps there are no enjoyments the loss of which he would feel more severely; or which, were we to judge only by the frequency of the call for them, we should suppose to have entered from a more remote period into the system of Asiatic life. Yet we know that the one (which has indeed become a necessary of life to every class of Musulmans) could not have been enjoyed before the discovery of America; and there is every reason to believe that the other was not introduced into Arabia from Africa, where coffee is indigenous, previously to the sixteenth century;² and what marks the circumstance more strongly, both of these habits have forced their way in spite of the remonstrances of the rigorists in religion. Perhaps it would have been fortunate for Bābur had they prevailed in his age, as they might have diverted him from the immoderate use first of wine, and afterwards of deleterious drugs, which ruined his constitution and hastened on his end.

The art of war in the countries to the north of the Oxus was certainly in a very rude state. No regular armies were maintained, and success chiefly depended upon rapidity of motion. A prince suddenly raised an army, and led it, by forced marches, into a neighbouring country, to surprise his enemy. Those who were attacked took refuge in their walled towns, where, from the defects in the art of attacking fortified places, they were for the most part secure. The two countries harassed each other by predatory inroads and petty warfare. Sometimes the stronger party kept the field, blockaded a fort, and reduced it by wasting the surrounding country; but peace was usually made with as much levity as war had been entered upon. Great bravery was often exhibited in their desperate forays; and the use of the sword and the bow was carefully studied. Some matchlocks were beginning to be introduced into their armies; but the sabre and the charge of horse still generally decided the day. They were not ignorant of the art of mining. Their most skilful miners were from Badakhshān, where they probably learned the art from working the ruby mines and beds of lapis lazuli. A few cannon had begun to be used in sieges, and latterly even in the line. Their military array, however, was still formed according to the rules given by Taimūr Beg. They had indeed, a right and left wing, and a centre, with a body in advance, and a reserve;¹ they had also parties of flankers on their wings; but they seem seldom to have engaged in a regular battle. Most of the armies mentioned by Bābur were far from being numerous; and the day seldom appears to have been decided by superior skill in military tactics.

These are the only remarks that seem necessary regarding the countries north of the Hindū-kūsh mountains; and little need be added concerning those to the south, which were subdued by Bābur. The labours of Major Rennell throw sufficient light on the geography of that monarch’s transactions in India; and long before this volume can appear, a similar light must have been shed over his marches in Afghanistān, by the publication of the work of Mr. Elphinstone on that country. It may only be briefly remarked, that the Hindū-kūsh range, after passing to the north of Kābul, breaks into numerous hills running west and south-west, which constitute the ancient kingdom of Bāmiān and the modern countries of the Hazāras and Aimāks; that the Belūt-tāgh mountains, formerly mentioned as running north from Hindū-kūsh, seem also to shoot south by Sefīd Koh, forming the Suleimān range which traverses the whole of Afghanistān, as far as the country of Beluchistān, running in the greater part of its course nearly parallel to the Indus; and that this range, soon after it passes the latitude of Ghazni, seems to divide into three or more parallel ridges that run south; but that though the mountains run north and south, the slope of the land is from west to east; in consequence of which, some of the rivers that rise in the high lands of Ghazni and Kābul, appear to be obliged to force their way through a rupture in the transverse ranges, when they pursue their course eastward to the Indus. Such is the case with the river of Kābul, when it bursts its way first through the Logar range, and lower down, through the Suleimān hills, near Jelālābād; and, in an inferior degree, with the Kurram and Gumal rivers, which have wrought themselves a course through the more southern branches of the same range.

From this long range, which runs south, there issue three minor branches of some note, that run eastward. The most northerly is the Kheiber, or Kohāt range, which extends from Sefīd Koh to Nilāb on the Indus, running all the way nearly parallel to the Kābul river, and to the road from Kābul to Peshāwar. The next, which by Bābur is called the Bangash hills, and by Mr. Elphinstone is designated as the Salt Range, runs from Sefīd Koh south-east to Kālabagh, where it is crossed by the Indus, but pursues its course in its original direction to the Behāt or Jhelam river, the Hydaspes of antiquity, beyond Pind-Dādan-Khan. The third, which runs from Bāzār to Paniāla, on the Indus, may be called the Dūki Range. Between the two first lies the valley of Kohāt, so particularly mentioned by Bābur; and between the two last, Bannu, part of Bangash, and several other districts. The other places in this direction will be noted when they occur.

From the west of the Sefīd Koh runs a range which passes to the south-west of Kābul, Ghazni, and Kandahār, whence it runs down to the desert of Sīstān.

Between this range and that of Paropamisus, the level country of Kābul rises up to Ghazni, which is the highest table-land in Afghānistān, the rivers descending on the one side north to Kābul, on the other west to Kandahār, and on the eastward to the Indus. The western slope of Ghazni is by Kandahār, to the Lake of Sīstān and the desert. This level country is of no great breadth.

But the part of Afghānistān which is most frequently alluded to by Bābur is the tract lying along the southern slope of the Hindū-kūsh mountains and the angle formed by the Paropamisan hills as they advance to the south. It consists of a number of mountainous mounds, pushed forwards from the higher hills, and forming steep and narrow, but beautiful and finely watered, valleys between, which transmit their streams to swell the Kābul river. Most of these, from Ghorbend and Panjsher, down to Panjkora and Sawād, are particularly commemorated by Bābur himself, in his lively description of the country. His account of the different roads from Hindustān is a curious portion of the geography of Afghānistān.

With the assistance of Major Rennell’s and Mr. Elphinstone’s maps, it will be easy to follow Bābur through all the journeys mentioned in the two last parts of the Memoirs; and the Memoir and map of Mr. Waddington will give a clearer idea than is elsewhere to be found of the country north of the Oxus, the scene of the first part of the Memoirs.¹

INTRODUCTION
PART SECOND
CONTAINING
A SHORT ACCOUNT OF THE SUCCESSORS OF
TAIMŪR BEG FROM THE DEATH OF THAT
PRINCE TO THE ACCESSION OF BĀBUR

BĀBUR begins his Memoirs abruptly, by informing us, that he mounted the throne of Ferghāna at the age of twelve. As he often alludes to events that occurred previous to that time, and speaks familiarly of the different princes who had governed in the neighbouring countries, supposing the reader to be well acquainted with their history, it becomes necessary, for the better understanding of his text, to give a short review of the succession of the most eminent of those who had ruled in his kingdom and in the adjoining countries for some years before his accession; and as the whole of these princes were descended from the famous Tamerlane, or Taimūr Beg, as all their kingdoms were only fragments of his immense empire, and their claims and political relations derived from him, the reign of that prince is the most convenient period from which to commence such a review.

Taimūr Beg, after having spread his empire over the fairest provinces of Asia, died in the year 1405,¹ near the city of Otrār, beyond the river Sirr. His dominions, however, though extensive, were ill compacted and ill governed. He had conquered countries, but he had not the genius to found an empire. Though a conqueror, whatever his encomiasts may assert, he was no legislator. He had marched into Tartary, into Hindustān, into Mesopotamia, into Syria and Asia Minor, and had subdued a great portion of all these countries; but in the course of a very few years his native country of Māweralnaher, with Persia and Kābul, alone remained in his family, and Persia also very soon after escaped from their grasp, and was overrun by the Turkomāns.

In his lifetime, he had given the immediate government of different quarters of his extensive dominions to his sons and their descendants, who, at the period of his death, were very numerous; and the Tūrki and Moghul tribes, like other Asiatics, having no fixed rules of succession to the throne, various princes of his family set up for themselves in different provinces. The nobles who were about his He is suc-
ceeded in
Samarkand
by Khalīl.
A.D. 1412. person at the time of his death proclaimed his grandson Khalīl, an amiable prince of refined genius and warm affections, but better fitted to adorn the walks of private life than to compose the dissensions of a distracted kingdom, or to check the ambitious designs of a turbulent nobility. He reigned for some years, with little power, at Samarkand, his grandfather’s capital; but was finally dethroned by his ambitious nobles. His uncle Shahrokh, Shahrokh
Mirza seizes
Māweral-
naher.
A.D. 1415. the youngest son of Taimūr Beg, a prince of solid talents and great firmness of character, on hearing of this event, marched from Khorasān, which was the seat of his dominions, took possession of Samarkand, and reduced all the rest of Māweralnaher under his obedience. He governed his His death.
A.D. 1446. extensive dominions with a steady hand till his death, which happened in 1446.

On his death, his sons, according to the fashion of their Is succeed-
ed in Sa-
markand
by Ulugh
Beg Mirza. country and age, seized the different provinces which they had held as governors, each asserting his own independence, and aiming at the subjugation of the others. He was succeeded in Samarkand by his eldest son Ulugh Beg, a prince illustrious by his love of science, and who has secured an honest fame, and the gratitude of posterity, by the valuable astronomical tables constructed by his directions, in an observatory which he built at Samarkand for that purpose. Ulugh Beg, who had long held the government of Samarkand in his father’s lifetime, soon after his accession, led an army from that city against his nephew Alā-ed-daulat, the son of his brother Baiesanghar, who was the third son of Shahrokh. Alā-ed-daulat, who had occupied In Khora-
sān by Alā-
ed-daulat,
who is de-
throned by
Ulugh Beg. the kingdom of Khorasān, being defeated by his uncle Ulugh Beg, on the river of Murghāb, fled to his brother, the elder Bābur Mirza. That prince had taken possession of Jorjān, or Korkān, on the south-east of the Caspian, the government of which he had held in the lifetime of his In Korkān
by Bābur
Mirza, who
marches to
restore his
brother;
but is de-
feated, and
flies to Irāk.
1448. grandfather, Shahrokh, and now asserted his independence. Bābur led the forces of his principality towards Herāt, to restore his brother Alā-ed-daulat; but being defeated, and hard pushed by Ulugh Beg, was forced to abandon even his capital, Asterābād, and to take refuge, in company with Alā-ed-daulat, in Irāk, which was then held by another of their brothers, Muhammed Mirza. Ulugh Beg having soon afterwards returned across the Amu to Bokhāra, Bābur Mirza again entered Khorasān, and took possession Conquers
Khorasān. of Herāt; while Ulugh Beg’s own son, Abdallatīf, revolted and seized upon Balkh.

To complete Ulugh Beg’s misfortunes, Abūsaīd Mirza, who was the son of Muhammed Mirza, the grandson of Taimūr Beg, by that conqueror’s second son Mirānshah, but who is better known by his own conquests, and as the grandfather of the great Bābur, also appeared in arms against him. Abūsaīd had been educated under the eye of Ulugh Beg. When his father, Muhammed Mirza, was on his death-bed, Ulugh Beg had come to visit him. The dying man took Abūsaīd’s hand, and, putting it into Ulugh Beg’s, recommended his son to his protection. Ulugh Beg was not unworthy of this confidence, and treated the young prince with great kindness and affection. One of Ulugh Beg’s friends having remarked to him that his young cousin seemed to be attached and active in his service, ‘It is not my service in which he is now employed,’ said the generous Sultan; ‘he is busy acquiring the rudiments of the arts of government and of policy, which will one day be of use to him.’¹ Abūsaīd, during the disorders that followed the death of Shahrokh, had for some time held the province of Fārs; but, being stripped of that possession by Muhammed Mirza (the brother of Alā-ed-daulat and of Bābur Mirza), had again taken refuge at the court of Ulugh Beg, who had given him one of his daughters in marriage. Believing, probably, according to the maxims of his age and country, that the pursuit of a throne dissolved all the obligations of nature or of gratitude, he now availed himself of the prevailing confusions, and of the absence of Ulugh Beg, who had marched against Abdallatīf, his rebellious Death of
Ulugh Beg. son, to seize on Samarkand. Ulugh Beg, on hearing of this new revolt, had turned back to defend his capital, but was followed from Balkh by Abdallatīf, who defeated and slew 1449. him, after a short reign of three years.

Abdallatīf, after the murder of his father, continued his march, defeated Abūsaīd Mirza, took him prisoner, and recovered Samarkand. But Abūsaīd, who was destined to act an important part in the history of Asia, was fortunate enough to effect his escape, and found shelter and concealment in Bokhāra. While in this retreat, he heard that Abdallatīf had been murdered by a mutiny in his army, and had been succeeded by his cousin Abdallah,¹ who Is succeed-
ed by
Abdallah. was the son of Ibrahīm, the second son of Shahrokh, and consequently a nephew of Ulugh Beg. The ambitious hopes of Abūsaīd Mirza were revived by this event. He succeeded in forming a party, seized upon Bokhāra, and marched against Samarkand, but was defeated and forced 1451. to take shelter in Turkestān,² beyond the Sirr. Next year, Abusaīd
Mirza
defeats
Abdallah,
and reduces
Samar-
kand. however, having engaged the Uzbeks of the desert to assist him, he returned towards Samarkand, defeated Abdallah in a great battle, and occupied all Māweralnaher. His new allies appear to have indulged in great excesses, and were with difficulty prevailed upon to retire from the fertile plains and rich pillage of the valley of the Soghd.³

Meanwhile Bābur Mirza had not remained long in possession of Herāt, having been driven from it by Yār-Ali, a Turkomān chief. Bābur, however, retired slowly, and with reluctance; and, returning soon after by forced marches, came upon him by surprise in that capital, took him prisoner, beheaded him in the public market-place, and Recovers
all Khora-
sān. succeeded in occupying all Khorasān. But repose was not an enjoyment of those unquiet times. Before he could establish himself in his new conquest, he was attacked and Driven
from it
by his
brothers. defeated by his two elder brothers, Alā-ed-daulat and Muhammed Mirza, the kings of Fārs and Irāk. He retired for some time to the strong fortress of Umad, whence he took the field and defeated the governor whom Muhammed Mirza had left in charge of Asterābād; but having been closely followed by that prince, and overtaken before he could gain the town, he found himself once more compelled to seek safety in flight, and was fortunate enough to escape back to his fastness. Muhammed Mirza did not long remain in Khorasān. Disgusted with some circumstances in the conduct of his brother, Alā-ed-daulat, he withdrew to his own territories; whereupon Bābur once Again re-
covers it,
and takes
Alā-ed-
daulat. more issued from his retreat, drove Alā-ed-daulat out of Khorasān, following him to Balkh, which he took, as well as all the low country up to Badakhshān, where the fugitive prince sought refuge. He then returned back to Herāt. Alā-ed-daulat soon after fell into his hands.

This success of Bābur Mirza recalled his brother Muhammed into Khorasān, in an evil hour. He met with a fatal discomfiture, was taken prisoner, and put to death by the command of Bābur;¹ who, at the same time, to free himself from all apprehensions from his surviving brother, ordered the fire-pencil to be applied to the eyes of Alā-ed-daulat. Orders Alā-
ed-daulat
to be
blinded. The operation, however, from accident, or the mercy of the operator, was imperfectly performed, and Alā-ed-daulat did not lose his sight. Bābur Mirza, for the purpose of improving his victory to the utmost extent, now marched against Muhammed Mirza’s kingdom of Fārs. He had made some progress in the conquest of it, when he was recalled into Khorasān by the alarming intelligence that Alā-ed-daulat had escaped from custody, and was at the head of a numerous and increasing army. On his return to Khorasān, he found the revolt suppressed, and Alā-ed-daulat expelled from his territories; but Jehān Shah, the powerful chief of the Turkomāns of the Black Sheep, now descended from Tabrīz, and after occupying Persian Irāk, pursued his conquests, and in a few years subdued Fārs and the remaining territories of Muhammed Mirza. To regain these provinces, Bābur Mirza led a formidable army into Persian Irāk and Azarbaijān; but had scarcely set his foot in the country when he learned that Abūsaīd Mirza had entered his dominions from the north. Enraged at this insult, he measured back his steps, followed Abūsaīd across the Amu, and laid siege to Samarkand; but after lying before it forty days, he concluded a peace, which left the Amu or Oxus the boundary between the two countries. Bābur then returned to Khorasān, and 1457.
Death of
Bābur
Mirza. enjoyed several years of comparative peace. He was carried off in the year 1457, by a disease originating in his habitual excesses in wine.¹

His death was the signal for Abūsaīd Mirza again to attempt the conquest of Khorasān. From this enterprise he was, however, recalled towards Balkh, by a revolt of the sons of Abdallatīf Mirza, one of whom he slew, while the other, Muhammed Jūki, took refuge in the deserts of Tartary, with Abulkhair, one of the Khans of the Uzbek principality of Tura, a part of the empire of Kipchāk that lies to the east of the Ural mountains, and who dwelt in summer towards the banks of the river Jaik, and in winter on the Sirr.² Abūsaīd soon after returned into Khorasān, a great part of which he overran, and repressed the commotions excited by the restless Alā-ed-daulat. But he was glad to retire before the formidable irruption of Jehān Shah, the Turkomān chief, who entered Herāt, which was cruelly plundered by his troops. When the first fury of the invasion was over, the Turkomāns began to divide their forces. Abūsaīd, watching the opportunity, fell furiously on Jehān Shah’s son, near Marghūb, defeated the 1458.
And con-
quers the
country. detachment under his command, and compelled his father to sue for a peace, and retreat from Khorasān. A treaty was concluded, by which it was agreed that the town of Semnān, which lies between Khorasān and Persian Irāk, should be the boundary between the territories of these two princes.

In these times of confusion, Sultan Hussain Mirza, a prince of great talents, and who is often mentioned in the Memoirs of Bābur, had fixed himself in the possession of Asterābād and Mazenderān. He was descended from Taimūr Beg¹ by his son Omer-Sheikh Mirza. Not contented with the peaceable enjoyment of the rich provinces which he held, he had pushed on his plundering parties into Khorasān as far as Sabzewār. Abūsaīd, having disengaged himself of the Turkomāns, and defeated Alā-ed-daulat, who had once more invaded his territories on the side of Meshed, 1459. now marched to chastise Sultan Hussain Mirza. The contending armies met, Abūsaīd was victorious, and, pursuing Driven
from
Asterābād. his advantage, entered his enemy’s capital, Asterābād, in which he left one of his sons, Sultan Mahmūd Mirza.

But Abūsaīd was not yet destined to enjoy repose. Muhammed Jūki, the son of Abdallatīf, and grandson of Ulugh Beg Mirza, who, after his defeat, had fled, as has been mentioned, to Abulkhair, the Khan of the Uzbeks,² had meanwhile returned, accompanied by his new allies, and was ravaging Abūsaīd’s territories beyond the Amu. 1460.
Retires be-
fore Abū-
saīd Mirza. Abūsaīd once more hastened to Samarkand, and the predatory bands of his enemies, on his approach, retired beyond the Sirr. From the prosecution of this war, Abūsaīd was recalled by the unwelcome intelligence of the Sultan
Hussain
Mirza
recovers
Asterābād. defeat of his son, Mahmūd Mirza, whom Sultan Hussain Mirza had driven from Asterābād. Not contented with this success, Sultan Hussain had advanced into the very heart of Khorasān, and had even laid siege to the capital, Herāt. The return of Abūsaīd speedily raised the siege. He Again dis-
possessed
by Abū-
saīd,
who be-
sieges Shah-
rokhīa, and
takes Mu-
hammed
Jūki. drove the Sultan out of his territories, and, following him into his own, stripped him of all that he held in Jorjān and Māzenderān.

This success enabled Abūsaīd to turn his undivided force to complete the destruction of Muhammed Jūki. He besieged that prince in Shahrokhīa, a strong and populous city on the Sirr, and, after a siege of one year,¹ took the place and his rival. Being finally disengaged of this enemy, he now returned across the Amu, where Sultan Hussain Mirza had availed himself of his absence to enter Khorasān. That active prince was once more compelled 1463. to fly, and sought shelter in Khwārizm. Abūsaīd, being now delivered from all his enemies, gave his attention, for some time, to the extension of his territories on the side of Sīstān and India by means of his generals, and to the settling of his extensive dominions. He soon after went to Merv, where he gave a splendid feast, which lasted five 1465. months, to celebrate the circumcision of the princes his sons. It was on this occasion that his son, Omer-Sheikh Mirza, Bābur’s father, received the government of Ferghāna, as is mentioned in the Memoirs.

While Abūsaīd was yet at Merv, Hassan Ali, the son of Jehān Shah, the prince of the Turkomāns of the Black Sheep, arrived from Irāk, where, by one of those reverses so frequent in the East, his father had been defeated and slain by the celebrated Ūzūn Hassan, the Beg of the Turkomāns of the White Sheep. Hassan Ali now solicited the protection and assistance of Abūsaīd, who gladly undertook to restore him to his paternal dominions. The expedition which followed is famous in eastern history, and 1467. is often alluded to by Bābur, under the name of ‘the disaster of Irāk’. Abūsaīd Mirza advanced into Azarbaijān who
marches
into Azar-
baijān. with a powerful army, subduing the country in his course. He sent two detachments to take possession the one of the Persian Irāk, the other of Fārs. As he pushed on towards Ardebīl and Tabrīz, among the hills of Azarbaijān, Ūzūn Hassan, alarmed at his progress, sent repeated embassies to sue for peace; but in vain, as Abūsaīd, to all his offers, annexed the condition that the Turkomān should appear in his presence, and humble himself before the descendant of Taimūr Beg. To this Ūzūn Hassan refused to submit, and, reduced to despair, betook himself to the hills and fastnesses in which the country abounds, and employed himself indefatigably in harassing and cutting off the supplies of the enemy, whom he prudently avoided meeting in the field. What the sword could not achieve was completed by famine. The large but tumultuary army of Abūsaīd began to suffer from the pressure of want, and no sooner suffered than it began to fall away. The disas-
ter of Irāk. The various chieftains and tribes of which it was composed gradually withdrew each to his own country. The army fell to pieces. Abūsaīd was compelled to seek safety in 1468.
Abūsaīd
beheaded. flight, was pursued, taken prisoner, and soon after beheaded. Of his mighty army few returned to their homes. The greater part were taken prisoners, or slaughtered in the course of their long retreat.

The dominions of Abūsaīd, who was by far the most powerful prince of his time, extended, at the period of his death, from Azarbaijān to the borders of India, and from Sultan Ah-
med Mirza,
king of Sa-
markand
and Bok-
hāra.
Sultan
Mahmūd
Mirza, king
of Hissār,
Kunduz,
and Ba-
dakhshān. Mekrān to the deserts of Tartary. Of his sons, Sultan Ahmed Mirza, who was the eldest, retained possession of Samarkand and Bokhāra, the government of which he had held in the lifetime of his father. Another of them, Sultan Mahmūd Mirza, held the government of Asterābād, from whence, after the ‘disaster of Irāk’, he marched to take possession of Herāt; but the inhabitants preferring the government of Sultan Hussain Mirza, called him in; and Sultan Mahmūd Mirza, expelled from Khorasān, and forced to cross the Amu, took refuge in Samarkand, with his brother, Sultan Ahmed Mirza, having lost Asterābād in his attempt to gain Khorasān. In the course of a few months, he fled privately from his brother’s protection, and by means of Kamber Ali Beg, a Moghul nobleman of great influence, who was at that time the governor of Hissār, gained possession of all the country, from the straits of Kolugha or Derbend, to the Belūt mountains, and from the hills of Asfera to the mountains of Hindū-kūsh, an extensive tract of country, that included Hissār, Chegāniān, Termiz, Kunduz, Badakhshān, and Khutlān. Another of Abūsaīd’s Ulugh Beg
Mirza, king
of Kābul
and Ghazni. sons, Ulugh Beg Mirza, retained possession of Kābul and Ghazni, which he had governed in his father’s lifetime. Another, Omer-Sheikh Mirza, the father of the illustrious Omer-
Sheikh
Mirza,
king of
Ferghāna. Bābur, and the fourth son of Abūsaīd, continued to reign in Ferghāna. Sultan Murād Mirza, another of Abūsaīd Mirza’s sons, who had held the government of Garmsīr and Kandahār, had advanced, at the period of his father’s Sultan Mu-
rād Mirza. death, to occupy Kermān. He was forced to retreat by the ensuing events, and found that he could not maintain himself even in Kandahār. He repaired to the court of Sultan Hussain Mirza, by whom he was sent to Samarkand, to his brother, Sultan Ahmed Mirza; but he soon after returned to Herāt, after which he is little mentioned. It is needless to detail the fortunes of the other sons, as they had no influence on the history of Bābur.

Sultan Hussain Mirza was no sooner relieved of his formidable enemy, by the death of Abūsaīd, than he once more entered Khorasān, invited, as has been already mentioned, by the wishes and affections of the inhabitants. Drives
Yādgār
Mirza from
Asterābād. He quickly drove from Asterābād, Yādgār Mirza, a son of Muhammed Mirza, the late sovereign of Irāk and Fārs, who had been selected by Ūzūn Hassan and the Turkomāns to fill the throne of Khorasān, and compelled him to take 1469. refuge in Tebrīz, at the court of his patron. Next year, however, Yādgār Mirza returned, supported by a formidable body of Turkomāns, penetrated into Khorasān, and took Herāt, which Sultan Hussain, unable to resist the first impulse of the enemy, was glad to abandon. The Sultan retired to Balkh, but it was only to watch the favourable moment for returning; and he had no sooner learned, by a secret correspondence which he maintained with some of the chief officers about Yādgār Mirza’s person, that that young prince had given himself up to all the enjoyments of a Surprises
and puts
him to
death near
Herāt.
1470. luxurious capital, than, returning by forced marches, he came upon him by surprise, while overpowered with wine, in the Bāgh-e-zāghān,¹ near Herāt, took him prisoner, dispersed his troops, and put him to death.

The remaining years of the reign of Sultan Hussain Mirza were little disturbed, except by the rebellion of his sons, and, towards its close, by the invasion of Sheibāni Khan. But these events will be best explained by Bābur himself in his Memoirs, where copious details will be found regarding the family, dominions, and court of this monarch.¹

Sultan Omer-Sheikh Mirza, the sovereign of Ferghāna, and the father of Bābur, has by some writers been supposed to have had his capital at Samarkand, and by others to have extended his dominions even into India. His dominions, however, never extended beyond the narrow limits of Ferghāna and Uratippa, unless for a short time, when he received Tāshkend and Seirām from his eldest brother, Sultan Ahmed, and gained Shahrokhīa by stratagem. These acquisitions he soon lost, having given them up to his brother-in-law, Sultan Mahmūd Khan, in return for assistance afforded him in his wars; and at his death, which happened in 1494, he only retained possession of Ferghāna, Uratippa having just been taken from him by his brother, Sultan Ahmed Mirza of Samarkand. He was a restless, profuse, good-humoured man, who left his dominions in considerable disorder to his eldest son, the illustrious Bābur, then only twelve years of age.

It is from this event that Bābur commences his Memoirs. At that period, his uncle, Sultan Ahmed Mirza, was still king of Samarkand and Bokhāra. Another of his uncles, Sultan Mahmūd Mirza, was the sovereign of Hissār, Termiz, Kunduz, Badakhshān, and Khutlān. A third uncle, Ulugh Beg Mirza, was king of Kābul and Ghazni; while Sultan Hussain Mirza Baikera, a descendant of the great Taimūr, and the most powerful prince of his age, was king of Khorasān. To the west and north of Ferghāna, Sultan Mahmūd Khan, a Moghul prince, Bābur’s maternal uncle, and the eldest son of Yunis Khan, so often alluded to by Bābur, held the fertile provinces of Tāshkend and Shahrokhīa, along the Sirr or Jaxartes, as well as the chief power over the Moghuls of the desert as far as Moghulistān, where Sultan Ahmed Khan, his younger brother, appears to have governed a separate division of the same tribe. Three daughters of Yunis Khan, the sisters of these two princes, had been married to the three brothers, the kings of Samarkand, Hissār, and Ferghāna; and the relations of affinity arising from these marriages are often alluded to by Bābur.

To prevent the necessity of hereafter interrupting the narrative, it may be proper, in addition to these remarks, to observe that Sheibāni Khan, a name which occurs in every page of the earlier part of the following history, was still in the deserts of Tartary. He was descended from Chingiz Khan, by his eldest son, Tūshi or Jūji Khan, The elder
Sheibāni. the sovereign of Kipchāk. Bātu, the eldest son of Tūshi, having returned from his expedition into the north of Europe, bestowed on one of his younger brothers, Sheibāni Khan, a large party of Moghuls and Tūrks, who fed their flocks in the champaign between the Ural hills and the sea of Aral, and along the river Jaik, or Yaik, which flows into the Caspian; and he became the founder of the Khanate of Tūra, which, in process of time, extended its conquests considerably into Siberia. One of his descendants, Uzbek
Khan. Uzbek Khan, was so much beloved by his tribes that they are said to have assumed his name, and hence the Abulkhair
Khan. origin of the Uzbek nations. Abulkhair Khan, the grandfather of the second Sheibāni, was a contemporary of Abusaīd Mirza. When that monarch had expelled Muhammed Jūki Mirza from Samarkand, the young prince, as has already been mentioned, had fled for protection to Abulkhair Khan, who sent him back, accompanied by one 1460. of his sons, with a powerful army, which took Tāshkend and Shahrokhīa,¹ and occupied all the open country of Māweralnaher. The approach of Abusaīd compelled them to retire beyond the Sirr.

The ambition and power of Abulkhair Mirza were so formidable as to justify a combination of all the neighbouring His death
[1465]. Tartar princes against him, by which he was defeated and put to death with several of his sons; the others saved themselves by flight. But his grandson Sheibāni
Khan. Sheibāk or Sheibāni Khan, the son of Borāk or Budāk, regained at least a part of his hereditary dominions, and not only retrieved the honour, but greatly extended the power of the family. The confused state of the country between the Amu and the Sirr, soon after attracted him 1494. into the territories of Samarkand; an expedition to which the Uzbeks were probably equally called by the invitation of the contending princes of the country, and by the remembrance of the plunder and spoil which they had carried off from these rich and ill-defended countries twenty-four years before. From some expressions used by Bābur, it seems pretty clear that, in spite of the extent of his conquests along the banks of the Oxus, Sheibāni Khan had never regained the power enjoyed by his grandfather in his native deserts, and was confined to the range of territory around the town and country of Turkestān, to the north-west of Tāshkend, which was a recent conquest made by that division of his tribe that adhered to his interests. His subjects were a mass of tribes of Tūrki, Moghul, and probably of Finnic race, moulded down into one people, but with a great preponderance of Tūrks. His army was latterly swelled by volunteers from all the Tūrki and Moghul tribes from Kāshghar to the Volga;¹ and he appears, even under the partial colouring of his enemy Bābur, as a prince of great vigour of mind, and of no contemptible military talents.

Such was the general division of the neighbouring countries when Zehīr-ed-dīn Muhammed, surnamed Bābur, or the Tiger, ascended the throne. Immediately before the death of his father Sultan Omer-Sheikh Mirza, his neighbours Sultan Ahmed Mirza of Samarkand and Sultan Mahmūd Khan of Tāshkend, displeased with some parts of his conduct, had entered into a coalition, in consequence of which they had invaded his country.

Few incidents of the life of Bābur previous to his mounting the throne are known. It may be remarked, however, Feb. 14,
1483. that he was born¹ on the 6th Muharrem 888, and that when a boy of five years of age he had paid a visit to his paternal uncle, Sultan Ahmed Mirza, at Samarkand, on which occasion he was betrothed to his cousin, Āisha Sultān Begum, the daughter of that prince. This lady he afterwards married.

Bābur ascended the throne about two years after the discovery of America by Columbus, and four years before Vasco de Gama reached India. The year in which he mounted the throne was that of the celebrated expedition of Charles VIII of France against Naples. His contemporaries in England were Henry VII and Henry VIII; in France, Charles VIII, Louis XII, and Francis I; in Germany, the Emperors Maximilian and Charles V; in Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella, and Charles. The discovery of America, and of the passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope, the increase of the power of France by the union of the great fiefs to the crown, and of Spain by the similar union of its different kingdoms under Charles, the destruction of the empire of Constantinople, and the influence of the art of printing, introduced about that time a new system into the west of Europe, which has continued with little change down to our times. The rise and progress of the Reformation formed the most interesting event in Europe during the reign of Bābur.

THE
MEMOIRS OF BĀBUR

IN the month of Ramzān,¹ in the year eight hundred and ninety-nine, and in the twelfth year of my age, I became King of Ferghāna.

The country of Ferghāna is situated in the fifth climate,² on the extreme boundary of the habitable world. On the east, it has Kāshgar; on the west, Samarkand; on the south, the hill-country on the confines of Badakhshān; on the north, although in former times there were cities such as Almāligh,³ Almātu, and Yangi,⁴ which is known in books of history by the name of Otrār; yet, at the present date, in consequence of the incursions of the Uzbeks, they are desolate, and no population remains.

Ferghāna is a country of small extent, but abounding in grain and fruits; and it is surrounded with hills on all sides except on the west, towards Samarkand and Khojend, where there are none; and on that side alone can it be entered by foreign enemies. The river Seihūn, which is generally known by the name of the river of Khojend, comes from the north-east, and after passing through this country, flows towards the west. It then runs on the north of Khojend and south of Finākat,¹ which is now better known as Shahrokhīa; and thence, inclining to the north, flows down towards Tūrkestān; and meeting with no other river in its course, is wholly swallowed up in the sandy desert considerably below Tūrkestān, and disappears.

In this country there are seven districts, five on the south of the Seihūn, and two on the north.

Of the districts on the south of the river, one is Andejān, which has a central position and is the capital of Ferghāna. It abounds in grain and fruits, its grapes and melons are excellent and plentiful. In the melon season it is not customary to sell them at the beds.² There are no better nāshpātis³ produced than those of Andejān. In Māweralnaher, after the fortresses of Samarkand and Kēsh, none is equal in size to Andejān. It has three gates. The citadel is situated on the south of the city. The water-courses of the mills by which the water enters the city, are nine; and it is remarkable that of all the water that enters the city, none flows out of it. Around the fortress, on the edge of the stone-faced moat,^a is a broad highway covered with pebbles. All round the fort are the suburbs, which are only separated from the moat by this highway that runs along its banks.

The district abounds in birds and beasts of game. Its pheasants⁴ are so fat, that the report goes that four persons may dine on the broth⁵ of one of them, and not be able to finish it. The inhabitants of the country are all Tūrks, and there is none in town or market who does not understand the Tūrki tongue. The common speech of the people of this country is the same as the correct language of composition, so that the works of Mīr Ali Sher, surnamed Nawāi, though he was bred and flourished at Heri,¹ are written in this dialect. The inhabitants are remarkable for their beauty. Khwājeh Yūsef, so famous for his science in music, was a native of Andejān. The air is unwholesome, and in the autumn agues are prevalent.

Another district is Ush, which is situated to the south-east of Andejān, but more to the east, and distant from Andejān four farsangs² by the road. The air of Ush is excellent. It is abundantly supplied with running water, and is extremely pleasant in spring. The excellencies of Ush are celebrated even in the sacred traditions.^a3 On the south-east of the fort is a mountain of a beautiful figure, named Barakoh, on the top of which Sultan Mahmūd Khan built a small summer house, beneath which, on the shoulder of the hill, in the year 902,⁴ I built a larger palace and colonnade. Although the former is in the more elevated situation, yet that built by me is the more pleasant of the two; the whole town and suburbs are seen stretched out below. The river of Andejān, after passing through the suburbs of Ush, flows on towards Andejān.⁵ On both of its banks there are gardens, all of which overlook the river. Its violets are particularly elegant. It abounds in streams of running water. In the spring its tulips and roses blow in great profusion. On the skirt of this same hill of Barakoh,⁶ between the hill^b and the town, there is a mosque, called the Mosque of Jouza;⁷ and from the hill there comes a great and wide stream of water. Beneath the outer court of the mosque there is a meadow of clover, sheltered and pleasant, where every traveller and passenger loves to rest. It is a standing joke among the common people at Ush to carry across the three streams all such as fall asleep there.¹ On this hill, about the latter end of the reign of Omer-Sheikh Mirza, there was discovered a species of stone finely waved red and white, of which they make the handles of knives, the clasps of belts, and other things of that sort, and it is a very beautiful stone. In all Ferghāna for healthiness and beauty of situation, there is no place that equals Ush.

Another is Marghinān,² which lies on the west of Andejān, at the distance of seven farsangs, and is a fine district. It is noted for its pomegranates and apricots. There is one species of pomegranate named dana-kalān (or great seed), which, in its flavour, unites the sweet with a sweet acid, and may even be deemed to excel the pomegranate of Semnān.³ They have a way of taking out the stones of the zerd-ālu (or apricot), and of putting in almonds in their place, after which the fruit is dried. When so prepared, it is termed seikkhāni,^a and is very pleasant. The game and venison are here also excellent. The white deer⁴ is found in its vicinity. All the inhabitants are Sarts;⁵ the race are great boxers, noisy and turbulent, so that they are famous all over Māweralnaher for their blustering and fondness for boxing, and most of the celebrated bullies of Samarkand and Bokhāra are from Marghinān. The author¹ of the Hidāya was from a village named Rashdān, a dependency of Marghinān.

Asfera is another district. It is situated at the foot of the mountains, and possesses numerous streams and beautiful gardens. It lies south-west of Marghinān, at the distance of nine farsangs.² Many species of fruit-trees abound there; but, in the gardens, the almond trees are most numerous. The inhabitants are all mountaineers and Sarts. Among the small hills to the south-east of Asfera^a is a slab of stone called sang aineh (the stone-mirror); its length is about ten gez. It is in some places as high as a man, in others not higher than his middle; everything is seen in it as in a glass.

The district of Asfera is separated into four divisions, all situated at the foot of the hills; one of them is Asfera, another Warūkh, another Sukh, and the fourth Hūshiār. When Muhammed Sheibani Khan defeated Sultan Mahmūd Khan and Ilcheh Khan,³ and took Tāshkend and Shahrokhīa, I spent nearly a year in Sūkh and Hūshiār among the hills, in great distress; and it was from thence that I set out on my expedition to Kābul.

Khojend, another of the districts, is situated on the west of Andejān, at the distance of twenty-five farsangs, and it is also at the same distance from Samarkand. This is a very ancient city. Sheikh Maslehet and Khwājeh Kemāl⁴ were of Khojend. Its fruits are very good, particularly its pomegranates, which are so celebrated, that the apples of Samarkand and the pomegranates of Khojend have passed into a proverb; but excellent as the latter are, they are greatly excelled at present by the pomegranates of Marghinān. The fortress of Khojend is situated on an eminence, having on the north the river Seihūn, which flows past at the distance of about a bowshot. On the north of the fort and of the river Seihūn there is a hill, which is named Myoghil,^a1 where they say that there are turquoise and other mines. In this hill there are many serpents. Khojend is a good sporting country; the white deer, the mountain goat,² the stag,³ the fowl of the desert,⁴ and the hare are found in great plenty; but the air is extremely noisome, and inflammations of the eyes are common;^b insomuch, that they say that even the very sparrows have inflammations in the eyes. This badness of the air they ascribe to the hill on the north. Kandbā-
dām. Kandbādām is one of the districts belonging to Khojend. Though of no great extent, yet it is rather a fine little district, and its almonds, from which it derives its name,⁵ are of excellent quality, and are exported to Hindustān, Hormuz, and other quarters. It is distant from Khojend five or six farsangs to the east. Between Kandbādām and Khojend there is a desert, named Ha-dervīsh, where a sharp wind prevails, and constantly blows from the desert in the direction of Marghinān, which lies to the east of the desert, or in the direction of Khojend, which lies to the west, and this wind is excessively keen. It is said that certain Dervishes having encountered the wind in this desert, and being separated, were unable to find each other again, and perished, calling out, ‘Ha, Dervīsh! Ha, Dervīsh!’⁶ and that hence the desert is denominated Ha-dervīsh unto this day.

Of the districts to the north of Seihūn, one is Akhsi, which in histories is called Akhsīkat.¹ Hence Asīr-ed-din, the poet, is termed Asīr-ed-din Akhsīkati.² There is no town in Ferghāna after Andejān, which is more considerable than this. It lies to the west of Andejān, at the distance of nine farsangs. Omer-Sheikh Mirza made it his capital. The river Seihūn flows under the walls of its castle. The castle is situated on a high precipice, and the steep ravines around serve instead of a moat. When Omer-Sheikh Mirza made it his capital, he, in one or two instances, scarped the ravines outside of the fort. In all Ferghāna there is no fortified town so strong as this. The suburbs are rather more than a shiraa kos from the fort. The proverb, ‘Where is the town, and where are the trees?’³ applies in a particular manner to Akhsi. The melons here are excellent; there is one species which is termed Mīr Taimūri, no such melons are known to exist in the world. The melons of Bokhāra are also celebrated; but, at the time when I took Samarkand, I had melons brought from Akhsi and Bokhāra, and cut open at an entertainment, when those of Akhsi were judged beyond comparison the best. There is good hunting and hawking. From the river of Akhsi to the town there is a desert, in which the white deer are very numerous. Towards Andejān is a waste, abounding with the stag, the fowl of the desert, and the hare, all of which are extremely fat.

Another district is Kāsān,⁴ which lies to the north of Akhsi, and is of small extent. As the river of Andejān comes from Ush, so the river of Akhsi comes from Kāsān. The air of Kāsān is extremely good, and its gardens are beautiful. In consequence of its gardens being all sheltered^a along the banks of the stream, they call it the mantle of five lambskins.¹ There is a standing quarrel between the inhabitants of Kāsān and those of Ush concerning the beauty and climate of their respective districts.

All around the country of Ferghāna, among the mountains, there are excellent yailāk² (or summer stations). The tabulghū³ wood is found here among the mountains, and in no other country. The tabulghū, which has a red bark, is a wood of which they make walking-staves, whip-handles, and bird-cages. They also cut it into the forked tops of arrows.⁴ It is an excellent wood, and is carried to a great distance, as a rarity in much request. In many books it is related that the Yabruj-us-sannam⁵ grows on these hills; but now it is quite unknown. There is, however, a species of grass which is produced on the mountains of Bete-kend,¹ and which the people of the country term aikoti, that is said to have the virtue of the mehergīah, and is what passes under the name of mehergīah. In these hills, also, there are mines of turquoise and of iron.

The revenues of Ferghāna may suffice, without oppressing the country, to maintain three or four thousand troops.

As Omer-Sheikh Mirza was a prince of high ambition and magnificent pretensions, he was always bent on some scheme of conquest. He several times led an army against Samarkand, was repeatedly defeated, and as often returned back disappointed and desponding. He oftener than once called in to his assistance his father-in-law, Yunis Khan, who was descended from Chaghatāi Khan, the second son of Chinghiz Khan, and who was at that time the Khan of the tribe of Moghuls in the dominions of Chaghatāi Khan.² He was also my maternal grandfather. Every time that he was called in, Omer-Sheikh gave him some province; but as things did not succeed to the Mirza’s wish, Yunis Khan was unable to keep his footing in the country, and was therefore repeatedly compelled, sometimes from the misconduct of Omer-Sheikh Mirza, sometimes from the hostility of other Moghul tribes, to return back to Moghulistān.³ The last time, however, that he brought his force, Omer-Sheikh Mirza gave Yunis Khan the country of Tāshkend, which was then in the possession of the Mirza. Tāshkend is sometimes denominated Shāsh, and sometimes Chāch, from [A.D. 1485.] whence comes the phrase, a bow of Chāch.⁴ From that time [A.D. 1502-
3.] to the year 908, the countries of Tāshkend and Shahrokhīa remained subject to the Chaghatāi Khans. At this time the Khanship of the (Ulūs or) tribe of Moghuls was held by my maternal uncle, Sultan Mahmūd Khan, the eldest son of Yunis Khan. He and Sultan Ahmed Mirza, the King of Samarkand, who was my father Omer-Sheikh Mirza’s elder brother, having taken offence at Omer-Sheikh Mirza’s conduct, entered into a negotiation, the result of which was, that Sultan Ahmed Mirza having given Sultan Mahmūd [A.D. 1494.]
A. H. 899.
Alliance
against
him. Khan one of his daughters in marriage, they this year concluded an alliance, when the latter marched an army from the north of the river of Khojend, and the former another from the south of it, against that prince’s dominions.

At this very crisis a singular incident occurred. It has already been mentioned that the fort of Akhsi is situated on a steep precipice, on the very edge of which some of its June 9,
1494. buildings are raised. On Monday, the 4th of the month of Ramzān, of the year that has been mentioned, Omer-Sheikh His death. Mirza was precipitated from the top of the steep, with his pigeons, and pigeon-house,¹ and took his flight to the other world.

He was then in the thirty-ninth year of his age. He was A.D. 1456. born at Samarkand in the year 860. He was the fourth son of Sultan Abūsaīd Mirza, being younger than Sultan Ahmed Mirza, Sultan Muhammed Mirza, and Sultan Mahmūd Mirza. Sultan Abūsaīd Mirza was the son of Sultan Muhammed Mirza, the son of Mirza Mirānshah, who was the third son of Taimūr Beg, being younger than Omer-Sheikh Mirza and Jehāngīr Mirza, and elder than Shahrokh Mirza. Sultan Abūsaīd Mirza had at first given Kābul to the Mirza, and sent him off for that country, attended by Baba Kābuli as his Beg-atkeh (or Protector and Regent). He, however, recalled him to Samarkand, when he had reached the Dera-Gez,¹ in order that he might be present at the festival of the circumcision of the Mirzas.² After the festival, as Taimūr Beg had given Omer-Sheikh Mirza the elder the country of Ferghāna, Abūsaīd was induced, by the coincidence of names, to bestow on his son Omer-Sheikh the country of Andejān,³ appointed Khuda-berdi Taimūrtāsh his guardian and regent, and sent him off to his government.

Omer-Sheikh Mirza was of low stature, had a short bushy beard, brownish hair, and was very corpulent. He used to wear his tunic extremely tight; insomuch, that as he was wont to contract his belly while he tied the strings, when he let himself out again the strings often burst. He was not curious in either his food or dress. He tied his turban in the fashion called destār-pēch (or plaited turban⁴). At that time all turbans were worn in the chār-pēch (or four-plait) style. He wore his without folds, and allowed the end to hang down. During the heats, when out of the Divān,⁵ he generally wore the Moghul cap.

As for his opinions and habits, he was of the sect of Hanīfah,⁶ and strict in his belief. He never neglected the five regular and stated prayers,⁷ and during his whole life he rigidly performed the kaza⁸ (or retributory prayers and fasts). He devoted much of his time to reading the Korān. He was extremely attached to Khwājeh Obeidullāh, whose disciple he was, and whose society he greatly affected. The reverend Khwājeh, on his part, used to call him his son. He read elegantly: his general reading was the khamsahs,¹ the mesnevis,² and books of history, and he was in particular fond of reading the Shahnāmeh.³ Though he had a turn for poetry, he did not cultivate it. He was so strictly just, that when the caravan from Khita⁴ had once reached the hill-country to the east of Andejān, and the snow fell so deep as to bury it, so that of the whole only two persons escaped; he no sooner received information of the occurrence, than he dispatched overseers to collect and take charge of all the property and effects of the people of the caravan; and, wherever the heirs were not at hand, though himself in great want, his resources being exhausted, he placed the property under sequestration, and preserved it untouched; till, in the course of one or two years, the heirs, coming from Khorasān and Samarkand, in consequence of the intimation which they received, he delivered back the goods safe and uninjured into their hands.⁵ His generosity was large, and so was his whole soul; he was of an excellent temper, affable, eloquent and sweet in his conversation, yet brave withal, and manly. On two occasions he advanced in front of the troops, and exhibited distinguished prowess; once, at the gates of Akhsi, and once at the gates of Shahrokhīa. He was a middling shot with the bow; he had uncommon force in his fists, and never hit a man whom he did not knock down. From his excessive ambition for conquest, he often exchanged peace for war, and friendship for hostility. In the earlier part of his life he was greatly addicted to drinking būzeh and talar.¹ Latterly, once or twice in the week, he indulged in a drinking party. He was a pleasant companion, and in the course of conversation used often to cite, with great felicity, appropriate verses from the poets. In his latter days he was much addicted to the use of maajun,² while under the influence of which, he was subject to a feverish irritability. He was a humane man. He played a great deal at backgammon, and sometimes at games³ of chance with the dice.

He fought three great battles; the first with Yunis Khan, to the north of Andejān, on the banks of the Seihun, at a place called Tīka-Sakaratkū,⁴ which derives its name from this circumstance, that the river, in flowing past the skirt of a hill, becomes so much contracted in breadth, that it is said that, on one occasion, a mountain-goat leaped from the one bank to the other. Here he was defeated, and fell into the hands of Yunis Khan, who treated him with great generosity, and sent him back to his own country. This is termed the battle of Tīka-Sakaratkū, because it was fought at that spot; and it is still used as an era in that country. Another battle he fought in Tūrkestān, on the banks of the river Aras,⁵ with the Uzbeks, who, having plundered the territory of Samarkand, were on their return back. The Aras being frozen over, he passed it on the ice, gave them a severe defeat, and recovered the prisoners and effects which they had carried off, all of which he restored to their families and owners, retaining nothing to himself. The third battle was fought with Sultan Ahmed Mirza, between Shahrokhīa and Uratippa, at the place named Khawās, where he was defeated.

His father gave him the country of Ferghāna. He held for a short period Tāshkend and Seirām,¹ which his eldest brother Sultan Ahmed Mirza had given him. He was also, at one time, in possession of Shahrokhīa, which he gained by a stratagem. Finally, however, he lost both Tāshkend and Shahrokhīa, and only retained Ferghāna, Khojend, and Uratippa, the original name of which is Usrūshta,² and which is also called Austerūsh. Many do not reckon Khojend to be included in Ferghāna. When Sultan Ahmed Mirza went to Tāshkend against the Moghuls, whom he engaged, but was defeated on the banks of the river Chir,³ Hāfiz Beg Duldāi, who was in Uratippa, delivered it up to Omer-Sheikh Mirza, from which period it continued in his possession.

He had three sons and five daughters. Of the sons I, Zehīr-ed-dīn Muhammed Bābur, was the eldest. My mother was Kūtluk Nigār Khānum. The second son was Jehāngīr Mirza, who was two years younger than myself. His mother was sprung of one of the chiefs of the race of the Moghul Tumāns,⁴ and was named Fātima Sultan. The third Nāsir. was Nāsir Mirza, whose mother was of the country of Andejān, and a concubine, by name Umeid. He was four years younger than I. Of all the daughters, the eldest was Khanzādeh
Begum. Khanzādeh Begum, who was born of the same mother as myself, and was five years older than I. The second time that I took Samarkand,⁵ although my army was defeated at Sir-e-pul, I threw myself into the town, and sustained a siege of five months; when, no succour or assistance coming from any of the neighbouring kings or Begs, in despair, I abandoned the place. During the confusion that ensued, Khanzādeh Begum fell into the hands of Muhammed Sheibāni Khan, and had by him a son named Khurram Shah, a fine young man, who had the country of Balkh assigned to him; but, a year or two after his father’s death, he was received into the mercy of God.¹ When Shah Ismael defeated the Uzbeks at Merv,² Khanzādeh Begum was in that town; out of regard for me, he paid her every attention, and caused her to be conducted in the most honourable manner to join me at Kunduz.—We had been separated for ten years, when I and Muhammed Gokultāsh went out to meet her; the Begum and her attendants did not know us, not even after I had spoken; but in a short while they Meherbānu
Begum.
Sheherbā-
nu Begum. recognized me. The second daughter was Meherbānu Begum, who was born of the same mother as Nāsir Mirza, and was two years older than I. The third daughter was Sheherbānu Begum, who was likewise born of the same mother with Nāsir Mirza, and was eight years younger than Yādgār Sultan
Begum. I. The fourth daughter was Yādgār Sultan Begum, whose mother, Agha Sultan, was a concubine. The youngest Rokhīa
Sultan
Begum. daughter was Rokhīa Sultan Begum, whose mother, Sultan Makhdūm Begum, went by the name of Karagūz Begum (the black-eyed princess). These two last were born after the Mirza’s death. Yādgār Sultan Begum was brought up by A. D. 1503. my grandmother Isān Doulet Begum. When Muhammed Sheibāni Khan took Andejān and Akhsi, Yādgār Sultan Begum fell into the hands of Abdallatīf Sultan, the son of A. D. 1511. Hamzeh Sultan. When I defeated Hamzeh Sultan and the other Sultans in Khutlān, and took Hissār, Yādgār Sultan Begum came and joined me. During those same troubles, Rokhīa Sultan Begum had fallen into the hands of Jāni Beg Sultan, by whom she had one or two sons, who died young. I have just received information that she has gone to the mercy of God.

The principal wife of Omer-Sheikh Mirza was Kūtluk Nigār Khānum, who was the second daughter of Yunis Khan, and the elder sister of Sultan Mahmūd Khan and Descent
of Yunis
Khan. Sultan Ahmed Khan by the same mother. Yunis Khan was of the race of Chaghatāi Khan, the second son of Chingiz Khan, and his genealogy runs thus: Yunis Khan, the son of Weis Khan, the son of Sher Ali Oghlān, the son of Muhammed Khan, the son of Khizer Khwājeh Khan, the son of Tughluk Taimūr Khan, the son of Aishbugha Khan, the son of Dawa Khan, the son of Burāk Khan, the son of Isān-bugha, the son of Mutukān, the son of Chaghatāi Khan, the son of Chingiz Khan.¹

Since the opportunity thus presents itself, I shall now briefly state a few particulars regarding the history of the Khans. Yunis Khan and Isān-bugha Khan were the sons of Weis Khan. The mother of Yunis Khan was of Turkestān, and was either the daughter or grand-daughter of Sheikh Nūr-ed-dīn Beg, who was one of the Amīrs of Kipchāk, and had been brought forward by Taimūr Beg. On the death of Weis Khan, the Ulūs (or Horde) of the Moghuls divided into two parties, one of which adhered to Yunis
Khan Yunis Khan, while the majority sided with Isān-bugha Khan. This occasioned a separation of the tribe. Before this time the elder sister of Yunis Khan had been engaged by Ulugh Beg Mirza to be married to his son Abdal-azīz Mirza. This connexion induced Airzīn, who was a Beg of the Tumān of Nārin, and Mīrak Turkman, who was a Beg of the Tumān of Khirās, to carry Yunis Khan, attended by three leaves Mo-
ghulistān. or four thousand families² of the tribe of Moghuls, to Ulugh Beg Mirza; in the expectation that, with the assistance which he could afford them, they might reduce the whole of the Moghul tribe under the authority of the Khan. The Mirza did not give them a favourable reception, but with great unkindness,¹ imprisoned some, and dispersed the rest in all directions over the face of the country; so that ‘the Dispersion of Airzīn’ has become an era among the Moghuls. The Khan he sent into Irāk. Yunis Khan accordingly remained in Tabrīz for upwards of a year, at the time when Jehān-Shah Barani Kara-koilūk² (of the black sheep) was sovereign of Tabrīz. Thence he proceeded to Shirāz, where Shahrokh Mirza’s second son, Ibrahīm Sultan Mirza, then reigned. Five or six months after his arrival, this prince died, and was succeeded by his son Abdallah Mirza. The Khan engaged in the service of Abdallah Mirza, and remained in Shirāz and that country for seventeen or eighteen years. When the disturbances between Ulugh Beg Mirza and his sons broke out, Isān-bugha Khan, seizing the opportunity, came and plundered the country of Ferghāna, as far as Kandbādām, took Andejān, and made all the inhabitants prisoners. Sultan Abūsaīd had no sooner mounted the throne than he collected an army, advanced beyond Yāngi,³ and gave Isān-bugha Khan a severe defeat, at a town in Moghulistān, named Ashpera. In order still more effectually to secure himself from such inroads, he was induced by his connexion with Yunis Khan, to invite him back from Irāk and Khorasān, Yunis Khan’s elder sister having been married to Abdal-azīz Mirza. On the Khan’s arrival he made a great feast, received him in the most friendly manner, acknowledged him as Khan of the tribe of Moghuls, and sent him into their country to assert his rights. At that time it happened that all the Begs of the Tumān of Sagharichi had come to Moghulistān, highly displeased with Isānbugha Khan. Yunis Khan went among them. The greatest of the Begs of the Sagharichi was then Sher Hāji Beg, whose Marries
Isān Doulet
Begum. daughter Isān Doulet Begum, Yunis Khan married. Sher Hāji Beg having seated the Khan and Isān Doulet Begum on a white felt,¹ according to the Tūreh, or ancient Institutions of the Moghuls, they proclaimed him Khan.

The Khan had three daughters by Isān Doulet Begum, of whom the eldest was Meher Nigār Khanum, whom Sultan Abūsaīd Mirza took for his eldest son Sultan Ahmed Mirza. By the Mirza she had neither son nor daughter. In the succeeding wars she fell into the hands of Sheibāni Khan; but after I went to Kābul, she accompanied Shah Begum from Samarkand to Khorasān, and thence to Kābul. When Sheibāni Khan invested Nāsir Mirza in Kandahār, I proceeded to Lamghān, and Khan Mirza, Shah Begum, and Yunis
Khan’s
children. Meher Nigār Khanum, set out for Badakhshan. Mubārek-shah having invited Khan Mirza to the fortress of Zafer,² they were met on the road, attacked and plundered by one of Ababeker Kāshghari’s marauding parties, and Shah Meher
Nigār Kha-
num. Begum and Meher Nigār Khanum, with their whole family and attendants, were taken prisoners; and, in the prisons of that wicked miscreant, they departed from this perishable world.

The second daughter, Kūtluk Nigār Khanum, was my mother, and accompanied me in most of my wars and expeditions. Five or six months after the taking of Kābul A.D. 1505. she departed to God’s mercy, in the year 911.

The third daughter was Khūb Nigār Khanum, who was married to Muhammed Hussain Korkān Dughlet.³ He had [A.D. 1511.] by her one daughter and one son. The daughter married Ubeid Khan, and when I took Bokhāra and Samarkand, was residing there, and being unable to effect her escape, stayed behind: when her paternal uncle Syed Muhammed Mirza came to me in Samarkand as ambassador from Sultan A.D. 1503. Saīd Khan,¹ she accompanied him back, and was married to Sultan Saīd Khan. She had a son, Haider Mirza,² who, after his father was slain by the Uzbeks, entered my service and remained in it three or four years; he then took leave of me and went to Kāshghar to the Khan; but as

Everything returns to its original principles,
Whether pure gold, or silver, or tin;

it is said that he has now adopted a commendable course of life and become reformed. He excels in penmanship, in painting, in fletchery, in making arrow-heads, and thumblets for drawing the bow-string. He is remarkably neat at all kinds of handiwork. He has also a turn for poetry, and I have received an epistle from him, the style³ of which is by no means bad.

Another of the Khan’s wives was Shah Begum; though he had other wives besides these, yet he had children by these two only. Shah Begum was the daughter of Shah Sultan Muhammed, King of Badakhshān. The Kings of Badakhshān are said to trace back their descent to Sikander Filkūs.⁴ This Sultan Muhammed had also another daughter, elder than Shah Begum, who was married to Sultan Abūsaīd Mirza, and bore to him Ababeker Mirza. Yunis Khan had two sons and two daughters by Shah Begum. Among these, Sultan
Mahmūd
Khan. Sultan Mahmūd Khan was younger than the three daughters who have been mentioned, and elder than the other three children. In Samarkand and these quarters he is generally Sultan Ah-
med Khan. called Khānikeh Khan. Sultan Ahmed Khan was younger than Sultan Mahmūd Khan, and is well known by the name of Ilcheh Khan.¹ He received this denomination from the following circumstance: In the language of the Kilmāks² and Moghols, they call a slayer Ilaji; and, as he several times overcame the Kilmāks with great slaughter, he on that account was generally spoken of under the name of Ilaji, which, in pronunciation, was converted into Ilcheh. It will often be necessary to make mention of these Khans in this history, when their transactions and affairs shall be fully detailed. Sultan Nigār Khanum was the youngest of Sultan
Nigār
Khanum. all the family, except one daughter. She was given in marriage to Sultan Mahmūd Mirza (the son of Sultan Abūsaīd Mirza), by whom she had one son, named Sultan Weis, who will be mentioned in the sequel. After the death [A.D. 1495.] of Sultan Mahmūd Mirza, this princess, having taken her son along with her, without giving any notice of her intention, proceeded to Tāshkend to her brothers. A few years afterwards, her brother married her to Uzbek Sultan,³ one of the Sultans of the Kazāks,⁴ who was descended of Juji Khan, the eldest son of Chinghiz Khan. When Sheibāni Khan defeated [A.D. 1502.] the Khans, and took Tāshkend and Shahrokhīa, she fled with ten or twelve of her Moghul attendants to Uzbek Sultan, by whom she had two daughters: one of them was given to one of the Sheibāni Sultans, and the other to Rashīd Sultan, a son of Sultan Saīd Khan.⁵ After the death of Usbek Sultan, she married Kāsim Khan,⁶ the chief of the horde of the Kazāks. It is said that no one of the Khans or Sultans of the Kazāks ever kept the horde in such complete order as Kāsim Khan. His army amounted to nearly three hundred thousand fighting men. After the death of Kāsim Khan, she went to Kāshghar to Sultan Saīd Khan Kāshghari. Doulet Sul-
tan Kha-
num. Doulet Sultan Khanum, who was the youngest daughter of all, at the sack of Tāshkend fell into the hands of Taimūr Sultan, the son of Sheibāni Khan. By him she had one daughter. She left Samarkand along with me, and lived three or four years in Badakhshān, after which she went to Kāshghar to Sultan Saīd Kāshghari.

Another of Omer-Sheikh Mirza’s wives was Ulūs Aghāi, the daughter of Khwājeh Hussain Beg; by her he had one daughter, who died young. A year, or a year and a half after her marriage, she was removed from the haram.

Another of his wives was Fātima Sultan Agha, who was the daughter of one of the Begs of the Moghul Tumāns. Omer-Sheikh Mirza married her first of all his wives.

There was yet another named Karagūz Begum (or the black-eyed Princess), whom he married towards the end of his days. She was tenderly beloved by Omer-Sheikh Mirza, and, in order to flatter him, they affected to derive her origin from Manucheher Mirza, the elder brother of Sultan Abūsaīd Mirza.

He had many women and concubines. One of them was Omeid Aghācheh, who died before the Mirza. In the Mirza’s latter days he had one called Yūn Sultan, of Moghul extraction. Another was Agha Sultan.

Of his Amīrs, one was Khuda-berdi Taimūrtāsh,¹ who was of the family of the elder brother of Akbugha Beg, the Hākim² of Heri. When Sultan Abūsaīd Mirza besieged [A.D.1464.] Juki Mirza in Shahrokhīah, he gave the country of Ferghāna to Omer-Sheikh Mirza, and sent Khuda-berdi Taimūrtāsh with him as Master of his Household.³ At that time Khuda-berdi Taimūrtāsh was only about twenty-five years of age, but young as he was, his method, his arrangements, and regulations were excellent. One or two years afterwards, when Ibrahīm Begchik ravaged the territory of Ush, Khuda-berdi Taimūrtāsh having pursued and overtaken him, a severe battle ensued, in which Khuda-berdi was defeated and slain. When this event occurred, Sultan Ahmed Mirza was among the yailāk (or summer habitations) of Uratippa, called Ak Kechghai, eighteen farsangs to the east of Samarkand, and Sultan Abūsaīd Mirza was at Babakhāki, which is twelve farsangs to the east of Heri, when this intelligence was transmitted to him express by Abdal Wahāb Shaghāwel. The messenger accomplished this distance, which is one hundred and twenty-six farsangs, on horseback in four days.

Another of his Amīrs was Hāfiz Beg Duldāi, the son of Sultan Malik Kāshghari, and a younger brother of Ahmed Hāji Beg. After the death of Khuda-berdi Beg, he was appointed Master of the Household, and sent to succeed him. As he was unpopular among the Begs of Andejān, on the death of Sultan Abūsaīd Mirza, he repaired to Samarkand, and entered into the service of Sultan Ahmed Mirza. When the news arrived of the defeat of Sultan Ahmed Mirza in the battle on the Chir, he was governor of Uratippa, and when Omer-Sheikh Mirza had reached Uratippa on his way to attack Samarkand, Hāfiz Beg delivered up the place to the Mirza’s people, and himself entered into his service. Omer-Sheikh Mirza again entrusted him with the government of Andejān. He latterly went into the service of Sultan Mahmūd Khan, who gave him the charge of Mirza Khan [A.D. 1504.] with the government of Dizak. Before I took Kābul he had set out by way of Hind, with the intention of making a pilgrimage to Mekka, but, on the road, he departed to the mercy of God. He was a plain unassuming man, of few words, and not very profound.

Another was Khwājeh Hussein Beg, who was a good-humoured man, of plain, simple manners; he excelled in singing at drinking parties, as was the fashion of the time, what was called tūiūk,^a a sort of Moghul drinking-song.

There was another named Sheikh Mazīd Beg, who was first appointed my governor. His arrangements and discipline were excellent. He had been in the service of Bābur Mirza.¹ No man stood higher in the esteem of Omer-Sheikh Mirza than himself. He was, however, of grossly libidinous habits, and addicted to pederasty.

Ali Mazīd Beg Kuchīn was another. He twice rebelled, once in Akhsi and once in Tāshkend. He was a libidinous, treacherous, good-for-nothing hypocrite.

Another was Hassan Yākūb Beg, who was frank,^a good-tempered, clever, and active. The following verses are his—

Return again, O Hūma,² for without the parrot down of thy cheek The crow will assuredly soon carry off my bones.

He was a man of courage, an excellent archer, and remarkable for his skill in playing the games of choughān³ and leap-frog. After the death of Omer-Sheikh Mirza, he became Master of my Household. He was, however, narrow-minded, of small capacity, and a promoter of dissension.

Another was Kāsim Beg Kuchīn, who was one of the ancient Begs of the army of Andejān. He succeeded Hassan Beg as Master of the Household. As long as he lived, his power and consequence with me went on increasing uninterruptedly. He was a brave man. On one occasion, a party of Uzbeks having ravaged the country round Kāsān, were on their retreat, when he pursued, overtook, engaged, and gave them a severe defeat. He had also distinguished himself by his gallant use of his scimitar in presence of Omer-Sheikh Mirza. In the war of Yāsi-kijet¹ he made some bold forays. During my difficulties, when I proposed going from the hill-country of Masīkha² to Sultan Mahmūd Khan, Kāsim Beg separated from me, and went A.D. 1504. to Khosrou Shah. In the year 910, when I took Khosrou Shah and blockaded Mukīm in Kābul, Kāsim Beg came again and joined me, and I showed him my wonted affection and regard. When I attacked the Tūrkoman Hazāras in [A.D. 1511.] the dereh, or glen, of Khīsh,³ as Kāsim Beg, notwithstanding his advanced years, displayed more ardour than many younger men, I gave him the government of the country of Bangash as a reward for his services. Afterwards, on my return to Kābul, I appointed him governor to Humāiūn.⁴ He was received into the mercy of God about the time I reduced the Zamīn-dāwer.⁵ He was a pious, religious, faithful Moslem, and carefully abstained from all doubtful meats. His judgement and talents were uncommonly good. He was of a facetious turn, and though he could neither read nor write, had an ingenious and elegant vein of wit.

Another was Baba Kūli Beg, of the family of Sheikh Ali Bahāder. After the death of Sheikh Mazīd Beg, he was appointed my governor. When Sultan Ahmed Mirza led his army against Andejān, he went over to him and delivered Uratippa into his hands. After Sultan Mahmūd Mirza’s death, he fled from Samarkand, and was on his way to join me, when Sultan Ali Mirza, issuing out of Uratippa, encountered, defeated, and slew him. He was remarkable for maintaining his troops in good order, and with excellent equipments. He kept a watchful eye over his servants, but neither prayed nor fasted, and was cruel, and like an infidel in his whole deportment.

Another was Mīr Ali Dost Taghāi, who was of the Begs of the Tumāns of Saghrichi, and related to my maternal grandmother Isān Doulet Begum. I showed him great favour from the time of Omer-Sheikh Mirza. I was told that he would be a useful man; but during all the years that he was with me, I cannot tell what service he ever did. He had been in Sultan Abūsaīd Mirza’s service, and pretended to be an enchanter.¹ He was Grand Huntsman, and was a man of disagreeable manners and habits, covetous, mean, seditious, insincere, self-conceited, harsh of speech, and sour of visage.

Weis Lāghari was another. He was from Samarkand and of the Tokchi tribe, and was latterly much in the confidence of Omer-Sheikh Mirza. He attended me on my expeditions. He was a man of excellent understanding and talents, but a little disposed to be factious.

Mīr Ghiās Taghāi, the younger brother of Ali Dost, was another. None of all the young Moghul Amīrs in Sultan Abūsaīd Mirza’s court was a greater favourite, and the Great Seal² was delivered to his custody by that prince. He was in very great favour with Omer-Sheikh Mirza in his latter years, and was on intimate terms with Weis Lāghari. [A.D.1494.] From the time that Sultan Mahmūd Khan got possession of Kāsān, till the end of his life, he remained in the service of the Khan, by whom he was treated with great consideration. He was an extremely witty and jocose man, but fearless in debauchery.

There was another named Ali Derwīsh, a native of Khorasān, who served in the Khorasān Bands under Sultan Abūsaīd Mirza; for when that prince got possession of Samarkand and Khorasān, he formed such of the young men of these two kingdoms as were fit for service into bands of household troops, which he termed the Bands of Khorasān, and the Bands of Samarkand. He made a gallant charge in my presence in the affair at the gate of Samarkand. He was a brave man. He wrote the nastālīk character after a fashion. He was, however, a gross flatterer, and sordidly mean and miserly.

Kamber Ali, Moghul, an Akhteji,¹ was another; when his father came to the country, he for some time exercised the trade of a skinner, whence he got the name of Kamber Ali Selākh (or the skinner). He had served Yunis Khan in the capacity of Ewer-bearer, but finally arrived at the rank of Beg. From me he received distinguished favours. Till he had attained high rank, his conduct was exceedingly good; but, after he had gained a certain elevation, he became negligent and perverse. He talked a great deal and very idly; indeed there can be no doubt that a great talker must often talk foolishly. He was a man of contracted capacity, and of a muddy brain.

At the time when this fatal accident² befell Omer-Sheikh Mirza, I was in Andejān, at the Chārbāgh palace. On Tuesday the fifth of Ramzān, the news reached Andejān; I immediately mounted in the greatest haste, and taking with me such of my followers as were at hand, set out to secure the castle. When I had just reached what is called the Mirza’s gate, Shīrīm Taghāi seized my horse’s bridle and carried me towards the Īd-gāh.³ The idea had entered his mind that, as Sultan Ahmed Mirza, who was a powerful prince, was approaching with a great army, the Begs of Andejān might deliver up both the country and me into his hands; he was therefore for conducting me towards Urkend¹ and the country on the skirt of the hills in that quarter, that if they should deliver up the country, I might not fall into his power, but might join my maternal uncles Ilcheh Khan or Sultan Mahmūd Khan.

Khwājeh Moulāna Kazi, the son of Sultan Ahmed Kazi, was of the race of Sheikh Būrhān-ed-dīn Kilij,² and by the mother’s side descended of Sultan Ilik Māzi. He was sprung of a religious family that had come to be regarded as the protectors of that country. This family in some sort held the office of Sheikh-ul-Islām³ by hereditary descent, and will hereafter be often mentioned. The Kazi, and the Begs who were in the castle, on hearing of our proceedings, sent Khwājeh Muhammed Derzi, who was an old and trusty household servant of Omer-Sheikh Mirza, and the Beg-atkeh or governor of one of his daughters, to dispel our apprehensions. He overtook us and made me turn, after we had nearly reached the Īd-gāh, and conducted me into the Is received
into the
citadel. citadel, where I alighted. Khwājeh Moulāna Kazi and the Begs having met in my presence, held a consultation; and, after having mutually communicated their ideas, and resolved on their plan, applied themselves to put the fortress, with its towers and ramparts, in a state of defence. Hassan Yākūb, Kāsim Kuchīn, and some other Begs, who had been sent on an excursion⁴ to Marghinān and that quarter, arrived a day or two after, and entered into my service; and all of them, with one heart and soul, set themselves zealously to maintain the place.

Sultan Ahmed Mirza, after having made himself master of Uratippa, Khojend, and Marghinān, advanced to Kaba,¹ within four farsangs of Andejān, and encamped. At this time one Dervīsh Gau, a man of note in Andejān, was capitally punished on account of some seditious expressions, an example which reduced all the rest of the inhabitants to their duty.

I now sent Khwājeh Kazi, Uzūn Hassan, and Khwājeh Hussain, as ambassadors, to Sultan Ahmed Mirza, with a message to this effect: ‘It is plain that you must place some one of your servants in charge of this country; I am at once your servant and your son; if you intrust me with this employment, your purpose will be attained in the most satisfactory and easy way.’ As Sultan Ahmed Mirza was a mild, weak man, of few words, who was implicitly guided in all his opinions and actions by his Begs; and as they were not favourably disposed to this proposition, a harsh answer was returned, and he marched forward.—But the Almighty God,² who, of his perfect power, has, in his own good time and season, accomplished my designs in the best and most proper manner, without the aid of mortal strength, on this occasion also brought certain events to pass, which reduced the enemy to great difficulties, frustrated the object of their expedition, and made them return without success, heartily repenting of their attempt.

One of these was the following: the Kaba is a black river and extremely slimy, insomuch that it can be only passed by a bridge: as the host was very numerous, there was a great crowding on the bridge, and many horses and camels fell over into the black water and perished. Now as three or four years before this the same troops had suffered a severe defeat at the passage of the river Chir, the present disaster recalled the former to their remembrance, and the soldiers of the army were seized with a panic. Another circumstance was, that, at this time, a disease attacked the horses with such violence that they were taken ill, and began to die in great numbers. A third circumstance was, that they found my soldiers and subjects so unanimous and resolute, that they perceived clearly that their determination was to fight to the last drop of their blood, and the last gasp of their life, without yielding, and that they would never submit to the government of the invaders. Disconcerted by these circumstances, after they had come within one farsang of Andejān, they on their part sent Derwīsh Muhammed Terkhān,¹ who was met near the Īd-gāh by Hassan Yākūb, from the castle, when they conferred together and patched up a sort of a peace, in consequence of which the invading army retired.

In the meanwhile Sultan Mahmūd Khan had entered the country on the north of the river of Khojend in a hostile manner, and laid siege to Akhsi. Jehāngīr Mirza was in the place, and Ali Derwīsh Beg, Mirza Kuli Gokultāsh, Muhammed Bākir Beg, and Sheikh Abdallah the Chamberlain,² were along with him. Weis Lāghari and Mīr Ghiās Taghāi were also there, but, in consequence of some misunderstanding between them and the other Begs, they withdrew to Kāsān, which was Weis Lāghari’s government. As Weis Lāghari was Beg-atkeh (or governor) to Nāsir Mirza, that prince resided at Kāsān. As soon as the Khan arrived in the neighbourhood of Akhsi, these Begs waited on him, and surrendered Kāsān: Mīr Ghiās continued with the Khan; but Weis Lāghari carried off Nāsir Mirza and delivered him to Sultan Ahmed Mirza, by whom he was given in charge to Muhammed Mazīd Terkhān. The Khan having approached Akhsi, made several assaults on it, but without success; the Begs and youth of Akhsi fought with distinguished valour. but is
forced to
retreat. At this crisis Sultan Mahmūd Khan fell sick, and being besides disgusted with the war, returned to his own country.

Ababeker Dughlet Kāshghari,³ who acted as an independent Ababeker
Kāshghari
invades
Ferghāna
on the east, prince, and had for several years been Hākim of Kāshghar and Khuten, was seized, like the rest, with the desire of conquest, and had advanced to Uzkend, where he constructed a fortress, and employed himself in plundering and laying waste the country. Khwājeh Kazi and a number of Begs were dispatched to expel him. When the army but is
repelled. approached, the Kāshgharian, who perceived that he was unable to contend with it, applied to Khwājeh Kazi as mediator, and contrived to extricate himself from his situation with great address and cunning.

During these important events, the Begs and younger nobility, who had been about Omer-Sheikh Mirza, united resolutely, and displayed a noble spirit, being eager to devote their lives to the cause. They afterwards conducted the Mirza’s mother, Shah Sultan Begum, Jehāngīr Mirza, and the family in the haram, from Akhsi to Andejān, where they performed the ceremonies of mourning for him, and distributed food and victuals to the poor and to religious mendicants.

When delivered from these dangers, it became necessary to attend to the administration and improvement of the country, and to placing everything in proper order.^a The government of Andejān, and the prime authority in the Court, were bestowed on Hassan Yākūb; Ush was given to Kāsim Kuchīn; Akhsi and Marghinān were entrusted to Uzūn Hassan and Ali Dost Taghāi; and each of the Begs and younger nobility of Omer-Sheikh Mirza’s court had a district, an estate, or portion of land assigned to him, or received some mark of distinction suited to his rank and consequence.^b

Meanwhile Sultan Ahmed Mirza, after having made two or three marches on his return home, fell very ill, and being seized with a burning fever, departed from this transitory world, in the territory of Uratippa, just as he had reached Middle of
July 1494. the Aksū¹ (or White river), in the middle of the month Shawāl 899, in the 44th year of his age.

He was born in 855, the year in which Sultan Abusaīd Mirza came to the throne, and was the eldest of all his sons. His mother was the daughter of Urda Bugha Terkhān, was elder sister of Derwīsh Muhammed Terkhān, and the most respected of the Mirza’s wives.

He was tall, of a ruddy complexion, and corpulent.^a He had a beard on the forepart of the chin, but none on the lower part of the cheek. He was a man of extremely pleasant manners. He wore his turban, according to the fashion of the time, in what was termed chārmāk (the four-plaited), with the tie or hem brought forward over the eyebrows.

He was strictly attached to the Hanīfah sect, and was a true and orthodox believer. He unfailingly observed the five stated daily prayers, and did not neglect them even when engaged in drinking parties. He was attached to Khwājeh Obeidullah, who was his religious instructor and guide. He was polite and ceremonious at all times, but particularly in his intercourse with the Khwājeh; insomuch that they say, that, while in company with him, however long they sat, he never changed the position of his knees, by shifting the one over the other, except in one instance, when, contrary to his usual practice, he rested the one knee on the other. After the Mirza rose, the Khwājeh desired them to examine what there was particular in the place in which the Mirza had been seated, when they found a bone lying there.¹

He had never read any, and, though brought up in the city, was illiterate and unrefined. He was a plain honest Tūrk, but not favoured by genius. He was, however, a just man; and as he always consulted the reverend Khwājeh in affairs of importance, he generally acted in conformity to the law. He was true to his promises, and faithful to his compacts or treaties, from which he never swerved. He was brave; and though he never happened to be engaged hand to hand in close combat, yet they say that in several actions he showed proofs of courage. He excelled in archery. He was a good marksman. With his arrows and forked arrows he generally hit the mark;¹ and in riding from one side of the exercise ground to the other, he used to hit the brazen basin several times.² Latterly, when he became very corpulent, he took to bringing down pheasants and quails with the goshawks, and seldom failed. He was fond of hawking, and was particularly skilled in flying the hawk, an amusement which he frequently practised. If you except Ulugh Beg Mirza, there was no other king who equalled him in field sports. He was singularly observant of decorum, insomuch that it is said, that even in private, before his own people and nearest relations, he never uncovered his feet.³ Whenever he took to drinking wine, he would drink without intermission for twenty or thirty days at a stretch, and then he would not taste wine for the next twenty or thirty days. In his social parties he would sometimes sit day and night, and drink profusely; on the days when he did not drink, he ate pungent substances.^a He was naturally of a penurious disposition, was a simple man, of few words, and entirely guided by his Begs.

He fought four battles: the first with Sheikh Jemāl Arghūn, the younger brother of Niāmet Arghūn, in the territory of Zamīn,¹ at Akār-tūzi, in which he was victorious; the second with Omer-Sheikh Mirza, at Khawās,² in which likewise he was victorious; the third affair was with Sultan Mahmūd Khan, in the vicinity of Tāshkend, on the river Chir, in which there was in truth no battle, for as soon as a few scattered plundering Moghuls came up with the army, and seized some baggage, a whole mighty host, without fighting, without resistance, and no man having engaged another, or even seen an enemy, was completely panic-struck and broken up, and numbers of them drowned in their disorderly flight across the Chir.³ His fourth battle was with Haider Gokaltāsh, in the confines of Yār-ailāk,⁴ in which he was victorious.

He possessed the countries of Samarkand and Bokhāra, which his father had given him; and, after the death of Sheikh Jemāl, who was slain by Abdal Kadūs,⁵ he got possession of Tāshkend, Shahrokhīa, and Seirām. He afterwards gave Tāshkend and Seirām to his younger brother, Omer-Sheikh Mirza; and also, for some time, occupied Khojend and Uratippa.

He had two sons, who died young, and five daughters, four of whom were by Kātak Begum. The eldest of them 1. Rābia
Sultan
Begum. all was Rābia Sultan Begum, whom they called Karagūz (or the Black-eyed) Begum. He gave her in his lifetime to Sultan Mahmūd Khan, by whom she had a son, named Baba Khan, a very promising boy. When the Uzbeks slew the Khan in Khojend, they put to death him and many others like him of tender years.⁶ After the death of Sultan Mahmūd Khan, Jāni Beg Sultan married her. The second 2. Sāliheh
Sultan
Begum. daughter was Sāliheh Sultan Begum, who was called Ak Begum (or the Fair Lady). After Sultan Ahmed Mirza’s death, Sultan Mahmūd Mirza celebrated her marriage with his own eldest son, Sultan Masaūd Mirza, with great festivity. She afterwards fell into the hands of the Kāshgharian at the same time with Shah Begum and Meher Nigār Khanum. 3. Āisha
Sultan
Begum. The third daughter was Āisha Sultan Begum. When I visited Samarkand, at the age of five years, she was betrothed to me. She afterwards came to Khojend during the troubles, when I married her;¹ and, about the time when I took Samarkand the second time, I had one daughter by her, who lived only a few days. She left my family before the overthrow of Tāshkend, induced by the machinations 4. Sultā-
nim
Begum. of her elder sister. The fourther daughter was Sultānim Begum, who was married first to Sultan Ali Mirza, afterwards to Taimūr Sultan, and lastly to Mahdi Sultan. The 5. Maasū-
meh Sultan
Begum. youngest of all his daughters was Maasūmeh Sultan Begum, whose mother, Habībeh Sultan Begum, was of the tribe of Arghūn, and the daughter of one of Sultan Arghūn’s brothers. I saw her when I went to Khorasān, and, being pleased with her, asked her in marriage and carried her to Kābul, where I married her. I had by her one daughter, at the time of whose birth she was taken ill in childbed, and was united to the mercy of God. The daughter whom she bore received her mother’s name.

Of his wives and ladies, the principal was Meher Nigār Khanum, the eldest daughter of Yunis Khan, who was betrothed to him by his father, Sultan Abūsaīd Mirza. She was my mother’s eldest sister of the full blood.

Another of his wives was of the family of Terkhāns, and named Terkhān Begum.

Another was Kātak Begum, who was the foster-sister of this same Terkhān Begum. Sultan Ahmed Mirza married her for love. He was prodigiously attached to her, and she governed him with absolute sway. She drank wine. During her life, the Sultan durst not venture to frequent any other of his ladies. At last, however, he put her to death, and delivered himself from his reproach.

Another of his wives was Khanzādeh Begum, who was sprung of the Khans of Termez. When I went to Samarkand, at the age of five years, to visit Sultan Ahmed Mirza, he had newly married her, and she still kept her face covered with a veil, according to the custom of the Tūrks.¹ He directed me, and I took off her veil.

Another of them was the daughter of the daughter of Ahmed Hāji Beg, named Latīf Begum, who, after the Mirza’s death, was married to Hamzah Sultan, by whom she had three sons. When I defeated the Sultans under the command of Hamzeh Sultan and Taimūr Sultan, and took Hissār,² these princes, as well as the children of the other Sultans, fell into my hands, and I set all of them at liberty.

There was another, named Habībeh Sultan Begum, the brother’s daughter of Sultan Arghūn.

Of his Amirs, one was Jāni Beg Duldāi, the younger brother of Sultan Malik of Kāshghar. Sultan Abūsaīd Mirza conferred on him the government of Samarkand, with the prime direction of Sultan Ahmed Mirza’s court. He was a man of singular habits and manners, and many strange stories are related of him. Among these it is said, that, when he held the government of Samarkand, an ambassador came from the Uzbeks, who was famous among them for his strength. The Uzbeks call a very stout champion būkeh. Jāni Beg asked him, ‘Why do they call you būkeh? If you are a būkeh, come let us have a set-to.’ The ambassador, do what he would, was unable to get off. The Hākim grappled with the Uzbek, who was thrown. Jāni Beg was a man of perfect courage.

Another of his nobles was Ahmed Hāji Beg, who was the son of Sultan Malik of Kāshghar. Sultan Abūsaīd Mirza gave him the government of Heri, which he retained for some time. After the death of his paternal uncle, Jāni Beg, he was appointed to succeed him in his rank and dignity, and sent to Samarkand. He was of an ingenious^a and manly character, and in his poetical compositions assumed the name of Wafāi. He was the author of a diwān,¹ and was no mean poet. The following is his:

Let me alone to-day, my good judge, for I am tipsy;
Call me to account some other time, when you catch me sober.

Mīr Ali Sher Nawāi accompanied him when he came from Heri to Samarkand; but when Sultan Hussein Mirza became King, he went to Heri, where he was received with most extraordinary favour. Ahmed Hāji Beg kept excellent horses of the breed termed Tipchāk.² He was an admirable horseman, and most of his Tipchāks were of his own breeding. Though a brave man, his generalship was not equal to his courage. He was careless, and left the conduct of his affairs and enterprises to his servants and dependants. When Baiesanghar Mirza attacked Sultan Ali Mirza in Bokhāra,³ and was defeated, Ahmed Hāji Beg was taken prisoner and shamefully put to death, on the charge of the blood of Derwīsh Muhammed Terkhān.⁴

Another of his officers was Derwīsh Muhammed Terkhān, the son of Urda Bugha Terkhān,⁵ and full maternal uncle of Sultan Ahmed Mirza and Sultan Mahmūd Mirza. He stood higher in rank and estimation with the Mirza than any other of the Begs. He was a good Moslem, of religious habits, and simple manners, and was constantly reading the Korān. He was very fond of chess, and played much and well. He was extremely skilful in falconry, and excelled in flying his hawks. In the troubles between Sultan Ali Mirza and Baiesanghar Mirza he died, in bad repute, in the height of his greatness.

Another was Abdal Ali Terkhān, a near relation of Derwīsh Muhammed Terkhān; he married Derwīsh Muhammed Terkhān’s younger sister, who was the mother of Bāki Terkhān. Though Derwīsh Muhammed Terkhān was his superior, not only according to the customs and rules of the tribe, but in rank and estimation; yet this haughty Pharaoh pretended to look down upon him. For some years he possessed the government of Bokhāra, when his servants amounted to three thousand. He maintained them well and handsomely. His information and intelligence,^a his forms of judicial investigation, his court, his suite, his entertainments¹ and levees, were all quite princely. He was a strict disciplinarian, tyrannical, lascivious, and haughty. Sheibāni Khan, though he did not take service with him, lived with him for some time. Many of the smaller and more inconsiderable Sultans were in his service. This Abdal Ali Terkhān was the prime cause of the rise and progress of Sheibāni Khan’s fortune, as well as of the downfall and destruction of the family of the ancient Khans.

Syed Yūsef Oghlākchi was another. His grandfather was from the horde of Moghuls. Ulugh Beg Mirza had promoted and patronized his father. He was a man of profound reflection and counsel, was brave, and excelled in the exercise of throwing the jerīd.¹ He was one of those who were with me when I first went to Kābul. I showed him great attention, and indeed he was deserving of it. The [A.D. 1505.] first time that I led my army against Hindustān, I left Syed Yūsef Beg behind in Kābul, and he departed into the mercy of God that same year.

There was another named Derwīsh Beg, of the race of Aiko Taimūr Beg, who was a favourite of Taimūr Beg’s. He was extremely attached to the reverend Khwājeh Obeidullah, was skilled in the science of music, and a good performer. He had a genius for poetry. When Sultan Ahmed Mirza was routed on the banks of the Chir, he perished in the river.²

Another was Muhammed Mazīd Terkhān, who was the brother of the full blood to Derwīsh Muhammed Terkhān, but younger. He was for some years Hākim or Governor of Turkestān. Sheibāni Khan took Turkestān from him. He had an excellent judgement and understanding, but was impudent and voluptuous.^a The second and third time that I took Samarkand he came to me, and I gave him a favourable reception. He fell in the battle of Kūl-Malik.³

Bāki Terkhān was another, the son of Abdal Ali Terkhān, and maternal cousin of Sultan Ahmed Mirza. After his father’s death he had the government of Bokhāra. In the time of Sultan Ali Mirza he rose to great consequence, and his retainers amounted to five or six thousand. He was far from being in a proper state of subjection or obedience to Sultan Ali Mirza. He engaged Sheibāni Khan and was defeated at the fort of Dabūsi,⁴ when Sheibāni Khan, pursuing his advantage, took Bokhāra. He was very fond of hawking, and is said to have had seven hundred falcons at one time. His manners and habits were such as cannot well be described; he was educated and grew up in the midst of magnificence and state. As his father had conferred benefits on Sheibāni Khan, he went over and joined him; but that ungenerous and ungrateful man showed not the least return of favour or kindness for the good which he had received; and Bāki Terkhān departed this life in great wretchedness and misery, in the country of Akhsi.

Another was Sultan Hussain Arghūn. As he for some time held the government of Karakūl, he was thence known by the name of Sultan Hussain Karakūli. He was a man of reflection and sound judgement, and was much with me.

Another was Kūl Muhammed Baghdād Kuchīn, a man of courage.

Abdal Kerīm Ashret was another; he was an Yūighūr¹ Abdal Ke-
rīm Ashret. and chamberlain to Sultan Ahmed Mirza. He was a man of generosity and courage.

After the death of Sultan Ahmed Mirza, the Begs, having held a consultation, dispatched a messenger over the hills² to Sultan Mahmūd Mirza to invite him to join them. Meanwhile Malik Muhammed Mirza, who was the son of Manucheher Mirza, Sultan Abusaīd Mirza’s elder brother, having separated from the camp, set out, attended by some low desperadoes and adventurers, and repaired to Samarkand for the purpose of asserting his pretensions to the sovereignty; Unsuccessful. but he could accomplish nothing, and was only the cause of his own destruction, and of the death of several innocent princes.

Sultan Mahmūd Mirza, as soon as he received intelligence of these events, lost no time in repairing to Samarkand, and mounted the throne without any kind of difficulty. He soon, however, by some of his proceedings, disgusted both high and low, soldiery and subjects, who began to fall off from him. The first of these offensive acts regarded the Malik Muhammed Mirza, who has been mentioned, who was his uncle’s son, and his own son-in-law: he sent to the Guk-serai¹ four Mirzas, two of whom he suffered to live, but murdered Malik Muhammed Mirza, and another Mirza.^a Though Malik Muhammed Mirza was certainly not free from blame, the other prince had been guilty of no kind of Causes of
his un-
popularity. fault or crime whatever. Another circumstance which added to his unpopularity was, that though his plan of government and general arrangements were laudable, and though he was naturally just, and qualified to direct the concerns of the revenue, being well versed in the science of arithmetic, yet his temper had something in it tyrannical and profligate. Immediately on his arrival at Samarkand, he began arranging, on a new system, the whole of the regulations of government, including the expenditure and taxes. The dependants of Khwājeh Obeidullah, who, by their influence, had formerly protected many poor defenceless persons from oppression, and delivered them from difficulties, now on the contrary suffered great hardship themselves, and were exposed to much severity and oppression; nay, this severity and harsh treatment were extended even to the family of the Khwājeh himself. What added to these evils was, that, as the Prince himself was tyrannical and debauched, his Begs and servants all faithfully imitated his example. The men of Hissār, and particularly the body of troops that followed Khosrou Shah, were constantly engaged in debauchery and drinking; and to such a length did matters go, that when one of Khosrou Shah’s retainers had seized and carried off another man’s wife by force, on the husband’s coming with a complaint to Khosrou Shah, he received for answer—‘You have had her for a great many years; it is certainly but fair that he should now have her for a few days.’ Another circumstance which disgusted these inhabitants was, that none of the townsmen or shop-keepers, and not even the Tūrks and soldiers, could leave their houses, from a dread lest their children should be carried off for catamites. The people of Samarkand, who, for twenty-five years, during the reign of Sultan Ahmed Mirza, had lived in ease and tranquillity, and had seen affairs in general managed according to justice and law, in consequence of the influence enjoyed by the reverend Khwājeh, were stung to the soul at the prevalence of such unbridled licentiousness and tyranny; and great and small, rich and poor, lifted up their hands to heaven in supplications for redress, and burst out into curses and imprecations on the Mirza’s head.

From the judgement that attends on such crime, tyranny, and wickedness, he did not reign in Samarkand above five or six months.

EVENTS OF THE YEAR 900.²

THIS year Abdal Kadūs Beg came to me as ambassador from Sultan Mahmūd Mirza, on the occasion of the marriage of his eldest son Sultan Masaūd Mirza to Ak-Begum, the second daughter of his elder brother Sultan Ahmed Mirza, and brought me a marriage present, consisting of almonds and pistachios of gold and silver. This ambassador, on his arrival, while he openly claimed kindred to Hassan Yākūb,³ Treason-
able views
of Hassan
Yākūb; yet secretly pursued the object for which he had come, that of diverting him from his duty,^a and of gaining him over to his master’s interest, by tempting offers and flattering promises. Hassan Yākūb returned him a conciliatory answer, and in reality was gained over. When the ceremonial of the congratulations on the marriage was over, the ambassador took leave. In the course of five or six months the manners of Hassan Yākūb were visibly changed; he began to conduct himself with great impropriety to those who were about me; and it was evident that his ultimate object was to depose me, and to make Jehāngīr Mirza king in my place. His deportment towards the whole of the Begs and soldiers was so highly reprehensible, that nobody could remain ignorant of the design which he had formed. In consequence of this, Khwājeh Kazi, Kāsim Kuchīn, Ali Dost Taghāi, Uzūn Hassan, and several others who were attached to my interests, having met at my grandmother Isān Doulet Begum’s, came to the resolution of dismissing Hassan Yākūb, and in that way of putting an end to his treasonable views.

There were few of her sex who equalled my grandmother Isān Doulet Begum¹ in sense and sagacity. She was uncommonly far-sighted and judicious; many affairs and enterprises of importance were conducted by her advice. Hassan Yākūb was at this time in the citadel, and my mother and grandmother in the stone fort.^a I proceeded straight to the citadel, in execution of the plan which had been concerted. Hassan Yākūb, who had mounted and gone a-hunting, on receiving intelligence of what was going who is
forced to
flee. forward, posted off for Samarkand. The Begs and others in his interest were taken prisoners. These were Muhammed Bākir Beg, Sultan Mahmūd Duldai, the father of Sultan Muhammed Duldāi, and some others. The greater part of them I allowed to proceed to Samarkand. Kāsim Kuchīn was appointed Master of the Household,² and received the government of Andejān.

Hassan Yākūb, after having proceeded as far as Kandbādām on his way to Samarkand, a few days after, in pursuance of his treacherous intentions, resolved to make an attempt on Akhsi; and, with that view, entered the territory of Khokān.³ On receiving information of this, I dispatched several Begs with a body of troops to fall upon him without loss of time. The Begs having sent on some troops in advance, Hassan Yākūb, who received intelligence of the circumstance, fell by night on this advanced guard, which was separated from the main body, surrounded the quarters they had taken up for the night, and attacked them by Is slain. discharges of arrows; but, having been wounded in the dark in his hinder parts, by an arrow shot by one of his own men, he was unable to retreat, and fell a sacrifice to his own misdeeds:—(Persian verse)

When thou hast done wrong, hope not to be secure against calamity;
For its appropriate retribution awaits every deed.¹

This same year I began to abstain from forbidden or dubious meats;² and extended my caution to the knife, the spoon, and the table-cloth: I also seldom omitted my midnight prayers.

In the month of the latter Rabīa, Sultan Mahmūd Mirza Death of
Sultan
Mahmūd
Mirza. was seized with a violent disorder, and, after an illness of six days, departed this life, in the forty-third year of his age.

He was born in the year 857, and was the third son of Sultan Abūsaīd Mirza by the same mother as Sultan Ahmed His person
and
features. Mirza. He was of short stature, with little beard, corpulent, and a very rough-hewn man in his appearance.

As for his manners and habits,^a he never neglected his prayers, and his arrangements and regulations were excellent; he was well versed in calculation, and not a single dirhem or dinār³ of his revenues was expended without his knowledge. He was regular in paying the allowances of his servants; and his banquets, his donatives, the ceremonial of his court, and his entertainment of his dependants, were all excellent in their kind, and were conducted by a fixed rule and method. His dress was elegant, and according to the fashion of the day.^a He never permitted either the soldiery or people to deviate in the slightest degree from the orders or regulations which he prescribed. In the earlier part of his life he was much devoted to falconry, and kept a number of hawks; and latterly was very fond of hunting the nihilam.¹ He carried his violence and debauchery to a frantic excess; and was constantly drinking wine. He kept a number of catamites; and over the whole extent of his dominions, wherever there was a handsome boy or youth, he used every means to carry him off, in order to gratify his passion. The very sons of his Begs, nay his own foster-brothers,² and the children of his foster-brothers, he made catamites and employed in this way. And such currency did this vile practice gain in his time, that every man had his boy; insomuch, that to keep a catamite was thought to be a creditable thing, and not to have one was regarded as rather an imputation on a man’s spirit. As a judgement upon him for his tyranny and depravity, all his sons were cut off in their youth.

He had a turn for versifying, and composed a diwān; but his poetry is flat and insipid: and it is surely better not to write at all than to write in that style. He was of an unbelieving disposition, and treated Khwājeh Obeidullah very ill. He was, in short, a man equally devoid of courage and of modesty. He kept about him a number of buffoons and scoundrels, who acted their vile and disgraceful tricks in the face of the court, and even at public audiences. He spoke ill, and his enunciation was often^a quite unintelligible.

He fought two battles, both of them with Sultan Hussain Mirza;¹ the first at Asterābād,² in which he was defeated; the second in the territory of Andekhūd,³ at a place named Chekmān,⁴ in which likewise he was defeated. He went twice on a religious war against Kaferistān⁵ on the south of Badakhshān; on which account he used in the tughra⁶ of his Firmāns the style of Sultan Mahmūd Ghāzi.⁷

Sultan Abūsaīd Mirza bestowed on him Asterābād, and, after the unfortunate business of Irāk,⁸ he repaired to Khorasān. At that crisis Kamber Ali Beg, the Hākim of Hissār, who, according to orders which he had received from Sultan Abūsaīd Mirza, was conducting the army of Hindustān⁹ towards Irāk to the assistance of that prince, had got as far as Khorasān, where he joined Sultan Mahmūd Mirza. The people of Khorasān, immediately on hearing the report of Sultan Hussain Mirza’s approach, rose in revolt, and drove Sultan Mahmūd Mirza out of Khorasān; whereupon he repaired to Sultan Ahmed Mirza at Samarkand. A few months after, Syed Beder, Khosrou Shah, and some other officers, under the direction of Ahmed Mushtāk, carried off Sultan Mahmūd Mirza, and fled with him to Hissār, to Kamber Ali Beg. From that time downward, Kolugha, with all the countries to the south of the hill of Kotin,^b10 such as Termez, Cheghāniān, Hissār, Khutlān, Kunduz, Badakhshān, and the districts as far as the mountain of Hindū-kūsh, remained in the possession of Sultan Mahmūd Mirza. On the death of his elder brother Sultan Ahmed Mirza, that prince’s territories also fell into his hands.

He had five sons and eleven daughters. The eldest of his sons was Sultan Masaūd Mirza, whose mother was Khanzādeh Begum, a daughter of Mīr Buzūrg of Termez; another of his sons was Baiesanghar Mirza, whose mother was Pasheh Begum; a third was Sultan Ali Mirza, whose mother, Zuhreh Beghi Agha, was an Uzbek and a concubine. Another son was Sultan Hussain Mirza, whose mother was Khanzādeh Begum, the grand daughter¹ of Mīr Buzūrg. He went to the mercy of the Almighty in his father’s lifetime, Sultan Weis
Mirza. at the age of thirteen. The other son was Sultan Weis Mirza, whose mother, Sultan Nigār Khanum, was a daughter of Yunis Khan, and the younger sister of my mother. The transactions of these four Mirzas will be detailed in the succeeding years.

Of the daughters, three were by the same mother with Baiesanghar Mirza; the eldest of whom Sultan Mahmūd Mirza gave in marriage to Malik Muhammed Mirza, the son of his paternal uncle Manucheher Mirza. By Khanzādeh Begum, the grand-daughter of Mīr Buzūrg, he had five daughters, the eldest of whom, after the death of Sultan Mahmūd Mirza, was given to Ababeker Kāshghari. The second daughter was Begeh Begum, whom Sultan Hussain Mirza, when he besieged Hissār, engaged to Haider Mirza, his son by Payandeh Sultan Begum, a daughter of Abūsaīd Mirza; after which he made peace and raised the siege. The third daughter was Ak Begum. When Sultan Hussain Mirza advanced against Kunduz, Omer-Sheikh Mirza sent his son Jehāngīr Mirza with the army of Andejān to succour the place; at which time the fourth princess² was betrothed A.D. 1504. to Jehāngīr Mirza. In the year 910, when Bāki Cheghāniāni came and met me on the banks of the Amu, these Begums were with their mothers in Termez, and they all of them came along with the wife of Bāki Cheghāniāni and accompanied me; and, on our reaching Kahmerd, Jehāngīr Mirza married his bride. They had one daughter, who is at present with her grandmother Khanzādeh Begum in Badakhshān. The fifth daughter was Zeineb Sultan Begum, whom, when I took Kābul, I married, at the instance of my mother, Kūtluk Nigār Khanum. We did not agree very well; two or three years after our marriage she was seized with the small-pox, which carried her off. Another of Sultan Mahmūd Mirza’s daughters was Makhdūm Sultan Begum, who was the elder sister of Sultan Ali Mirza, by the same mother. She is now in Badakhshān. His other two daughters were by concubines; the name of the one was Rajeb Sultan, that of the other Muhibb Sultan.

The chief of his wives was Khanzādeh Begum, the daughter of Mīr Buzūrg of Termez, to whom the Mirza was strongly attached, and who was the mother of Sultan Masaūd Mirza. The Mirza was deeply afflicted at her death. Another
Khanzādeh
Begum. After that event he married the grand-daughter of Mīr Buzūrg, the daughter of a brother of Khanzādeh Begum. She also was called Khanzādeh Begum, and she was the mother of five daughters and one son. Another of his wives Pasheh
Begum. was Pasheh Begum, the daughter of Ali Sher Beg Behārlu, one of the Begs of the Turkomān Horde of the Black Sheep. She had been married before to Muhammed Mirza, the son of Jehānshāh Mirza Barāni, a Turkomān of the Black Sheep. At the period when Uzūn Hassan, who was a Turkomān of the White Sheep, took Azarbāijān and Irāk from the family of Jehānshāh Mirza, the sons of Ali Sher Beg, with four or five thousand families of the Turkomāns of the Black Sheep, entered the service of Sultan Abūsaīd Mirza. After the defeat of the Sultan, they found their way to the countries north of the Amu: and when Sultan Mahmūd Mirza went from Samarkand to Hissār, they entered his service. It was at that time that the Mirza married this Pasheh Begum, who was the mother of one of his sons and three of his daughters. Another of his wives was Sultan Sultan
Nigār
Khanum.
His con-
cubines. Nigār Khanum, whose extraction has already been mentioned in the account of the Khans.

He had many concubines and handmaids, the principal of whom was Zuhreh Begi Agha, an Uzbek, whom he had taken in the lifetime of Sultan Abūsaīd Mirza. She was the mother of one son and one daughter. By two of his numerous handmaids, he had the two daughters who have already been mentioned.

The first of his Begs was Khosrou Shah,¹ who was from Turkestān, of a tribe of Kipchāk. In his youth he had been in the service of the Terkhān Begs, nay, had been a catamite. He next was in the service of Mazīd Beg Arghūn, who treated him with great favour. He accompanied Sultan Mahmūd Mirza in the disastrous expedition into Irāk; and during the course of the retreat did him such acceptable service, that the Mirza gave him high marks of his regard. He afterwards rose to an exceeding height of power. In the time of Sultan Mahmūd Mirza, his dependants amounted to the number of five or six thousand. From the banks of the Amu to the mountain Hindū-kūsh, the whole country, except Badakhshān, depended on him,^a and he enjoyed the whole revenues of it. He was remarkable for making a very extensive distribution of victuals,² and for his liberality. Though a Tūrk,^b he applied his attention to the mode of raising his revenues, and he spent them liberally as they were collected. After the death of Sultan Mahmūd Mirza, in the reign of that prince’s sons, he reached the highest pitch of greatness, and indeed became independent,^c and his retainers rose to the number of twenty thousand. Though he prayed regularly, and abstained from forbidden foods, yet he was black-hearted and vicious, of mean understanding, and slender talents, faithless, and a traitor. For the sake of the short and fleeting pomp of this vain world, he put out the eyes of one, and murdered another of the sons of the benefactor, in whose service he had been, and by whom he had been patronized and protected; rendering himself accursed of God, abhorred of men, and worthy of execration and shame till the day of final retribution. These crimes he perpetrated merely to secure the enjoyment of some poor worldly vanities; yet with all the power of his many and populous territories, in spite of his magazines of warlike stores,^a and the multitude of his servants, he had not the spirit to face a barn-door chicken. He will be often mentioned again in these memoirs.

Another was Pīr Muhammed Ilchi Būgha, a Kuchīn. In the war of Hazārasp, near the gates of Balkh, he did great [A.D. 1453.] execution with his fists by way of bravado, in the presence of Sultan Abūsaīd Mirza. He was a brave man, and always remained in the employment of the Mirza, who was much influenced by his opinions. When Sultan Hussain Mirza besieged Kunduz, Pīr Muhammed, from rivalry to Khosrou Shah, made a night attack on the enemy with a handful of unarmed men, contrary to all rule, but accomplished nothing; and indeed what could be expected from an attempt made on a mighty army with such inferior force? Being hotly pursued by some light-armed horse, he threw himself into the river, and was drowned.

Another was Ayūb, who had served Sultan Abūsaīd Mirza in the band of Khorasān Youths. He was a man of courage, and was Beg-atkeh (or governor) to Baiesanghar Mirza. He was moderate^b in his table and dress, and of a humorous, lively turn. Sultan Mahmūd Mirza having called him Bīhayā (or shameless), the epithet stuck to him.

Wali was another of them, the younger brother of the full blood of Khosrou Shah. He took good care of his servants. It was, however, at the instigation of this man, that Sultan Masaūd Mirza was blinded, and Baiesanghar Mirza put to death. He was in the habit of speaking ill of everybody behind their backs. He was a foul-tongued, scurrilous, self-conceited, scatter-brained fellow. He never approved of any thing or any person, but himself or his own. When I separated Khosrou Shah from his servants in the country of Kunduz, in the vicinity of Kīlkāi and Dūshi,^a and dismissed him, Wali, from dread of the Uzbeks, went to Anderāb and Sirāb. The Aimaks of these quarters defeated and plundered him, and he afterwards came to Kābul with my permission. Wali subsequently went to Muhammed Sheibāni Khan, who ordered his head to be struck off in Samarkand.

Another of his chiefs was Sheikh Abdallah Birlās. He married Shah Sultan Muhammed’s daughter,¹ who, by the mother’s side, was aunt to Sultan Mahmūd Khan and Ababeker Mirza. He wore his frock very strait and tightened by a belt. He was an upright, unaffected man.

Another was Mahmūd Birlās, who was of the Birlāses of Nundāk. He had attained the rank of Beg in Sultan Abusaīd Mirza’s time. When that prince subdued the territories of Irāk, he gave Kermān to this Mahmūd Birlās; and at a later period, when Ababeker Mirza, accompanied by Mazīd Beg Arghūn, and the Begs of the Turkomāns of the Black Sheep, came against Sultan Mahmūd Mirza at Hissār, and the Mirza fled to Samarkand to his elder brother, Mahmūd Birlās refused to surrender Hissār, and manfully held it out. He was a poet, and composed a diwān.

After Sultan Mahmūd Mirza’s death, Khosrou Shah wished to conceal the event, and seized upon the treasure. How was it possible that such an event could remain concealed? It was instantly noised about among all the townspeople and inhabitants of Samarkand. That day happened to be a great festival; the soldiery and citizens, rising tumultuously, fell upon Khosrou Shah. Ahmed Hāji Beg and the Terkhān Begs, having allayed the tumult, sent off Khosrou Shah towards Hissār. Sultan Mahmūd Mirza, in his lifetime, had given Hissār to his eldest son Sultan Masaūd Mirza, and Bokhāra to Baiesanghar Mirza, and sent them away to their governments, so that, at this time, neither of them was at hand. After the expulsion of Khosrou Shah, the Begs of Samarkand and Hissār having Baiesan-
ghar
Mirza is
raised to
the throne. met and consulted together, sent an express to Baiesanghar Mirza, who was in Bokhāra, and, bringing him to Samarkand, placed him on the throne. When Baiesanghar became king he was only eighteen years of age.

At this crisis, Sultan Mahmūd Khan, at the instigation and by the advice of Sultan Juneid Birlās¹ and some of the chief men of Samarkand, advanced with an army against that capital, as far as Kānbāi, which lies in the territory of Samarkand. Baiesanghar Mirza, with the utmost activity and vigour, led out a strong and well-appointed body of troops, and engaged him not far from Kānbāi. Haider Gokultāsh, who was the great pillar of the Moghul army, and commanded the advanced guard, had dismounted with all his men, who were actively employed in shooting their arrows.² The instant that the resolute mailed warriors of Samarkand and Hissār charged keenly on horseback, the whole of Haider Gokultāsh’s division, which had dismounted, was ridden down and trampled under the horses’ feet. After the discomfiture of this body, the rest of the army no longer but is
defeated made a stand, but were totally defeated. A vast number of Moghuls perished; so many of them were beheaded in the presence of Baiesanghar Mirza, that they were forced three several times to shift his pavilion, in consequence of the heaps of slain that lay before it.³

At this time Ibrahīm Sāru, who was of the tribe of Minkaligh, who had been brought up from his infancy in my mother’s^a service, and had attained the dignity of Beg, but who had afterwards been dismissed on account of some misdemeanour, now entered the fort of Asfera,¹ read the khutbeh (or public prayer for the Prince) in the name of Baiesanghar Mirza, and commenced open hostilities May 1495. against me. In the month of Shābān I made the army mount, and marched to quell the revolt of Ibrāhim Sāru; and in the end of the month I came to my ground and Is besieged
by Bābur; invested the place. The very day of our arrival, the young warriors, in the wantonness of enterprise, immediately on reaching the foot of the walls, mounted a rampart that had been recently built, and entered and took an outwork that had just been finished.^a Syed Kāsim, the chamberlain, this day acted the most distinguished part, pushed on before the other assailants, and laid about him with his scimitar. Sultan Ahmed Tambol, and Muhammed Dost Taghāi, also wielded their scimitars gallantly; but Syed Kāsim gained the ulūsh² (or prize of valour). The ulūsh (or prize of valour) is an ancient usage that is retained among the Moghuls. In every entertainment and feast, he who has most distinguished himself by the gallant use of his sword, takes the ulūsh, or prize of valour. When I went to Shahrokhīa to visit my maternal uncle Sultan Mahmūd Khan, Syed Kāsim claimed and received the ulūsh. In this first day’s action, Khuda-berdi, my governor, was struck with an arrow from a cross-bow and died. As the troops had rushed into the enterprise without armour, several of them were slain, and a great many wounded. Ibrahīm Sāru had with him a cross-bow man, who shot astonishingly well; I never met with his equal; he wounded a great many of my people. After the surrender of the castle, he entered into my service.

As the siege drew out to some length, orders were given to construct, in two or three places, the works called Sir-kob,¹ to run mines, and to use every exertion to get ready whatever machines or works were wanted for pushing on the siege. The siege lasted forty days; but, at last, Ibrahīm Sāru, being reduced to the last extremity, made his offers of and taken. unlimited submission through the medium of Khwājeh June,
A.D. 1495. Moulāna Kazi; and, in the month of Shawāl, having come out and presented himself before me with a scimitar^a suspended from his neck,² delivered up the fort.

Khojend had, for a long period, belonged to Omer-Sheikh Mirza, but, during the wars at the close of his reign, it had been occupied by Sultan Ahmed Mirza. As I had advanced so near it, I determined, situated as matters were, to proceed against it.^b Abdal Wahāb Shaghāwel, the father of Mīr Moghul, commanded in the place; and, immediately on my approach, without making any difficulty, surrendered the fortress.

At this period, Sultan Mahmūd Khan happened to be in Shahrokhīa. Some time before, when Sultan Ahmed Mirza advanced into the territory of Andejān, the Khan, on his side, laid siege to Akhsi, as has been mentioned. It occurred to me, that, as we were now so near, and as he stood in the relation of a father and elder brother to me,³ I ought to go and pay him my respects, and dispel from his mind any misunderstanding that might exist in consequence of past events;^c a line of conduct which I perceived would be attended with this further advantage, that it would enable me to form a nearer and better idea of the real state of things at his court.

Having formed this resolution, I went on, and waited on the Khan in the neighbourhood of Shahrokhīa,¹ in a garden which had been laid out by Haider Beg. The Khan was seated in a pavilion erected in the middle of the garden. Immediately on entering it, I made three low bows. The Khan returned my salutation by rising from his seat and embracing me; after which I went back and again bowed once; when the Khan, inviting me forward, placed me by his side, showing me every mark of affection and kindness. In the course of one or two days afterwards, I set out by way of Kundezlik and Amāni, and^a proceeded towards Akhsi and Andejān. When I arrived at Akhsi, I went and Returns by
way of
Akhsi. visited the tomb of my father. Leaving Akhsi, on a Friday, about noon-day prayers, I proceeded towards Andejān, by the route of Bendsālār, and arrived between evening and bed-time prayers. The road by Bendsālār is nine farsangs.

Among the inhabitants of the wilds of the country of Andejān, there is one tribe, named Jagrag, which is very numerous, consisting of five or six thousand families. They reside in the mountains that lie between Ferghāna and Kāshghar.² They have great numbers of horses and sheep; and on these mountains, instead of the common ox, they have the Kutās,³ or mountain ox, in great numbers; and as they inhabit mountains difficult of access, they will not pay tribute. Having, therefore, given Kāsim Beg the command of a strong force, I dispatched him against the Jagrag, to seize some of their property, that there might be something to give the troops. Kāsim Beg accordingly proceeded against them, and took twenty thousand sheep and fifteen hundred horses, which were divided among the soldiers of the army.

After the return of the army from the country of the Jagrag, I proceeded against Uratippa, which had long been subject to Omer-Sheikh Mirza, but had been lost the year of his death. It was at present held for Baiesanghar Mirza by his younger brother, Sultan Ali Mirza. Sultan Ali Mirza, on receiving information of my approach, escaped alone to the hill-country of Masīkha,¹ leaving his governor, Sheikh Zūlnūn, in Uratippa. While on the road, after I had passed Khojend, I dispatched Khalīfeh as my envoy to Sheikh Zūlnūn, to communicate with him; but that wrong-headed man, instead of returning a suitable answer, seized on Khalīfeh, and gave orders that he should be put to death. Such, however, was not the pleasure of God; and Khalīfeh escaped, and, two or three days afterwards, returned back to me, naked and on foot, after having endured a thousand distresses and hardships. I went forward, and entered the territory of Uratippa; but as winter was now near at hand, the inhabitants had taken in all their grain and provender for that season, so that in a few days I was obliged to march back on my return to Andejān. After my departure, the Khan’s people attacked Uratippa, and the inhabitants being unable to resist, were obliged to surrender the city. The Khan gave Uratippa to Muhammed Hussain Korkān, A.D. 1502. in whose hands it remained from that time till the year 908.²