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

TRANSACTIONS OF THE YEAR 906²

SHEIBĀNI KHAN, advancing as had been arranged with the princess, halted at the Bāgh-e-meidān.³ About noon, Sultan Ali Mirza, without acquainting any of his Begs, officers, cavaliers, or servants with his intention, and without holding any consultation, left the town by the Chārrāheh Sultan Ali
Mirza goes
out and
meets him. gate,⁴ accompanied only by a few insignificant individuals of his personal attendants, and went to Sheibāni Khan at the Bāgh-e-meidān. Sheibāni did not give him a very flattering reception; and, as soon as the ceremonies of Universal
submission. meeting were over, made him sit down lower than himself. Khwājeh Yahya, on learning that the Mirza had gone out, was filled with alarm; but, seeing no remedy left, also went out of the town, and waited on Sheibāni Khan, who received him without rising, and said some severe things to him. On his rising to go away, however, Sheibāni Khan behaved more courteously, and rose from his seat. Jān Ali, the son of Khwājeh Ali Bai, who was in Rabāt-e-Khwājeh, as soon as he heard that the Mirza had gone out, likewise went and presented himself to Sheibāni Khan; so that the wretched and weak woman, for the sake of getting herself a husband, gave the family and honour of her son to the winds. Nor did Sheibāni Khan mind her a bit, or value her even so much as his other handmaids, concubines, or women. Sultan Ali Mirza was confounded at the condition in which he now found himself, and deeply regretted the step which he had taken. Several young cavaliers about him, perceiving this, formed a plan for escaping with him; but he would not consent. As the hour of fate was at hand, he could not shun it. He had quarters assigned him near Taimūr Sultan Ali
Mirza put
to death. Sultan. Three or four days afterwards, they put him to death in the meadow of Kulbeh. From his over-anxiety to preserve this transitory and mortal life, he left a name of infamy behind him; and, from following the suggestions of a woman, struck himself out of the list of those who have earned for themselves a glorious name. It is impossible to write any more of the transactions of such a personage, and impossible to listen any farther to the recital of such base and dastardly proceedings.

After the murder of Sultan Ali Mirza, the Khan sent Jān Ali after his prince; and as he entertained suspicions of Khwājeh Yahya, banished him, and sent him off for Khorasān, with his two sons, Khwājeh Muhammed Zakerīa and Khwājeh Bāki. They were followed by a party of Uzbeks, who martyred the Khwājeh and both his young sons, in the neighbourhood of Khwājeh Kārzīn. Sheibāni Khan denied all participation in the Khwājeh’s death, alleging that it was the act of Kamber Bī and Kūpek Bī.¹ This is only making the matter worse, according to the saying, ‘the excuse is worse than the fault’; for when Begs presume to perpetrate such deeds without being authorized by their Khan or King, what confidence can be reposed in such a government?

No sooner had the Uzbeks taken Samarkand, than we moved away from Kesh towards Hissār.¹ Muhammed Mazīd Terkhān, and some of the other Begs of Samarkand, accompanied me, along with their wives, children, and families. On halting at the Valley² of the district of Cheghāniān, Muhammed Mazīd Terkhān, and the Samarkand nobles, separating from me, went and took service with Khosrou Shah, while I, without town or territory, without any spot to which I could go, or in which I could remain, in spite of the miseries which Khosrou Shah had inflicted on my house and family, saw myself compelled Passes
through
Khosrou
Shah’s
territories. to pass through the midst of his territories. I once had a fancy that I might go by way of the country of Karatigīn³ to join my younger maternal uncle Ilcheh Khan, but I did not. We resolved to go up by the Kāmrūd and to cross over the mountain of Sir-e-tāk.⁴ By the time we reached the confines of Nowendāk, a servant of Khosrou Shah came to me, and, in his master’s name, presented me with nine horses, and nine pieces of cloth.⁵ When I reached the gorge of Kāmrūd, Sher Ali Chihreh⁶ deserted from me and joined Wali, the younger brother of Khosrou Shah. The next morning Kūch Beg separated from me and went to Hissār. Having entered the Valley of Kāmrūd, we went up the river. In these roads, which are extremely dangerous, often overhanging precipices, and in the steep and narrow hill passes and straits which we were obliged to ascend, numbers of our horses and camels failed, and were unable to proceed. Surmounts
the Pass of
Sir-e-tāk. After four or five days’ march, we reached the mountain pass of Sir-e-tāk. It is a pass, and such a pass! Never did I see one so narrow and steep; never were paths so narrow and precipitous traversed by me. We travelled on with incredible fatigue and difficulty, amid dangerous narrows and tremendous gulfs. Having, after a hundred sufferings and losses, at length surmounted these murderous, steep, Reaches
Kān. and narrow defiles, we came down on the confines of Kān. Among the mountains of Kān^a there is a large lake, which may be about a kos in circumference, and is very beautiful.^b

Here I received information that Ibrahīm Terkhān had thrown himself into the fortress of Shirāz, which he had put in a state of defence, and that Kamber Ali and Abul Kāsim Kohbur, who had been in the fort of Khwājeh Dīdār, when the Uzbeks took Samarkand, not believing themselves able to hold out in the place, had repaired to Yār-ailāk, the fortresses of which district^c they had occupied and put in a state of defence, and established themselves there.

Leaving Kān on the right, we marched towards Keshtūd. The Malik¹ of Kān was renowned for his hospitality, generosity, politeness, and humanity. When Sultan Hussain Mirza came against Hissār, Sultan Masaūd Mirza fled to his younger brother Baiesanghar Mirza at Samarkand, by this road. The Malik of Kān presented him with seventy or eighty horses as a peshkesh, and did him many other services of the like nature. To me he presented a single worthless horse, but did not come himself to greet me: Yet so it was, that those who were famed for generosity, proved niggards when they had to do with me; and those who were so celebrated for their hospitality, quite forgot it when I was concerned. Khosrou Shah, too, was one who possessed a high reputation for liberality and generosity, and the services which he rendered to Badīa-ez-zemān Mirza have already been mentioned. He certainly received Bāki Terkhān and the other Begs with unbounded kindness and liberality. I twice passed through his country. Let it not be told to my peers that the humanity and politeness, which he showed to my lowest servants, were not vouchsafed to me; nay that he did not even treat me with so much respect as he did them:

Immediately on leaving Kān, it occurred to me that Keshtūd must certainly be in the possession of the Uzbeks, I made a rapid push towards it, but found the place ruined and desolate, not a man being there. Leaving it behind, I advanced, and halted on the banks of the Kohik. I passed this river by a bridge towards its bend at Yāri, and dispatched Kāsim Beg and some other Begs for the purpose of surprising the fortress of Rabāt-e-Khwājeh. Passing Yāri Reaches
Yār-ailāk. and the hill of Shankar-khāneh,¹ we arrived in Yār-ailāk. The Begs who were sent against Rabāt-e-Khwājeh, at the instant of applying their scaling-ladders, perceiving that the garrison had taken the alarm, and that the attempt had failed, mounted their horses and abandoned the enterprise. Kamber Ali, who was in Sangrāz, came and waited on me. Abūl Kāsim Kohbur and Ibrahīm Terkhān sent some of their confidential servants to pay me their respects, and assure me of their attachment.^a

From the villages of Yār-ailāk we came to Asfendek.² At that time Sheibāni Khan was in the vicinity of Khwājeh-Dīdār, accompanied by three or four thousand Uzbeks, and about as many more soldiers who had been collected from various quarters. He had bestowed the Dāroghaship³ of Samarkand on Jān Wafā Mirza, who occupied the place with five or six hundred men. Hamzeh Sultan and Mahdi Sultan, with their adherents and followers, were encamped near Samarkand in the Kurūgh-budīneh.¹ My men, good and bad, amounted only to two hundred and forty. Having Resolves to
attempt
Samar-
kand. consulted with the whole of my Begs and officers, we finally were agreed in opinion, that as Sheibāni Khan had taken Samarkand so recently, the men of the place had probably formed no attachment to him, nor he to them; that if anything was ever to be done, this was the crisis; that could we succeed in scaling the fort by surprise, and making ourselves masters of it, the inhabitants of Samarkand would certainly declare in our favour; they had nothing else for it; that if they did not assist me, at least they would not fight for the Uzbeks. At all events, after the city was once taken, whatever God’s will might be, be it done. Having come to these conclusions, we mounted and left Yār-ailāk after noon-tide prayers, and rode rapidly the greater part Fails in one
attempt. of the night. By midnight we reached Yuret-Khan. That night, learning that the garrison were on the alert, we did not venture to approach the place, but returned from Yuret-Khan: and as the morning dawned, we passed the river Kohik a little below Rabāt-i-Khwājeh, and regained Yār-ailāk.

One day I happened to be in the castle of Asfendek with some of my inferior nobles and officers, such as Dost Nāsir, Nuyān Gokultāsh, Kāsim Gokultāsh, Khan Kuli Kerīmdād, Sheikh Dervīsh, Khosrou Gokultāsh, and Mīram Nāsir, who were sitting and conversing around me. The conversation turned at random on a variety of subjects. I happened to say, ‘Come! let us hit on a lucky guess, and may God accomplish it! When shall we take Samarkand?’ Some said, ‘We shall take it in the spring’^a (it was then the harvest); some said in a month, some in forty days, some in twenty days. Nuyān Gokultāsh said, ‘We shall take it within a fortnight’; and Almighty God verified his words, for we did take it within the fortnight.

About this time I had a remarkable dream. I thought that the reverend Khwājeh Obeidullah¹ had come to visit me. I went out to receive him, and the Khwājeh came in and sat down. It appeared to me that a table was spread for him, but perhaps not with sufficient attention to neatness, on which account the holy man seemed to be somewhat displeased. Mulla Bāba observing this, made me a sign. I answered him likewise by signs, that the fault was not mine, but the person’s who had spread the table-cloth. The Khwājeh perceived what passed, and was satisfied with my excuse. When he rose to depart I attended him out. In the hall of the house, however, he seemed to seize me by the right or left arm, and lifted me up so high that one of my feet was raised from the ground, while he said to me in Tūrki, Sheikh Maslehet berdi, ‘Your religious instructor has counselled you.’² A few days after this I took Samarkand.

One or two days after seeing this dream, I went from the fort of Asfendek to that of Wasmand. Although I had once already set out to surprise Samarkand, and, after reaching the very suburbs, had been obliged to return, from finding the garrison on the alert; nevertheless, placing my confidence in the Almighty, I once more set out from Wasmand on the same enterprise, after mid-day prayers, and pushed on for Samarkand with the greatest expedition. Khwājeh Abdal Makāram was along with me. At midnight we reached the bridge of the Maghak at the khiabān (or public pleasure-ground), whence I detached forward seventy or eighty of my best men, with instructions to fix their scaling-ladders on the wall opposite to the Lovers’ Cave, to mount by them and enter the fort; after which they were to proceed immediately against the party who were stationed at the Firōzeh-gate,³ to take possession of it, and then to apprise me of their success by a messenger. They and enters
Samarkand
by surprise. accordingly went, scaled the walls opposite to the Lovers’ Cave, and entered the place without giving the least alarm. Thence they proceeded to the Firōzeh-gate, where they found Fāzil Terkhān, who was not of the Terkhān Begs, but a Terkhān merchant of Tūrkestān, that had served under Sheibāni Khan in Tūrkestān, and had been promoted by him. They instantly fell upon Fāzil Terkhān and put him and a number of his retainers to the sword, broke the lock of the gate with axes, and threw it open. At that very moment I came up to the gate and instantly entered. Abul Kāsim Kohbur did not himself come on this enterprise, but he sent his younger brother Ahmed Kāsim with thirty or forty of his followers. There was no person with me on the part of Ibrahīm Terkhān; but, after I had entered the city, and while I was sitting in the Khānkāh¹ (or monastery), Ahmed Terkhān, his younger brother, arrived with a party of his retainers. The citizens in general were fast asleep, but the shopkeepers, peeping out of their shops, and discovering what had happened,^a offered up prayers of thanksgiving. In a short time the rest of the citizens were apprised of the event, when they manifested great joy, and most hearty congratulations passed on both sides between them And expels
the Uzbeks. and my followers. They pursued the Uzbeks in every street and corner with sticks and stones, hunting them down and killing them like mad dogs: they put to death about four or five hundred Uzbeks in this manner. The Governor of the city, Jān Wafā, was in Khwājeh Yahya’s house, but contrived to make his escape, and rejoined Sheibāni Khan.

On entering the gate, I had instantly proceeded towards the college and Khānkāh, and, on reaching the latter, I took my seat under the grand tāk (or arched hall). Till morning the tumult and war-shouts were heard on every side. Some of the chief people and shopkeepers, on learning what had passed, came with much joy to bid me welcome, bringing me such offerings of food ready dressed as they had at hand, and breathed out prayers for my success.

When it was morning, information was brought that the Uzbeks were in possession of the Iron Gate,^a and were maintaining themselves in it. I immediately mounted my horse, and galloped to the place, accompanied only by fifteen or twenty men; but the rabble of the town, who were prowling about in every lane and corner,^b had driven the Uzbeks from the Iron Gate before I could come up.

Sheibāni Khan, on learning what was passing, set out hurriedly, and about sunrise appeared before the Iron Gate, with a hundred or a hundred and fifty horse. It was a noble opportunity; but I had a mere handful of men with me, as has been mentioned. Sheibāni Khan, soon discovering that he could effect nothing, did not stop, but turned back and retired.

I now left the town, and encamped at the Bostān-serai.¹ The men of rank and consequence, and all such as were in office in the city, now came out and waited on me, offering me their congratulations. For nearly a hundred and forty years, Samarkand had been the capital of my family. A foreign robber,^c one knew not whence he came, had seized the kingdom, which dropped from our hands. Almighty God now restored it to me, and gave me back my plundered Compares
the surprise
of Samar-
kand with
that of
Heri. and pillaged country. Sultan Hussain Mirza had also surprised Heri,² much in the same way in which I had now taken Samarkand. But to persons of judgement and discrimination it is evident, and it is clear to every man of candour, that there was a very great difference between the two occurrences. The first distinction is, that Sultan Hussain Mirza was a mighty and powerful sovereign, of great experience, and in the maturity of his years and understanding. The second is, that his opponent, Yādgār Muhammed Mirza, was an inexperienced lad of seventeen or eighteen years of age. A third distinction is, that Mīr Ali, the master of horse, who was perfectly acquainted with the whole conduct and proceedings of the enemy, was in his interest, and sent messengers to give him notice of them, and to bring him in an unguarded hour on his foe. A fourth difference is, that his opponent was not in a fortress, but at the Raven Garden, and when Sultan Hussain Mirza took the place, Yādgār Muhammed Mirza, with his attendants, had drunk so deeply of wine, that the only three persons on watch at Yādgār Muhammed Mirza’s door were all drunk, as well as himself. The fifth distinction is, that he came and took it at the very first attempt, while the enemy were in the state of unsuspecting negligence that has been described.^a On the other hand, when I took Samarkand, I was only nineteen, and had neither seen much action nor been improved by great experience. In the next place, I had opposed to me an enemy like Sheibāni Khan, a man full of talents, of deep experience, and in the meridian of life. In the third place, no person came from Samarkand to give me any information; for though the townspeople were well inclined to me, yet, from dread of Sheibāni Khan, none of them dared to think of such a step. In the fourth place, my enemies were in a fortified place, and I had both to take the place and to rout the enemy. Fifthly, I had once before come for the purpose of surprising Samarkand, and thereby put the enemy on their guard; yet, on a second attempt, by the favour of God, I succeeded and gained the city. In these observations, I have no wish to detract from any man’s merit; the facts were exactly as has been mentioned. Nor, in what I have said, is it my wish to exalt the merits of my own enterprise beyond the truth; I have merely detailed the circumstances precisely as they stood.

Some poets amused themselves in making memorial verses expressive of the date of the transaction. I still recollect a couplet of one of them:

Tell me, then, my soul! what is its date?
Know, that it is ‘The Victory of Bābur Bahāder’.^b1

After the conquest of Samarkand, Shādwār, Soghd, and the people who were in the forts in the Tumāns,^c began to come over to me one after another. The Uzbeks abandoned, from terror, some of the forts which they held, and made their escape. In others, the inhabitants attacked the Uzbeks, drove them out, and declared for me. Many seized on their Dāroghas, and put their towns in a state of defence on my account. At this time, Sheibāni Khan’s wife and family, with his heavy baggage, as well as that of the other Uzbeks, arrived from Tūrkestān. Sheibāni Khan had remained till now in the vicinity of Khwājeh-Dīdār and Aliābād; but, perceiving such a disposition in the garrisons to surrender the forts, and in the inhabitants to come over spontaneously to my side, he marched off from his encampment Sheibāni
Khan
retreats to
Bokhāra. towards Bokhāra. By the divine favour, before the end of three or four months, most of the fortified places of Soghd and Miānkār¹ had come under my allegiance. Bāki Terkhān, too, seized a favourable opportunity, and entered the fort of Karshi. Khozār and Karshi² were both lost to the Uzbeks. Karakūl was also taken by Abul Hassan Mirza’s men, who came from Merv. My affairs succeeded everywhere prosperously.

After my departure from Andejān, my mother and grandmother,³ with my family and household,^a had set out after me, and with great difficulty, and after enduring many hardships, had reached Uratippa. I now sent and brought them to Samarkand. About this time I had a daughter by Āisha Sultan Begum, the daughter of Sultan Ahmed Mizra, the first wife whom I had married. She received the name of Fakher-al-nissa (the Ornament of Women). This was my first child, and at this time I was just nineteen. In a month or forty days she went to share the mercy of God.

No sooner had I got possession of Samarkand, than I repeatedly dispatched ambassadors and messengers, one after another, to all the Khans and Sultans, Amirs and chiefs,¹ on every hand round about, to request their aid and assistance. These messengers I kept going back and forward without intermission. Some of the neighbouring princes, although men of experience, gave me an unceremonious refusal. Others, who had been guilty of insults and injuries to my family, remained inactive out of apprehension; while the few that did send me assistance, did not afford me such as the occasion demanded, as will be particularly mentioned in its place.

At the time when I took Samarkand this second time, Ali Sher Beg² was still alive. I had a letter from him, which I answered. On the back of the letter which I addressed to him, I wrote a couplet that I had composed in the Tūrki language; but before his reply could arrive, the commotions and troubles had begun.

Sheibāni Khan, after taking Samarkand, had received Mulla Bināi into his service, since which time the Mulla had attended him. A few days after I took the place, the Mulla came to Samarkand. Kāsim Beg having suspicions of him, ordered him to retire to Shahr-i-sabz; but soon after, as he was a man of great knowledge, and as the charges against him were not established, I invited him to return to the capital. He was constantly composing kasīdehs and ghazels.³ He addressed to me a ghazel adapted to a musical air, in the Nawa measure; and about the same time composed and sent me the following quatrain:

I neither possess grain to eat,
Nor the perversion of grain⁴ to put on;
Without food nor raiment,
How can one display his learning and genius?

About this period, I sometimes amused myself with composing a couplet or two, but did not venture on the perfect ghazel, or ode. I composed and sent him a rubāi (or quatrain), in the Tūrki language:

Your affairs shall all succeed to your heart’s content;
Presents and a settled allowance shall be ordered for your reward.
I comprehend your allusion to the grain and its perversion;
Your person shall fill the cloth, and the grain shall fill your house.

Mulla Bināi composed and sent me a rubāi, in which he assumed the rhyme of my quatrain for the redīf¹ of his own, and gave it another rhyme:

My Mirza, who shall be sovereign by sea and land,
Shall be distinguished in the world for his genius;
If my reward was such for a single unmeaning word,² What would it have been had I spoken with understanding!³

At this time Khwājeh Abul-barka, surnamed Ferāki, came from Shahr-i-sabz.⁴ He said, ‘You⁵ should have kept the same rhyme’; and recited the following rubāi:

This tyranny which the sphere exercises shall be inquired into;
This generous Sultan shall redress her misdeeds;
O cup-bearer! if hitherto thou hast not brimmed my cup,
At this turn (or reign) shall it be filled to the brim.

This winter my affairs were in the most prosperous state, while those of Sheibāni Khan were at a low ebb. At this very period, however, one or two rather unfortunate incidents occurred. The party from Merv, that had taken possession of Karakūl, proved unable to maintain it, so that it fell again into the hands of the Uzbeks. Ahmed Terkhān, the younger brother of Ibrahīm Terkhān, held the fortress of Dabūsi. Sheibāni Khan came and invested it; and before I could collect my army and march to its relief, took it by storm, and made an indiscriminate massacre of the garrison. At the taking of Samarkand, I had with me in all only two hundred and forty men. In the course of five or six months, by the favour of God, they had so much increased, that I could venture to engage so powerful a chief as Sheibāni Khan in a pitched battle at Sir-e-pul, as shall be mentioned. Of all the princes in my vicinity, from whom I had asked assistance, none afforded me any except the Khan, who sent Ayūb Begchik and Kashkeh Mahmūd, with about four or five hundred men. From Jehāngīr Mirza, Tambol’s younger brother¹ brought a hundred men to my He receives
no rein-
forcements
from his
neighbours. assistance. From Sultan Hussain Mirza, a prince of power and talent, a monarch of experience, and than whom none was better acquainted with the temper and views of Sheibāni Khan, not a man appeared; nor did I receive a single man from Badīa-ez-zemān Mirza. Khosrou Shah, from terror, did not send any; for, as my family had suffered much from his unprincipled conduct, as has been mentioned, he entertained great apprehensions of me.

In the month of Shawāl² I marched out of the city to meet Sheibāni Khan, and fixed my head-quarters in the Bāgh-e-nou,³ where I halted five or six days for the purpose of collecting the troops, and getting ready all the necessaries of war. Setting out from the Bāgh-e-nou, I proceeded by successive marches to Sir-e-pul,⁴ after passing which I halted and encamped, strongly fortifying our camp with a palisade and ditch. Sheibāni Khan moved forward from They meet
near
Kārzīn. the opposite direction to meet us, and encamped near the town of Khwājeh Kārzīn. There was about a farsang between his camp and mine.

We remained four or five days in this position, and every day parties of my men fell in with the enemy, and skirmished with them. One day, a larger body of the enemy than usual advanced, and there was a very sharp fight, without any marked advantage on either side. Of my troops, one who had a standard behaved ill, ran off, and got into the trench. There were persons who pretended to say that the standard was Sayyidī Kāra Beg’s; and, in truth, Sayyidī Kāra, though most valiant in speech, by no means made the same figure with his sword. One night Sheibāni Khan attempted to surprise us, but we were so well defended by our ditch and chevaux-de-frise, that he could effect nothing. After raising the war-shout on the edge of our ditch, and giving us a few discharges of arrows, they drew off.

I now turned my whole attention and solicitude to the approaching battle. Kamber Ali assisted me. Bāki Terkkhān, with a thousand or two thousand men, had arrived in Kesh, and would have joined me in two days. Syed Muhammed Dughlet, the Mir’s son, too, was advancing with a thousand or fifteen hundred men, who had been sent to my assistance by the Khan my maternal uncle; they had reached Dabūl,¹ only four farsangs from my camp, and would have joined me next morning. Such was our situation, when I precipitated matters, and hurried on the battle:

He who with impatient haste lays his hand on his sword,
Will afterwards gnaw that hand with his teeth from regret.²

The cause of my eagerness to engage was, that the stars called the Sakzyūldūz (or eight stars)³ were on that day exactly between the two armies; and if I had suffered that day to elapse, they would have continued favourable to the enemy^a for the space of thirteen or fourteen days. These observances were all nonsense, and my precipitation was without the least solid excuse.

In the morning, having made the troops array themselves in their armour, and caparison and cover their horses with cloth of mail, we marched out and moved towards the enemy, having drawn out the army in order of battle, with right and left wing, centre and advance. On the right wing were posted Ibrahīm Sāru, Ibrahīm Jāni, Abul Kāsim Kohbur, with several other Begs. On the left wing were stationed Ibrahīm Terkhān, Muhammed Mazīd Terkhān, with the other Begs of Samarkand, Sultan Hussain Arghūn, Kara Birlās, Pīr Ahmed, and Khwājeh Hussain. In the centre were Kāsim Beg and some of my inferior nobility and attached adherents.^a In the advance were Kamber Ali Salākh (the skinner), Bandeh Ali, Khwājeh Ali, Mīr Shah Kuchīn, Syed Kāsim the chamberlain, Khāldār the younger brother of Bandeh Ali, Kūch Beg, Haider Kāsim the son of Kāsim Beg,¹ with a number of my best armed men and most faithful partisans. We marched right forward to the enemy, and they, on their part, appeared ready drawn up to receive us. On their right wing were Mahmūd Sultan, Jāni Beg Sultan, and Taimūr Sultan; and on their left Hamzeh Sultan, and Mahdi Sultan, with a number of other Sultans. When the lines of the two opposite armies approached each other, the extremity of their right wing Bābur’s left
wing
turned. turned my left flank, and wheeled upon my rear. I changed my position to meet them. By this movement the advance, which contained most of my experienced and veteran warriors and officers, was thrown to the right; and scarcely any of them were left with me.^b In spite of this, however, we charged and beat off the troops that came on to attack us in front, driving them back on their centre; and things even came to such a pass, that several of his oldest and most experienced officers represented to Sheibāni Khan, that it was necessary immediately to retreat, and that all was over. He, however, remained firm and kept his ground. The enemy’s right having, meanwhile, routed my left, now attacked me in the rear. As my advance had been thrown to the right on the change of our position, my front² was left defenceless. The enemy now began to charge us both in front and rear, pouring in showers of arrows. The Moghul troops which had come to my assistance, did not attempt to fight, but, instead of fighting, betook themselves to dismounting and plundering my own people. Nor is this a solitary instance, such is the uniform practice of these wretches the Moghuls; if they defeat the enemy they instantly seize the booty; if they are defeated, they plunder and dismount their own allies, and, betide what may, carry off the spoil. The enemy who were in front, made several furious attacks on me, but were worsted and driven back; they, however, rallied again and charged; the division of the enemy that had gained our rear coming up at the same time, and discharging showers of arrows on our troops. Bābur
routed. Being thus surrounded and attacked both before and behind, my men were driven from their ground. In battle, the great reliance of the Uzbeks is on the tulughmeh¹ (or turning the enemy’s flank). They never engage without using the tulughmeh. Another of their practices is to advance and charge in front and rear, discharging their arrows at full gallop, pell-mell, chiefs and common soldiers, and, if repulsed, they in like manner retire full gallop. Only ten Crosses the
Kohik. or fifteen persons were now left with me. The river Kohik was near at hand, the extremity of my right wing having rested upon it. We made the best of our way to it, and no sooner gained its banks than we plunged in, armed at all points both horse and man. For more than half of the ford we had a firm footing, but after that we sank beyond our depths, and were forced, for upward of a bowshot, to swim our horses, loaded as they were with their riders in armour and their own trappings. Yet they plunged through it. On getting out of the water on the other side, we cut off our horses’ heavy furniture and threw it away. When we had reached the north side of the river, we were separated from the enemy. Of all others, the wretches of Moghuls were the most active in unhorsing and stripping the stragglers. Ibrahīm Terkhān, and a great number of excellent soldiers, were unhorsed, stripped, and put to death by them.

If the Moghul race were a race of angels, it is a bad race;
And were the name Moghul written in gold, it would be odious.
Take care not to pluck one ear of corn from a Moghul’s harvest;
The Moghul seed is such that whatever is sowed with it is execrable.

Advancing up the north side of the river Kohik, I recrossed it in the vicinity of Kulbeh. Between the time of afternoon and evening prayers, I reached the Sheikh-zādeh’s gate and entered the citadel.

Many Begs of the highest rank, many admirable soldiers and many men of every description perished in this fight. Ibrahīm Terkhān, Ibrahīm Sāru, and Ibrahīm Jāni, were among the slain. It is rather an extraordinary coincidence that three men of such rank and distinction, and all of the name of Ibrahīm, should have fallen in the same battle. Abul Kāsim Kohbur, the eldest son of Haider Kāsim Beg, Khuda-berdi the standard-bearer, Khalīl, the younger brother of Sultan Ahmed Tāmbol, who has been frequently mentioned, all perished in this action. The greater part of He is de-
serted by
many of
his nobles. the rest dispersed and fled in every direction. Of these, Muhammed Mazīd Terkhān fled towards Kunduz and Hissār, to Khosrou Shah. Kamber Ali the skinner, the Moghul, whom among all my Begs I had distinguished by the highest marks of favour, in despite of all these benefits, at this season of need did not stand by me; but having first removed his family from Samarkand, afterwards went himself and joined Khosrou Shah. Several others of my officers and men, such as Kerīmdād, Khudadād the Turkoman, Jānikeh Gokultāsh, and Mulla Bābā Peshāgheri, fled towards Uratippa. Mulla Bābā was not at that time in my service, but was entertained as a guest. Others, again, acted like Shīrīm Taghāi, who returned to me indeed in Samarkand along with his men, and joined me in a consultation, in which it was resolved to defend the place to the last drop of our blood, and to exert ourselves to the utmost to put it in a state of defence; yet did he, though my mother and sisters remained in the fortress, send off his family with his effects and people to Uratippa, he himself alone staying behind with a small party, unencumbered, and ready to move off in any direction. Nor is this the only instance in which he so acted; for in every case of difficulty or danger, he uniformly displayed the same want of steadiness and attachment.

Next day I called together Khwājeh Abul Makāram, Kāsim Beg, and the rest of the Begs and officers, with such of my adherents and cavaliers as were best qualified to offer advice, and held a general consultation. We came to a resolution to put the place in the best possible state of defence, and to maintain ourselves in it for life or for death. I and Kāsim Beg, with my most trusty and faithful adherents, formed a body of reserve. I had a public tent¹ pitched for me on the Arched Portal of Ulugh Beg’s College, in the midst of the city, in which I established my head-quarters. I distributed the other Begs and cavaliers at the different gates, and around the works, on the ramparts and defences.

After two or three days Sheibāni Khan approached, and took a station at some distance from the city. The idle and worthless rabble, assembling from every district and street of Samarkand, came in large bodies to the gate of the College, shouting aloud, ‘Glory to the Prophet!’^a and clamorously marched out for battle. Sheibāni Khan, who, at the moment, had mounted, and was preparing to make an assault, did not venture to approach the place. Some days passed in this manner. The ignorant mob, who had never experienced the wound of arrow or sabre, nor witnessed the press of onset, or the tumult of battle, plucked up courage from these incidents, and ventured to advance to a very considerable distance^b from the works. When the old and experienced veterans remonstrated with them on such improvident and useless advances, they were only answered with reproach and abuse.

One day Sheibāni Khan made an attack near the Iron gate. The rabble, who had become very courageous, had advanced most valiantly a great way from the city, according to their custom. I made a party of horse follow them, to cover their retreat. A body of Gokultāshes,¹ with some inferior nobility, and a few of my domestic troops,^a such as Nuyān Gokultāsh, Kūl Nazer Taghāi, and Mazīd, with some others, marched out towards the Camel’s-neck.² From the other side two or three Uzbeks galloped up to charge them and assaulted Kūl Nazer, sabre in hand. The whole of the Uzbeks dismounting, fought on foot, swept back the city-rabble, and drove them in through the Iron gate. Kūch Beg and Mīr Shah Kuchīn remained behind, and took post close by Khwājeh Khizer’s mosque. After the field was pretty well cleared of those who fought on foot, the cavalry of the enemy moved up towards the mosque of Khwājeh Khizer, in order to attack them. Upon this Kūch Beg, sallying forth on the Uzbeks who first came up, attacked them sabre in hand, and made a gallant and distinguished figure, in the sight of all the inhabitants, who stood looking on. The fugitives, occupied solely with their flight, had ceased to shoot arrows, or to think of fighting for their ground. I shot from the top of the gateway with a cross-bow, and those who were along with me also kept up a discharge. This shower of arrows from above prevented the enemy from advancing up to^b Khwājeh Khizer’s mosque, and they were forced to retire from the field.

During the continuance of the siege, the rounds of the rampart were regularly gone, once every night,^c sometimes by Kāsim Beg, and sometimes by other Begs and captains. From the Firozeh gate to the Sheikh-zādeh gate, we were able to go along the ramparts on horseback; everywhere else we were obliged to go on foot. Setting out in the beginning of the night, it was morning before we had completed our rounds.^d

One day Sheibāni Khan made an attack between the Iron gate and that of the Sheikh-zādeh. As I was with the reserve, I immediately led them to the quarter that was attacked, without attending to the Washing-green gate¹ or the Needlemakers’ gate. That same day, from the top of the Sheikh-zādeh’s gateway, I struck a palish white-coloured horse^a an excellent shot with my cross-bow: it fell dead the moment the arrow touched it: but in the meanwhile they had made such a vigorous attack, near the Camel’s-Neck, that they effected a lodgement close under the rampart. Being hotly engaged in repelling the enemy where I was, I had entertained no apprehensions of danger on the other side, where they had prepared and brought with them twenty-five or twenty-six scaling-ladders, each of them so broad, that two and three men could mount a-breast. He had placed in ambush opposite to the city-wall, seven or eight hundred chosen men with these ladders, between the Iron-smiths’^b and Needlemakers’ gates, while he himself moved to the other side, and made a false attack. Our attention was entirely drawn off to this attack; and the men in ambush no sooner saw the works opposite to them empty of defenders, by the watch having left them, than they rose from the place where they had lain in ambush, advanced with extreme speed, and applied their scaling-ladders all at once between the two gates that have been mentioned, exactly opposite to Muhammed Mazīd Terkhān’s house. The quarters of Kūch Beg, Muhammed Kuli Kuchīn, and of the party of warriors who had the duty of guarding this post, were then in Muhammed Mazīd Terkhān’s house. Kara Birlās was stationed at the Needlemakers’ gate; the station of the Washing-green gate was allotted to Shīrīm Taghāi and his brothers, with Kūtluk Khwājeh Gokultāsh. As there was fighting on the other side, the persons in charge of these works were not apprehensive of any danger at their posts, and the men on these stations had dispersed on their own business to their houses or to the markets. The Begs who were on guard had only two or three of their servants and attendants about them.— Nevertheless Kūch Beg, Muhammed Kuli Kuchīn, Shah Sūfi, and another brave cavalier, boldly assailed them, and displayed signal heroism. Some of the enemy had already mounted the wall, and several others were in the act of scaling it, when the four persons who have been mentioned arrived on the spot, fell upon them sword in -hand, with the greatest bravery, and dealing out furious blows around them, drove the assailants back over the wall and put them but is
repulsed. to flight. Kūch Beg distinguished himself above all the rest; and this was an exploit for ever to be cited to his honour. He twice during this siege performed excellent service by his valour. Kara Birlās, too, who was almost alone in the works at the Needlemakers’ gate, made a good stand. Kūtluk Khwājeh Gokultāsh and Kūl Nazer Mirza, who were in their stations at the Washerman’s gate, made a stout resistance with a few men, and attacking them in the rear, made a desperate charge. The attempt was completely defeated.^a

On another occasion Kāsim Beg sallied out, with a small body of men, by the Needlemakers’ gate, and having beat the Uzbeks back as far as Khwājeh Kafshīr, he dismounted several of them, and returned, bringing back their heads.

It was now the season of the ripening of the grain, and nobody had brought in any new corn. As the siege had drawn out to great length, the inhabitants were reduced to extreme distress, and things came to such a pass, that the poor and meaner sort were forced to feed on dogs’ and asses’ flesh. Grain for the horses becoming scarce, they were obliged to be fed on the leaves of trees; and it was ascertained from experience that the leaves of the mulberry and blackwood¹ answered best. Many used the shavings and raspings of wood, which they soaked in water, and gave to their horses. For three or four months Sheibāni Khan did not approach the fortress, but blockaded it at some distance on all sides, changing his ground from time to time.

One night when everybody was gone to rest, towards midnight, he approached the Firōzeh gate, beating his large kettle-drums, and raising the shout for an assault. I was then in the College, and was in considerable uneasiness and terror. After this they returned every night beating their kettle-drums, and shouting, and making an alarm. Although I had sent ambassadors and messengers to all the princes and chiefs round about, no help came from any of them. Indeed, when I was in the height of my power, and had yet suffered neither discomfiture nor loss, I had received none, and had therefore no reason to expect it now, that I was reduced to such a state of distress. To draw out the siege in hopes of any succour from them was evidently needless. The ancients have said, that in order to maintain a fortress, a head, two hands, and two feet are necessary. The head is a captain, the two hands are two friendly forces that must advance from opposite sides; the two feet are water and stores of provision within the fort. I looked for aid and assistance from the princes my neighbours; but each of them had his attention fixed on some other object. For example, Sultan Hussain Mirza was undoubtedly a brave and experienced monarch, yet neither did he give me assistance, nor even send an ambassador to encourage me; although during the siege he sent Kemāl-cd-dīn Hussain Gāzargāhi on an embassy to Sheibāni Khan.

Tambol having advanced from Andejān as far as Bishkent,¹ Ahmed Beg and a party of men brought out the Khan to take the field against him. They met in the vicinity of Laklakān and Chārbāgh-e-turāk, but separated and retired without any action, and without even confronting each other.^a Sultan Mahmūd Khan was not a fighting man, and was totally ignorant of the art of war. When he went to oppose Tambol on this occasion, he showed pretty plain indications of want of heart, both in his words and actions. Ahmed Beg, who was a plain rough man, but sincere in his master’s service and brave, said in his harsh way, ‘What kind of a fellow is this Tambol, that he occasions you so much consternation and alarm? If your eyes are afraid, why, bind them up, and then let us engage him.’

EVENTS OF THE YEAR 907¹

THE blockade drawing out to a great length, provisions and supplies coming in from no quarter, and no succours or reinforcements appearing on any hand, the soldiers and inhabitants at length began to lose all hope, went off by ones and twos, escaped from the city^a and deserted. Sheibāni Khan, who knew the distress of the inhabitants, came and encamped at the Lovers’ Cave. I also moved my head-quarters and came to Kūe payān (Low Street) to Malik Muhammed Mirza’s house.^b At this crisis, Ūzūn Hassan, the son of Khwājeh Hussain, who had been the chief ringleader in the rebellion of Jehāngīr Mirza, by which I had formerly been obliged to leave Samarkand; and who had afterwards been the prime mover of much rebellion and sedition, as has been related, entered the town with ten or fifteen followers. The famine and distress of the town’s-people and soldiers had now reached the greatest excess. Even men who were about my person, and others high in my confidence, began to let themselves down over the walls and make their escape. Of the chiefs, Weis Sheikh and Weis Bāburi² deserted and fled. I now despaired of assistance or relief from any quarter. There was no side to which I could look with hope. Our provisions and stores, which from the first had been scanty, were now totally exhausted, and no new supplies could enter the city. In these circumstances, Sheibāni Khan proposed terms. Had I had the slightest hopes of relief, or had any stores remained within the place, never would I have listened to him. Compelled, however, by necessity, a sort of capitulation Bābur
leaves the
city, was agreed upon, and about midnight I left the place by Sheikh-zādeh’s gate, accompanied by my mother the Khanum. Two other ladies escaped with us, the one of them Bechega Khalīfeh, the other Mingelik Gokultāsh: my eldest sister Khanzādeh Begum was intercepted, and fell into the hands of Sheibāni Khan, as we left the place on this occasion. Having entangled ourselves among the great branches of the canals of the Soghd, during the darkness of the night, we lost our way, and after encountering many difficulties, we passed Khwājeh Dīdār about dawn. By the time of early morning prayers, we arrived at the hillock of Kārbūgh, and passing it on the north below the village of Khardek¹ we made for Ilān-ūtī. On the road, I had a race with Kamber Ali and Kāsim Beg. My horse got the lead. As I turned round on my seat to see how far I had left them behind, my saddle-girth being slack, the saddle turned round, and I came to the ground right on my head. Although I immediately sprang up and mounted, yet I did not recover the full possession of my faculties till the evening, and the world, and all that occurred at the time, passed before my eyes and apprehension like a dream, or a phantasy, and disappeared. The time of afternoon prayers was past ere we reached Ilān-ūtī, where we alighted, and, having killed a horse, cut him up, and dressed slices of his flesh; we stayed a little time to rest our horses, then mounting again, before daybreak we alighted at the village of Khalīleh. From reaches
Dizak. Khalīleh we proceeded to Dizak.² At that time Tāher Duldāi, the son of Hāfiz Muhammed Beg Duldāi, was governor of Dizak. Here we found nice fat flesh, bread of fine flour well baked, sweet melons, and excellent grapes in great abundance; thus passing from the extreme of famine to plenty, and from an estate of danger and calamity to peace and ease:

(Tūrki)—	From famine and distress we have escaped to repose We have gained fresh life, and a fresh world.
(Persian)—	The fear of death was removed from the heart The torments of hunger were removed away.

In my whole life, I never enjoyed myself so much, nor at any period of it felt so sensibly the pleasures of peace and plenty. Enjoyment after suffering, abundance after want, come with increased relish, and afford more exquisite delight. I have four or five times,¹ in the course of my life, passed in a similar manner from distress to ease, and from a state of suffering to enjoyment: but this was the first time that I had ever been delivered from the injuries of my enemy, and the pressure of hunger, and passed from them to the ease of security, and the pleasures of plenty. Having rested and enjoyed ourselves two or three days in Dizak, we proceeded on to Uratippa.

Peshāgher is a little out of the road, yet as I had formerly passed some time there, I turned aside and visited it again. In the fortress of Peshāgher I unexpectedly fell in with an ātūn (or governess), who had long been in the service of the Khanum, my mother, but whom, on the present occasion, for want of horses, we had been compelled to leave behind in Samarkand. On accosting her, we found that she had travelled all the way from Samarkand on foot. My mother’s younger sister, Khub Nigār Khanum,² had departed from this transitory life; information of the event was communicated to my mother and me at Uratippa. My father’s mother had also paid the debt of mortality at Andejān, and the news was communicated here. My mother,³ since the death of my maternal grandfather,⁴ had never seen her mothers,⁵ nor her younger brother and sisters, Shah Begum, Sultan Muhammed Khan, Sultan Nigār Khanum,⁶ and Doulet Sultan Khanum,⁷ and had been separated from them thirteen or fourteen years. She now set out for Tāshkend, Goes to
Tāshkend. for the purpose of seeing them. After consulting with Muhammed Hussain Mirza, it was arranged that I should take up my winter-quarters in the village of Dehkat, which belongs to Uratippa. I therefore went thither with my baggage, which I deposited there, and in the course of a few days afterwards, I, too, went to Tāshkend to see Shah Begum, my maternal uncle, and my other friends and relations. I waited on Shah Begum and my uncle accordingly, and remained with them for some days. My mother’s eldest sister of the full-blood, Meher Nigār Khanum,¹ also arrived from Samarkand. My mother the Khanum fell sick, became desperately ill, and was reduced to the point of death. The reverend Khwājehka Khwājeh had left Samarkand, and now arrived at Farket. I went to Farket and paid the Khwājeh a visit. I had entertained hopes that the Khan my uncle, from affection and regard, might give me some country or district; and he did give me Uratippa, but Mahmūd Hussain Mirza refused to deliver it up. Whether he did this of himself, or acted on a hint from higher authority, I cannot tell; however that be, in a few days Returns to
Dehkat. I returned to Dehkat.

Dehkat is one of the hill-districts of Uratippa.^a It lies on the skirts of a very high mountain, immediately on passing which, you come on the country of Masīkha. The inhabitants, though Sarts,² have large flocks of sheep, and herds of mares, like the Tūrks. The sheep belonging to Dehkat may amount to forty thousand. We took up our lodgings in the peasants’ houses. I lived at the house of one of the head men of the place. He was an aged man, seventy or eighty years old. His mother was still alive, and had attained an extreme old age, being at this time a hundred and eleven years old. One of this lady’s relations had accompanied the army of Taimūr Beg, when it invaded Hindustān.³ The circumstances remained fresh in her memory, and she often told us stories on that subject. In the district of Dehkat alone, there still were of this lady’s children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren, to the number of ninety-six persons; and including those deceased, the whole amounted to two hundred. One of her great-grandchildren was at this time a young man of twenty-five or twenty-six years of age, with a fine black beard. While I remained in Dehkat, I was accustomed to walk on foot all about the hills in the neighbourhood. I generally went out barefoot, and, from this habit of walking barefoot, I soon found that our feet became so hardened that we did not mind rock or stone in the least. In one of these walks, between afternoon and evening prayers, we met a man who was going with a cow in a narrow road. I asked him the way. He answered, ‘Keep your eye fixed on the cow; and do not lose sight of her till you come to the issue of the road, when you will know your ground.’ Khwājeh Asadullah, who was with me, enjoyed the joke, observing, ‘What would become of us wise men were the cow to lose her way?’

This winter many of my soldiers, principally because we could not go out in plundering parties, asked leave to go to Andejān. Kāsim Beg strongly advised me that, as these men were going that way, I should send some article of my dress as a present to Jehāngīr Mirza. I accordingly sent him a cap of ermine. Kāsim Beg then added, ‘What great harm would there be in sending some present to Tambol?’ Though I did not altogether approve of this, yet, induced by the pressing instances of Kāsim Beg, I sent Tambol a large sword, which had been made in Samarkand for Nuyān Gokultāsh,¹ from whom I took it.^a This was the very sword that afterwards came down on my own head, as shall be mentioned in the events of the ensuing year.

A few days after, my grandmother Isān Doulet Begum,² who had remained behind in Samarkand when I left it, arrived with the family and heavy baggage, and a few lean and hungry followers.

This same winter Sheibāni Khan, having passed the river of Khojend on the ice, ravaged the territory of Shahrokhīa and Bishkent. As soon as I heard the intelligence, without regarding the smallness of my numbers, I mounted and set out for the districts below Khojend, opposite to Hasht-yek. It was wonderfully cold, and the wind of Hā-derwīsh had here lost none of its violence, and blew keen. So excessive was the cold, that in the course of two or three days we lost two or three persons from its severity. I required to bathe on account of my religious purifications, and went down for that purpose to a rivulet, which was frozen on the banks, but not in the middle, from the rapidity of the current. I plunged myself into the water, and dived sixteen times. Bābur also
passes the
river to
meet him. The extreme chillness of the water quite penetrated me. Next morning I passed the river of Khojend on the ice, opposite to Khaslār, and the day after arrived at Bishkent; but Sheibāni Khan had gone off, after plundering the environs of Shahrokhīa. At this time Abdal Minān, the son of Mulla Haider, held Shahrokhīa. A son younger than Abdal Minān, one Mūmin, a worthless and dissipated young man, had come to me while I was in Samarkand, and I had shown him every kindness. I do not know what bad turn Nuyān Gokultāsh had done him at that time; however, the young catamite treasured up a deadly enmity against him.

When I received certain accounts that the plundering party of the Uzbeks was retired, I dispatched a messenger with the intelligence to the Khan, and leaving Bishkent tarried three or four days in the village of Ahengerān.¹ Mūmin, the son of Mulla Haider, on the plea of their previous acquaintance in Samarkand, invited Nuyān Gokultāsh, Ahmed Kāsim, and some others, to an entertainment; and, when I left Bishkent, this party stayed behind. The entertainment was given on the top of a precipice. I went on to the village of Sām-sīrek, which is one of the dependencies of Ahengerān, and there halted. Next morning, I was informed that Nuyān Gokultāsh had fallen over the precipice while intoxicated, and was killed. I dispatched Hak Nazar, the maternal uncle of Nuyān Gokultāsh, with a detachment, who went, examined the place from which he had fallen, and, after interring him in Bishkent, returned back to me. They found Nuyān’s corpse at the distance of a bowshot from the spot where the entertainment had been given, at the bottom of a steep precipice. Many suspected that Mūmin, cherishing in his heart the grudge against Nuyān, which he had contracted at Samarkand, was the cause of his death. The truth no Bābur’s
grief. man can know. His death affected me deeply. There are few persons for whose loss I have felt so much. I wept incessantly for a week or ten days. I discovered the date of his death in fout-shud Nuyān¹ (Nuyān is dead). A few days afterwards, I set out from this place, and returned to Dehkat.

It was now spring, and intelligence was brought that Sheibāni Khan was advancing against Uratippa. As Dehkat was in the low country, I passed by Āb-burden and Amāni, and came to the hill-country of Masīkha. Āb-burden is a village which lies at the foot of Masīkha.^a Beneath Āb-burden is a spring, and close by the spring is a tomb. From this spring, towards the upland, the country belongs to Masīkha, but downwards from the spring it depends on Yelghar. On a stone which is on the brink of this spring, on one of its sides, I caused the following verses² to be inscribed:

I have heard that the exalted Jemshīd
Inscribed on a stone beside a fountain,
‘Many a man like us has rested by this fountain,
And disappeared in the twinkling of an eye.
Should we conquer the whole world by our manhood and strength,
Yet could we not carry it with us to the grave.’

In this hill-country, the practice of cutting verses and other inscriptions on the rocks is extremely common.

While I was in Masīkha, I had a visit from Mulla Hijari, the poet, who came from Hissār. At this time I composed the following matla¹:

(Tūrki)—

Whatever skill the painter employs in portraying your features, you exceed his art; They call you Soul; but of a truth you are more admirable than the soul.

Sheibāni Khan advanced into the neighbourhood of Uratippa, and retired after committing some devastations. While he was in the territory of Uratippa, without regarding the fewness of my men, or their bad equipment, leaving my household and baggage in Masīkha, I marched rapidly over the hills, passing Āb-burden and Amāni, and came into the vicinity of Dehkat, about the time when the night mingles with the morning, resolved to lose no opportunity, and to be in the way of seizing every chance that might present itself.^a Sheibāni Khan, however, had retired hastily, so that I measured back my way over the hills, and returned to Masīkha.

I now began to reflect, that to ramble in this way from hill to hill, without house and without home, without country and without resting-place, could serve no good purpose, and that it was better to go to Tāshkend to the Khan. Kāsim Beg was very averse to this journey. He had put to death three or four Moghuls at Kara-būlāk, as an example and punishment for marauding, as has been mentioned, and on that account he had considerable apprehensions of going among their countrymen. Whatever remonstrances we could use were of no avail. He separated from me, and moved off towards Hissār, with his elder and younger brothers, their adherents and dependants; while I proceeded by the pass of Āb-burden, and advanced towards Tāshkend, to join the Khan.

At this same time, Tambol, having collected an army, advanced to the dale of Ahengerān. In the very heart of his army a conspiracy was formed against him by Muhammed Dughlet, known by the name of Muhammed Hissāri, in concert with his younger brother, Sultan Hussain Dughlet, and Kamber Ali, the skinner. On Tambol’s discovering the plot, being unable longer to remain in his camp, they fled, 10th Zil-
hijeh.
June 16,
1502. and came to the Khan. I passed the Īd-e-kurbān¹ in Shahrokhīa, but, without tarrying there, I went to Tāshkend to the Khan.

I had composed the following rubāi in a well-known measure, and was dubious about the correctness of its rhymes, as, at that time, I had not studied with much attention the style and phraseology of poetry. The Khan had pretensions to taste, and, moreover, wrote verses; though his odes, to be sure, were rather deficient both in manner and substance. I presented my rubāi, however, to the Khan, and expressed to him my apprehensions, but did not get such an explicit or satisfactory answer as to remove my doubts. Indeed, it was pretty clear that he had no great skill in poetic diction. The following is the rubāi or quatrain in question:

(Tūrki)—

No one remembers him who is in adversity; A banished man cannot indulge his heart in happiness; My heart is far from joy in this exile; However brave, an exile has no pleasures.

I afterwards learned, however, that, in the Tūrki language, te and dāl, as well as ghain, kāf and qāf, by a poetical licence, are frequently interchanged² for each other, for the sake of the rhyme.

A short time afterwards, Tambol advanced against Uratippa. As soon as this information arrived, the Khan led out his army from Tāshkend, and between Bishkent and Sām-sīrek, having drawn it up in regular array, with right Ceremonies
of a Mo-
ghul re-
view. and left wings, he formed the ivīm (or circle¹). The Moghuls blew horns according to their custom.^a The Khan having alighted, they brought nine horsetail standards,² and placed them by him. One Moghul stood by, holding in his hand an ox’s shank-bone, to which he tied a long white cotton cloth. Another having fastened three long slips of white cloth beneath the horsetail of the standard, passed them under the banner-staff of the ensigns.³ One corner of one of the cloths the Khan took, and, putting it beneath his feet, stood upon it. I stood on one corner of another of the long slips, which was in like manner tied under one of the horsetail standards; while Sultan Muhammed Khanekeh⁴ took the third, and, placing the cloth under his feet, in like manner stood on a corner of it. Then the Moghul that had tied on these cloths, taking the ox-shank in his hand, made a speech in the Moghul tongue, looking often to the standards, and pointing and making signs towards them. The Khan and all the men around took kumīz⁵ in their hands, and sprinkled it towards the standards. All the trumpets and drums struck up at once, and the whole soldiers who were drawn up raised the war-shout. These ceremonies they repeated three times. After that, they leaped on horseback, raised the battle-shout, and put their horses to the speed. Among the Moghuls, the Institutions⁶ established by Chingiz Khan have continued to be strictly observed down to the present time. Every man has his appointed station; those appointed to the right wing, the left wing, or the centre, have their allotted places, which are handed down to them from father to son. Those of most trust and consequence are stationed on the extremi ties or flanks of the two wings. Among those who compose the right wing there is a dispute between the tribes¹ of the Chirās and Begchik, which of them should occupy the extremity of the line. At this time, the chief of the tribe² of Chirās was Kāshkeh Mahmūd, a very brave young man. The chief of the tribe of Begchik, which is noted among the Tumāns, was Ayūb Yakūb. They had a dispute which of them was to occupy the flank, which came to such lengths, that swords were drawn. Finally, an apparently friendly compromise was made, that the one of them should stand highest at great hunting-matches,³ and that the other should occupy the flank when the army was in battle array.

Next morning, the army forming the large hunting circle, they hunted in the vicinity of Sām-sīrek, and, advancing forward, at length halted at the Chārbagh of Burāk. The first ghazel that I ever composed was finished that day at this station. The ghazel was the following:⁴

I have found no faithful friend in the world but my soul;
Except my own heart I have no trusty confidant.

The ghazel consists of six couplets, and all the ghazels that I afterwards wrote were composed in the same measure as this.

From hence, march by march, we proceeded till we reached the banks of the river of Khojend. One day, having passed the river, and ridden out on a pleasure party, I got ready a dinner, and made all the officers and young people of the army^a merry. That same day, the golden clasp of my girdle was stolen. Next morning, Khānkuli, Biānkuli, and Sultan Mahmūd Weis deserted, and went over to Tambol. The general suspicion was, that they were the guilty persons, though it was not established. Ahmed Kāsim Kohbur also asked leave and went to Uratippa, but he never came back, and he too went and joined Tambol.

TRANSACTIONS OF THE YEAR 908¹

THIS expedition of the Khan’s was rather a useless sort of expedition. He took no fort, he beat no enemy, he went and came back again.

While I remained at Tāshkend at this time, I endured great distress and misery. I had no country, nor hopes of a country. Most of my servants had left me from absolute want; the few who still remained with me were unable to accompany me on my journeys from sheer poverty. When I went to my uncle the Khan’s Divān,² I was attended sometimes by one person, sometimes by two; but I was fortunate in one respect, that this did not happen among strangers, but with my own kinsmen. After having paid my compliments to the Khan my uncle, I went in to wait on Shah Begum,³ bare-headed and bare-foot, with as much freedom as a person would do at home in his own house.

At length, however, I was worn out with this unsettled state, and with having no house nor home, and became tired of living. I said to myself, rather than pass my life in such wretchedness and misery, it were better to take my way and retire into some corner where I might live unknown and undistinguished; and rather than exhibit myself in this distress and debasement, far better were it to flee away from the sight of man, as far as my feet can carry me. I thought of going to Khitā,⁴ and resolved to shape my course in that direction; as from my infancy I had always had a strong desire to visit Khitā, but had never been able to accomplish my wish, from my being a King, and from my duty to my relations and connexions. Now my kingship was gone, my mother was safe with her mother and younger brother; in short, every obstacle to my journey was removed, and all my difficulties were at an end.^a By means of Khwājeh Abul Makāram, I made some ideas to be suggested,^b that when an enemy so formidable as Sheibāni Khan had started up, from whom Tūrks and Moghuls had equal cause of apprehension, it was but prudent to watch with jealousy his progress at this moment, before he had completely subjected the Ulūses,¹ and while he was not yet grown too powerful to be restrained; as it is said,

Extinguish to-day the flame while yet you can;
For when it blazes forth, it will consume the world.
Let not your foe apply his arrow to the bowstring,
When you can pierce him with your shaft.²

Besides that it was twenty-four or twenty-five years since the Khan had seen my younger uncle,³ and I had never seen him at all; that it would be well if I went and visited my younger uncle, and acted as mediator, using my endeavours to procure an interview between them. My purpose was to escape from my relations^c under these pretexts; and I had now fully made up my mind to visit Moghulistān and Tarfān, after which the reins were in my own hand. I, however, acquainted no person with my plan, nor could I impart it to any one, not only because my mother could not have supported the mention of such a proposition; but also because I had about me a number of persons who had attached themselves to me with very different hopes, and supported by them had shared with me my wanderings and distresses. It was unpleasant to communicate such a project to them. Khwājeh Abul Makāram started the subject to Shah Begum and my uncle the Khan, and gained their acquiescence; but it afterwards came into their head, that I had asked permission to go in consequence of the poor Sultan Ah-
med Khan
visits his el-
der brother. reception they had given me; and this suspicion made them delay some time before granting me liberty to depart. At this very crisis, a messenger came from the Khan, my younger maternal uncle, bringing certain information that he was himself coming. My plan, therefore, was totally disconcerted. A second messenger followed immediately after, with news that he was close at hand. Shah Begum, with the younger Khan’s younger sisters, Sultan Nigār Khanum, Doulet Sultan Khanum, myself, Sultan Muhammed Khanekeh, and Mirza Khan, all of us set out to meet my uncle.

Between Tāshkend and Seirām there is a village named Yaghma, as well as some other small villages, where are the tombs of Ibrahīm Ātā and Ishāk Ātā. We advanced as far as these villages, and not knowing precisely the time that the younger Khan would arrive, I had ridden out carelessly Is met by
Bābur. to see the country, when all at once I found myself face to face with him. I immediately alighted and advanced to meet him; at the moment I dismounted the Khan knew me, and was greatly disturbed; for he had intended to alight somewhere, and having seated himself, to receive and embrace me with great form and decorum: but I came too quick upon him, and dismounted so rapidly, that there was no time for ceremony; as, the moment I sprang from my horse, I kneeled down and then embraced. He was a good deal agitated and disconcerted. At length he ordered Sultan Saīd Khan and Baba Khan Sultan to alight, kneel, and embrace me. Of the Khan’s children, these two Sultans alone accompanied him, and might be of the age of thirteen or fourteen years. After embracing these two Sultans I mounted, and we proceeded to join Shah Begum. The Little Khan my uncle soon after met, and embraced Shah Begum and the other Khanums, after which they sat down, and continued talking about past occurrences and old stories till after midnight.

On the morrow, my uncle the younger Khan, according to the custom of the Moghuls, presented me with a dress complete from head to foot, and one of his own horses ready saddled. The dress consisted of a Moghul cap, embroidered with gold thread; a long frock of satin of Khitā,¹ ornamented with flowered needle-work; a cuirass of Khitā of the old fashion, with a whetstone and a purse-pocket; from this purse-pocket were suspended three or four things like the trinkets which women wear at their necks, such as an abīrdān (or box for holding perfumed earth²), and its little bag. On the left hand in like manner three or four things dangled. From this place we returned towards Tāshkend Interview
of the two
Khans. My uncle the elder Khan came three or four farsangs out from Tāshkend, and having erected an awning, seated himself under it. The younger Khan advanced straight up, and on coming near him in front, turned to the left of the elder Khan, fetching a circle round him, till he again presented himself in front, when he alighted; and when he came to the distance at which the kornish³ is performed, he knelt nine times, and then came up and embraced him. The elder Khan, immediately on the younger Khan’s coming near, stood up and embraced him; they stood a long time clasping each other in their arms. The younger Khan, while retiring, again knelt nine times, and when he presented his peshkesh (or tributary offering), he again knelt many times; after which he went and sat down. All the younger Khan’s men had dressed themselves out after the Moghul fashion. They had Moghul caps, frocks of Khitā satin, embroidered with flowers after the same fashion, quivers and saddles of green shagreen, and Moghul horses dressed up and adorned in a singular style.

The younger Khan came with but few followers; they might be more than one thousand, and less than two. He was a man of singular manners. He was a stout, courageous man, and powerful with the sabre, and of all his weapons he relied most on it. He used to say that the shashper (or mace with six divisions), the rugged mace, the javelin, the battle-axe, or broad axe, if they hit, could only be relied on for a single blow.^a His trusty keen sword he never allowed to be away from him; it was always either at his waist, or in his hand. As he had been educated, and had grown up, in a remote and out of the way country, he had something of rudeness in his manner, and of harshness in his speech. When I returned back with my uncle the younger Khan, tricked out in all the Moghul finery that has been mentioned, Khwājeh Abdal Makāram, who was along with the elder Khan, did not know me, and asked what Sultan that was, and it was not till I spoke that he recognized me.

Having come to Tāshkend, they speedily marched against Sultan Ahmed Tambol.^b They advanced by way of Bānī.¹ On reaching the dale of Ahengerān, the little Khan and myself were sent² on in advance. After having crossed the hill-pass of Dābān, the two Khans met again in the neighbourhood of Zarkān and Karnān. In the vicinity of Karnān they one day had the vīm³ or muster of the army, and found it amount to about thirty thousand horse. Reports reached us from the country in our front, that Bābur de
tached
against Ush
and Uz-
kend. Tambol had also collected his forces and advanced to Akhsi. The Khans, after consultation, determined to give me a detachment of the army, with which I should pass the river of Khojend, advance towards Ush and Uzkend, and take him in rear. This being arranged, they sent with me Ayūb Begchik with his tumān (or tribe), Jān Hassan Bārīn with his Bārīns, as well as Muhammed Hissāri Dughlet, Sultan Hussain Dughlet, and Sultan Ahmed Mirza Dughlet, but the Tumān of the Dughlets did not accompany them; Kamber Ali Sārīk-bāsh¹ Mirza, the Steward,² was made the Dārogha or Commander of the Army.^a Having separated from the Khans at Karnān, I passed the river of Khojend at Sakan on rafts, and proceeding by the Rabāt³ of Khukān, and having reduced Kaba, advanced upon Ush by a rapid march by the route of Rabāt-e-Alā-balūk. At sunrise I came upon the fort of Ush while the garrison were off their guard, being totally ignorant of our approach; seeing no Takes Ush, remedy, they were forced to surrender. The inhabitants of the country, who were warmly attached to me, had longed much for my arrival: but, partly from dread of Tambol, partly from the distance at which I had been, had no means of doing anything; no sooner, however, had I arrived in Ush, than all the Īls and Ulūses poured in from the east and south of Andejān, from the hills and plains. The Uzkend and
Marghinān. inhabitants of Uzkend, a fortress of great strength, which had formerly been the capital of Ferghāna, and lay on the frontier, declared for me, and sent a person to tender their allegiance. A few days after, the people of Marghinān having attacked and driven out their Governor, joined my party. The whole population on the Andejān side of the river of Khojend, with all the fortified places, except Andejān itself, declared for me. All this time, although so many forts were falling into my hands, and though such a spirit of insurrection and revolt had overrun the country, Tambol
maintains
his post. Tambol, without being in the least disconcerted, lay with his cavalry and infantry facing the Khans, between Akhsi and Karnān,⁴ where he encamped and fortified his position with a trench guarded by a chevaux-de-frise. A number of skirmishes and affairs took place, but without any visible advantage on either side.

Most of the clans and tribes, with the fortresses and country all around Andejān, had now submitted to me, and the men of Andejān were no less eager to declare in my favour, but could not find a safe opportunity. It came into my head to advance one night to the vicinity of Andejān, to send in a man to confer with the Khwājeh and chief inhabitants of the place, and, if they fell in with my views, to concert with them about introducing me, some way or other, into the fortress. With this plan, I one evening set out from Ush, and having about midnight arrived within a kos of Andejān, opposite to Jild-Khizān,¹ sent forward Kamber Ali Beg, and several other Begs, with instructions to introduce secretly into the place some person who might confer with the Khwājeh and leading men. I and my party Nocturnal
rencontre. remained on horseback where they had left us, awaiting the return of the Begs. It might be about the end of the third watch of the night,² some of us were nodding, others fast asleep, when all at once saddle-drums struck up, accompanied with martial shouts and hubbub. My men being off their guard, and oppressed with drowsiness, without knowing how many or few the enemy might be, were seized with a panic, and took to flight, no one trying to keep near another. I had not even time to rally them, but advanced towards the enemy, accompanied by Mīr Shah Kuchīn, Baba Sherzād, and Dost Nāsir. Except us four, all the rest ran off to a man. We had advanced but a little way, when the enemy, after discharging a flight of arrows, raised the war-shout, and charged towards us. One cavalier, mounted on a white-faced^a horse, came near me. I let fly an arrow, which hit the horse, and he instantly fell dead. They pulled up their bridles a little. My three companions said, ‘The night is dark, and it is impossible to ascertain the number and force of the enemy; all the troops which we had with us have fled. We are only four men, and with so small a number, what injury can we hope to do the enemy? Let us follow our party, rally them, and lead them back into action.’ Having galloped up and overtaken our men, we horsewhipped some of them; but all our exertions were ineffectual to make them stand. Again we four turned, and gave the pursuers a discharge of arrows. They halted a little; but when, after one or two discharges, they perceived that we were only four in number, they again set off in pursuit of our men, to strike them down and dismount them. In this way, we three or four times covered and protected our people, and, as they would not be rallied, I repeatedly turned along with my three companions, when we kept the enemy in check, and brought them up with our arrows. They kept pursuing us for the space of two or three kos, till they came over against the hillock of Kharabūk and Shibamūn. On reaching the hillock, Muhammed Ali Mubashar met us. I said, ‘These people are few in number; come, let us charge them.’ When we turned and put our horses to speed to charge them, they stood still. The scattered fugitives now began to collect and come in from different quarters; but there were many good soldiers who did not recover from their alarm, but went on straight to Ush. The business had happened in the following manner: Some Moghuls of Ayūb Begchik’s division had gone out prowling round Andejān on a pillaging party. On hearing the noise made by my detachment, they came secretly upon us, when a mistake occurred regarding the watchword. The watchword is of two kinds. One of these is the word of the tribe: for example, some take Durdāneh, others Tūkkai, others Lūlū, as their distinguishing watchword. The other is the watchword given out to the whole army in time of war, and consists of two words; so that, in time of action, if two parties meet, and one person gives the first word, one of the other party answers by the other word, as preconcerted, by which means, they can distinguish their own men from the enemy, and friends from foes. On the night of this occurrence, the word was Tāshkend, and the countersign Seirām, r if Seirām was given as the word, the answer was to be Tāshkend. When they fell in with us, Khwājeh Muhammed Ali was on my advance; and when the Moghuls came on, calling out ‘Tāshkend! Tāshkend!’ Khwājeh Muhammed Ali, who was a Tājik, in his confusion blundered out, ‘Tāshkend! Tāshkend!’ in reply. The Moghuls, taking him for an enemy, set up the war-shout, beat their horse-drums, and let fly their arrows. In this manner, from a false alarm, we were dispersed and scattered; the plan which I had conceived failed, and I returned back to Ush, after a fruitless journey.

After five or six days, Tambol and his adherents became disheartened and depressed on learning that the people of the hills, with the low country and forts, had returned to their obedience; and his men and soldiers began to desert and flee to the hills and deserts. Some of those who left his army reported, that Tambol’s affairs were on the verge of ruin, and that, in three or four days, he would be compelled to break up from absolute necessity. Immediately on receiving this intelligence, I mounted and marched against Andejān. Sultan Muhammed Gulbeg, the younger brother of Tambol, was in the fortress of Andejān. Advancing by way of Tūtluk,¹ I sent on a foraging party from Khākān, on the south of Andejān, about the time of midday prayers. I myself followed in the rear of the foragers, till I reached the skirts of the heights of Aīsh, on the Khākān side, when we received information from our advanced guards that Sultan Muhammed Gulbeg, with all his force, had advanced out beyond the suburbs and gardens, and was now on the skirts of the heights of Aīsh. The foragers had not yet collected, but without waiting for them, I advanced without delay against the enemy. Gulbeg’s force exceeded five hundred in number; though my men were much more numerous, yet a great proportion of them were on the Skirmish
at the
suburbs. foraging party, and were now scattered. When I met him, perhaps I might have with me about the same number with himself. Without minding array or order, we advanced on the enemy at full gallop. When we came to the charge, they could not stand us, but fled without exchanging a blow. My people followed them close up to the Khākān gate, dismounting and making prisoners all the way.

Having routed the enemy, we reached the outskirts of the suburbs at Khwājeh Kitteh, about the time of evening prayers. It was my wish to have ridden right up to the gates, and made a push to enter them. But the old and experienced Begs of rank, such as Nasīr Beg, the father of Dost Beg, Kamber Ali Beg, and other aged veterans, represented to me, that it was now late, and that to approach^a the fortress in the dark was not a wise measure; that it was better to retire a little and alight; that in the morning they would have nothing left for it but to surrender the fortress. Having acquiesced in the opinion of these experienced officers, we retired from the suburbs. Had we advanced up to the gates of the fortress, there is not a shadow of doubt that the place would have fallen into our hands.

It was about the hour of bed-time prayers when we passed the river Khākān, and encamped close by the village of Rabāt-e-zourek. Although we had received intelligence of the breaking up of Tambol, and his retreat towards Andejān, yet my inexperience made me guilty of a gross oversight; for, instead of occupying the ground along the banks of the river Khākān, which was naturally strong, and encamping there, we passed the river and halted beside the village of Rabāt-e-zourek, in a level plain, where we went to sleep in negligent security, without advanced guard^b and without videttes. Just before the dawn, while our men were still enjoying themselves in sleep, Kamber Ali Beg Surprised
by Tambol. galloped up, exclaiming, ‘The enemy are upon us—rouse up!’ Having spoken these words, without halting a moment, he passed on. I had gone to sleep, as was my custom even in times of security, without taking off my jāmeh, or frock, and instantly arose, girt on my sabre and quiver, and mounted my horse. My standard-bearer seized the standard, but without having time to tie on the horsetail and colours;^c but, taking the banner-staff in his hand just as it was, leaped on horseback, and we proceeded towards the quarter in which the enemy were advancing. When I first mounted, there were ten or fifteen men with me. By the time I had advanced a bowshot, we fell in with the enemy’s skirmishers. At this moment there might be about ten men with me. Riding quick up to them, and giving a discharge of our arrows, we came upon the most advanced of them, attacked and drove them back, and continued to advance, pursuing them for the distance of another bowshot, when we fell in with the main body of the enemy. Sultan Ahmed Tambol was standing, with about Advances
on Tambol. a hundred men. Tambol was speaking with another person in front of the line, and in the act of saying, ‘Smite them! Smite them!’ but his men were sidling in a hesitating way, as if saying, ‘Shall we flee? Let us flee!’ but yet standing still. At this instant there were left with me only three persons: one of these was Dost Nāsir, another Mirza Kuli Gokultāsh, and Kerīmdād Khudāidad, the Turkomān, the third. One arrow, which was then on the notch, I discharged on the helmet of Tambol, and again applied my hand to my quiver, and brought out a green-tipped barbed arrow,¹ which my uncle, the Khan, had given me. Unwilling to throw it away, I returned it to the quiver, and thus lost as much time as would have allowed of shooting two arrows. I then placed another arrow on the string and advanced, while the other three lagged a little behind me. Two persons came on right to meet me; one of them was Tambol, who preceded the other. There was a highway between us. He mounting on one side of it as I mounted on the other, we encountered on it in such a manner that my right hand was towards my enemy, and Tambol’s right hand towards me. Except the mail for his horse, Tambol had all his armour and accoutrements complete. I had only my sabre and bow and arrows.^a I drew up to my ear and sent right Wounded. for him the arrow which I had in my hand. At that very moment an arrow of the kind called shībah struck me on the right thigh, and pierced through and through. I had a steel cap² on my head. Tambol, rushing on, smote me such a blow on it with his sword as to stun me; though not a thread of the cap was penetrated, yet my head was severely wounded. I had neglected to clean my sword, so that it was rusty, and I lost time in drawing it. I was alone and single in the midst of a multitude of enemies. It was no season for standing still; so I turned my bridle round, receiving another sabre stroke on the arrows in my quiver. I had gone back seven or eight paces, when three foot-soldiers¹ came up and joined us. Tambol^a now attacked Dost Nāsir sword in hand. They followed us about a bowshot. Arigh-Khākān-shah² is a large and deep stream, which is not fordable everywhere; but God directed us aright, so that we came exactly upon one of the fords of the river. Immediately on crossing the river the horse of Dost Nāsir fell from weakness. We halted to remount him, and, passing among the hillocks that are between Kharabūk and Feraghīneh, and going from one hillock to another,^b we Escapes to
Ush. proceeded by by-roads^c towards Ush. When we were leaving these hillocks, Mazīd Taghāi met and joined us. He had been wounded by an arrow in the right leg, below the knee; though it had not pierced through and through, yet he reached Ush with much difficulty. The enemy slew many of my best men. Nāsir Beg, Muhammed Ali Mubashar, Khwājeh Muhammed Ali, Khosroū Gokultāsh, and Naamān Chihreh, fell on that day. A great many cavaliers and soldiers also fell at the same time.

The Khans having followed close after Tambol, took post in the vicinity of Andejān. The elder Khan had his quarters on the edge of the kurūgh (or Park) in the garden of my grandmother Isān Doulet Begum, which is known by the name of Kūshtigirmān.³ The younger Khan had his quarters near the langer⁴ or monastery of Bāba Tawakkel. After two days I came from Ush, and waited on the elder The south-
ern districts
of Ferghāna
given to the
younger
Khan. Khan at Kūshtigirmān. On this first visit he made over to the younger Khan all the places which I had gained possession of, giving me for an excuse, that as an enemy so formidable as Sheibāni Khan had taken the city of Samarkand, and was daily increasing in power, it had become necessary to summon the younger Khan from a great distance; that he had no possessions in this quarter; that it was therefore expedient to give him the country south of the river of Khojend, including Andejān, that he might have a convenient station and place in which to fix himself. The districts to the north of the river of Khojend, along with Akhsi, were promised to me; and after settling this country they were to proceed against Samarkand, which was to be conferred on me; when the whole of Ferghāna was to be ceded to the younger Khan. It is probable that all this talk was merely to over-reach me; and that in case of success they would have forgot their promises. However, there was no help for it. Willing or not, I was obliged to appear contented with this arrangement. On leaving the elder Khan, I mounted and went to visit the younger Khan. Kamber
Ali’s ad-
vice. On the road, Kamber Ali, who was known by the name of the Skinner, came up alongside of me, and said, ‘Do you observe? they are taking away from you the countries which you possess. Depend upon it, you will never gain anything at their hands. Now that you have Ush, and Marghinān, Uzkend, and the country of the Īls and Ulūses, set out at once for Ush, fortify all your castles, dispatch some person to Sultan Ahmed Tambol, to conclude a peace, join in attacking and driving out the Moghuls, and then make a division of the country as between yourself and a younger brother.’ I answered, ‘It is more satisfactory to me, as the Khans are my own family and kinsmen, to be a vassal of theirs, than a Sovereign along with Tambol.’ Perceiving that I did not approve of his suggestion, he seemed to regret Bāburvisits
the younger
Khan. having mentioned it, and drew off. I went on and saw my uncle the younger Khan. In my first interview with him I had come upon him unexpectedly, and gone up to him at once, so that he had not even time to dismount from his horse, and our meeting took place without ceremony. On this occasion, however, when I had approached near, he came out hastily, beyond the range of his tent ropes, and as I walked with considerable pain, and with a staff in my hand, from the arrow-wound in my thigh, he ran up and embraced me, saying, ‘Brother, you have behaved like a hero!’ and taking me by the arm, led me into the tent. His tent was but small. As he had been brought up in a rude and remote country, the place in which he sat was far from being distinguished for neatness, and had much of the air of a marauder’s. Melons, grapes, and stable furniture were all lying huddled about in the same tent in which he was sitting.

After getting up from the Little Khan’s I came to my own camp, when he sent me his own Yakhshi^a or Surgeon to examine my wound. The Moghuls term a surgeon Yakhshi. He was wonderfully skilful in surgery. If a man’s brains had come out he could cure him by medicine; and even where the arteries were cut he healed them with the utmost facility. To some wounds he applied a kind of plaster; and to some wounded persons he gave a medicine to be swallowed. To the wound in my thigh he applied the skin of some fruits which he had prepared and dried,^b and did not insert a seton. He also once gave me something like a root to eat, and said, ‘A man had once the bone of his leg broken in such a manner that a part of the bone, of the size of the hand, was completely shattered to pieces. I cut open the integuments, extracted the whole of the shattered bones, and inserted in their place a pulverized preparation; the preparation grew in the place of the bone, and became bone itself, and the leg was perfectly cured.’ He told me many similar strange and wonderful stories of cures, such as the surgeons of our countries are totally unable to accomplish. Three or four days afterwards, Kamber Ali, being apprehensive of evil consequences from the conversation which he had had with me, fled to Andejān.

After a few days, the Khans, having held a consultation, sent Ayūb Begchik, with his tumān, Jān Hassan Bārīn, with the tumān of Bārīns, and Sārīk-bāsh Mirza, as commander of the detachment, with a thousand or two thousand men to attend me, and dispatched us towards Akhsi. Sheikh Bayezīd, Tambol’s younger brother, held Akhsi, and Shahbāz Kārlūk held Kāsān. On this occasion, Shahbāz came out and took post in advance of the fortress of Noukend. Having passed the river of Khojend unobserved, Advances
to
Noukend. opposite to Ata, I hastened by a rapid march towards Noukend to surprise Shahbāz. Just before morning, when we were hard upon Noukend, my Begs represented to me that in all probability Shahbāz had got notice of our approach; that therefore it was better not to advance in disorder, but slowly and in regular array. We therefore advanced deliberately, and, as we approached, Shahbāz, who had in reality been off his guard, and ignorant of our motions, on being apprised of our coming, fled away and took shelter in the fortress. Things very often turn out just as they did on this occasion. On its being suggested that the enemy must be acquainted with our motions, enterprises are easily given up, and the moment for action is lost. The result of my experience on these matters is, that after we have formed our plan, and are in the moment of execution, we ought to admit of no remission of activity or exertion in carrying it through; for afterwards what do regret and repining avail? When it was morning, there was some fighting around the fort, but I made no serious attack.

From Noukend we proceeded towards the hills near Bishkhārān, for the purpose of plundering. Shahbāz Kārlūk availing himself of the opportunity, abandoned Noukend and threw himself into Kāsān. On my return I took up my quarters in Noukend. During the interval that followed, my troops made various excursions in different directions. On one occasion they fell upon the villages of Akhsi; on another they plundered those of Kāsān. Shahbāz, with the adopted son of Ūzūn Hassan, one Mīram, came out to fight, and did engage; but they were defeated, and Mīram fell in the action.

One of the strongest fortresses of Akhsi is Pāp, the garrison of which declared for me, put it in a state of defence, and sent a messenger to call me in; when I dispatched Syed Kāsim with a detachment, who passed the river¹ opposite to some villages above Akhsi, and marching on, entered the castle of Pāp.

A few days after this, an event worthy of notice occurred. At this time, Ibrahīm Chāpuk Taghāi, Ahmed Kāsim Kohbur, and Kāsim Jangeh Arghūn, with Sheikh Bayezīd, were in Akhsi. Tambol one night sent these officers with about two hundred chosen men to surprise Pāp. Syed Kāsim had gone to sleep without taking the proper precautions for guarding the place. The enemy having reached the fort, applied their scaling-ladders, mounted the walls, seized the gate, let down the drawbridge, and introduced seventy or eighty of their men, before Syed Kāsim received intelligence of what was passing. Half awakened from his sleep, he rushed out just as he was, in his vest, and with five or six others, began to discharge arrows upon them, and molested them so effectually by dint of repeated fails. attacks that he drove them out of the fort and cut off the heads of some of them, which he sent me. Though it was very unworthy of a captain to go to sleep in this negligent manner, yet, with a few men, to drive out such a number of brave soldiers clad in mail, merely by hard fighting and the edge of the sword, was a most gallant exploit.

All this time the Khans were engaged in the siege of the fortress of Andejān. The garrison, however, would not suffer them to approach it, and parties of horse frequently sallied out and skirmished with the besiegers.

Sheikh Bayezīd, who was in Akhsi, now made a show of being devoted to my interests, and sent a confidential messenger earnestly inviting me to repair to that city. The motive of this invitation was a wish to detach me, by any device, from the Khans, being persuaded that after I left them they could no longer maintain themselves in the country. It was done by him on an understanding with his elder brother Tambol. But to separate myself from the Khans, and to unite myself with them, was a thing to me altogether impossible. I let the Khans understand the invitation I had received. The Khans advised me by all means to go, and to seize Sheikh Bayezīd one way or another; but such artifice and underhand dealing were totally abhorrent from my habits and disposition, especially as there must have been a treaty, and I never could bring myself to violate my faith. But I was anxious by one method or another to get into Akhsi, that Sheikh Bayezīd might be detached from his brother Tambol, and unite with me, till some plan should offer, of which I could avail myself with honour. I therefore sent a person to Akhsi, who concluded an agreement with him, when he invited Bābur re-
pairs thi-
ther. me to the place, and I accordingly went. He came out to meet me, bringing my youngest brother Nāsir Mirza along with him, and conducted me into the fort,^a where he left me. I alighted at the apartments which had been prepared for me in my father’s palace in the stone fort.¹

Tambol had sent his elder brother, Beg Tīlbeh, to Sheibāni Khan, proffering him his allegiance, and summoning him to his assistance. At this very time he received letters from Sheibāni Khan, by which he was informed that the Khan The two
Khans re-
tire by Kho-
jend. was about to come to join him. As soon as the Khans received this intelligence they were disconcerted and broke up from before Andejān in great alarm. The Little Khan himself had a high character for justice and piety; but the Moghuls whom he had left in Ush, in Marghinān, and the other fortresses of which I had gained possession, instead of protecting, had set about oppressing and tyrannizing over the inhabitants. As soon, therefore, as the Khans raised the siege of Andejān, the men of Ush, Marghinān, and the other fortresses, rose on the Moghuls who were in garrison, seized and plundered them, and drove them out of the towns. The Khans did not immediately cross the river of Khojend, but retreated by way of Marghinān and Kandbādām, and passed the river at Khojend. Tambol followed them as far as Marghinān. I was now greatly distracted; I had no great confidence in their adhering staunchly to me, but I did not like to fly off from them without evident necessity.

One morning Jehāngīr Mirza came and joined me, having fled from Tambol, whom he had left at Marghinān. I was in the bath when the Mirza arrived, but immediately received and embraced him. At this time Sheikh Bayezīd was in great perturbation, quite unsettled what line of conduct to pursue. The Mirza and Ibrahīm Beg insisted that it was necessary to seize him, and to take possession of the citadel. In truth the proposition was a judicious one. I answered, ‘I have made an agreement, and how can I violate it?’ Sheikh Bayezīd meanwhile entered the citadel. We ought to have placed a guard at the bridge, yet we did not station a single man to defend it. These blunders were Tambol
arrives at
Akhsi. the effects of our inexperience. Before the dawn, Tambol arrived with two or three thousand mailed warriors, passed by the bridge, and entered the citadel. I had but very few men with me from the first, and after I came to Akhsi I had dispatched many of them on different services; some to garrison forts, others to take charge of districts, and others to collect the revenue, so that, at this crisis, I had not with me in Akhsi many more than a hundred. However, having taken to horse with those that remained, I was busy posting them in the entrances to the different streets, and in preparing supplies of warlike stores for their use,^a when Sheikh Bayezīd, Kamber Ali, and Muhammed Dost, came galloping from Tambol to propose a pacification. Having ordered such of my men as had stations assigned them to remain steadily at their posts, I went and alighted at my father’s tomb, to hold a conference with them. I also sent to call Jehāngīr Mirza to the meeting. Muhammed Dost returned back, while Sheikh Bayezīd and Kamber Ali remained with me. We were sitting in the southern portico Jehāngīr
Mirza
seizes
Sheikh
Bayezīd. of the Mausoleum, engaged in conversation, when Jehāngīr Mirza and Ibrahīm Chāpuk, after consulting together, had come to a resolution to seize them. Jehāngīr Mirza whispered in my ear, ‘It is necessary to seize them.’ I answered him, ‘Do nothing in a hurry: the time for seizing them is gone by. Let us try if we can get anything by negotiation, which is much more feasible, for at present they are very numerous, and we are extremely few: besides, their superior force is in possession of the citadel, while our inconsiderable strength only occupies the outer fort.’ Sheikh Bayezīd and Kamber Ali were present while this passed. Jehāngīr Mirza, looking towards Ibrahīm Chāpuk, made a sign to him to desist. I know not whether he misunderstood it, or whether from perversity he acted knowingly; however that may be, he seized Sheikh Bayezīd. The men who were around closed in on every side, and, in an instant, dragged away and rifled these two noblemen. There was now an end of all treaty. We, therefore, delivered them both into custody and mounted for battle.

I entrusted one side of the town to Jehāngīr Mirza; as the Mirza’s followers were very few in number I attached some of my own to him. I first of all went and put his quarter of the town in order, visiting all the posts and assigning each man his station; after which I proceeded to the other quarters.¹ In the midst of the town there was an open level green, in which I had posted a body of my men, and passed on. They were soon attacked by a much superior number of horse and foot, who drove them from their ground and forced them into a narrow lane. At this instant I arrived, and immediately pushed on my horse to the charge. The enemy did not maintain their ground, but fled. We had driven them out of the narrow lane and were pushing them over the green, sword in hand, when my horse was wounded in the leg by an arrow. He bolted, and springing aside, threw me on the ground in the midst of the enemy. I started up instantly and discharged one arrow. Kāhil, one of my attendants, who was on a sorry sort of steed, dismounted and presented it to me. I got on it, and having posted a party there, proceeded to the foot of another street. Sultan Muhammed Weis, observing what a bad horse I had got, dismounted and gave me his own, which I mounted. At this very instant Kamber Ali Beg, the son of Kāsim Beg, came to me wounded, from Jehāngīr Mirza, with notice that Jehāngīr Mirza had been attacked for some time past in such force that he was reduced to the last extremity, and had been compelled to retreat out of the town and take to flight. While still disconcerted by this accident, Syed Kāsim, who had held the fort of Pāp, arrived. This was a strangely unseasonable time for coming; for, at such an extremity, had I retained possession of a fortress of such strength as Pāp, there had still been some resource. I said to Ibrahīm Beg, ‘What is to be done now?’ He was a little wounded, and I know not whether it was from the irritation of his wound, or from his heart failing him, but he did not Retreats to-
wards the
gate; give me a very distinct answer. An idea struck me, which was to retreat by the bridge, and breaking it down behind us, to advance towards Andejān. Baba Sherzād behaved extremely well in this exigency. He said, ‘Let us attack and force a passage through this nearest gateway.’ According to this suggestion we proceeded towards the gate. Khwājeh Mīr Mirān also spoke and comported himself in a manly manner, in this extremity. While we were entering the street, Syed Kāsim and Dost Nāsir, with Bāki Khīz, maintained the action, and covered our retreat; I and Ibrahīm Beg, and Mirza Kuli Gokultāsh, had rode on before them. We had no sooner come opposite the gate than we saw Sheikh Bayezīd, with a quilted corslet over his vest, who just then entered the gateway with three or four horsemen, and was proceeding into the town. In the morning, when, contrary to my wish, he was seized along with those who were with him, they had been left with Jehāngīr’s men, who, when forced to retreat, carried off Sheikh Bayezīd with them. They once thought of putting him to death, but fortunately they did not, but set him at liberty. He had just been released, and was entering the gate when I met him. I immediately drew to the head the arrow which was on my notch, and discharged it full at him. It only grazed his neck, but it was a fine shot. The moment he had entered the gate he turned short to the right, and fled by a narrow street in great perturbation. I pursued him. Mirza Kuli Gokultāsh struck down one foot-soldier with his mace, and had passed another, when the fellow aimed an arrow at Ibrahīm Beg, who startled him by exclaiming, ‘hāī! hāī!’ and went forward; after which the man, being about as far off as the porch of a house is from the hall, let fly at me an arrow, which struck me under the arm. I had on a Kalmuk mail; two plates of it were pierced and broken from the blow. After shooting the arrow he fled, and I discharged an arrow after him. At that very moment a foot-soldier happened to be flying along the rampart, and my arrow pinned his cap to the wall, where it remained shot through and through and dangling from the parapet. He took his turban, which he twisted round his arm, and ran away. A man on horseback passed close by me, fleeing up the narrow lane by which Sheikh Bayezīd had escaped. I struck him such a blow on the temples with the point of my sword that he bent over as if ready to fall from his horse, but supporting himself on the wall of the lane he did not lose his seat, but escaped with the utmost hazard. Having dispersed all the horse and foot that were at the gate we which he
gains, took possession of it. There was now no reasonable chance of success; for they had two or three thousand well-armed men in the citadel, while I had only a hundred, or two hundred at most, in the outer stone fort: and, besides, Jehāngīr Mirza, about as long before as milk takes to boil, had been beaten and driven out, and half of my men were with him. In spite of all this, such was my inexperience that, posting myself in the gateway, I dispatched a man to Jehāngīr Mirza to request him to join me if he was near, and that we might make another effort. But, in truth, the business was over. Whether it was that Ibrahīm Beg’s horse was really weak, or whether the Beg was fretful from his wound, I cannot tell; but he said to me, ‘My horse is useless.’ Immediately, Sulemān, a servant of Muhammed Ali Mubashar, dismounted and gave him his horse of his own accord, without anybody suggesting such a thing to him. It was a fine trait of character in the man. While we remained waiting at the gate, Kūchik Ali, who is now collector¹ of Koel, displayed great bravery. He was then in the service of Sultan Muhammed Weis. He, on another occasion, performed good service at Ush. We continued at the gate, waiting for the return of the messenger whom I had sent to call the Mirza. He did return, and informed us that Jehāngīr Mirza had already been gone some time in his and
retreats. retreat. It was no longer a season to tarry, and we also set off. Indeed, my halting so long was very ill advised. Not above twenty or thirty men now remained with me. The moment we moved off in our retreat a great band of the enemy’s troops came smartly after us. We had just passed the drawbridge when they reached the town side of it. Bandeh Ali Beg, the son of Kāsim Beg, who was the maternal grandfather of Hamzah Beg, called aloud to Ibrahīm Beg, ‘You are always boasting and bragging: stop and let us exchange a few sword-cuts.’ Ibrahīm Beg, who was close by me, answered, ‘Come away, then: What hinders us?’ The senseless madcaps! in such a moment of peril and discomfiture, to think of adjusting their rival claims. It was no time for a trial of skill, nor for delay nor loss of time. We retreated with all speed, the enemy being in full pursuit of us. They brought down man after man as they overtook us.

Within a kos of Akhsi there is place called Gumbaz-e-chaman (or the Garden-dome). We had just passed it, when Ibrahīm Beg called out to me for assistance. I looked round and perceived him engaged with a home-bred slave^a of Sheikh Bayezīd. I instantly turned my bridle to go back. Jān Kuli Bayān Kuli,¹ who was by me, exclaimed, ‘What time is this for turning back?’ seized my bridle-reins, and hurried me on. Before we reached Sang they had unhorsed the greater part of my adherents. Sang may be about two kos from Akhsi. After passing Sang we saw no more of the enemy in pursuit. We proceeded up the river of Sang, being at this time only eight in all—Dost Nāsir, Kamber Ali Kāsim Beg, Jān Kuli Bayān Kuli, Mirza Kuli Gokultāsh, Shahim Nāsir, Abdal Kadūs Sayyidī Kāra, and Khwājeh Hussaini; I myself was the eighth. A sort of path leads up the river amidst broken glens, remote from the beaten road. By this unfrequented and retired path we proceeded up the river, till, leaving the river on the right, we struck into another narrow^b path. It was about afternoon prayers when we emerged from the broken grounds into the level country. A blackness was discernible afar off in the plain. Having placed my men under cover, I myself, on foot, ascended an eminence to spy what it might be; when suddenly a number of horsemen galloped up the hillock behind us. We could not ascertain precisely how many or how few they were, but took to our horses and continued our flight. The horsemen who followed us were not in all above twenty or twenty-five; and we were eight, as has been mentioned. Had we but known their number when they first came up we should have given them warm play; but we imagined that they were certainly followed by a detachment sent in pursuit of the fugitives. Impressed with this notion, we continued our flight. The fact is, that the fliers, even though the most numerous, can never contend with the pursuers, though the inferior number. As it is said,

(Persian verse)—The shout of hāī is sufficient for vanquished bands.

Jān Kuli said, ‘We must not go on in this way or they will take us all. Let you and Mirza Kuli Gokultāsh, therefore, select the two best horses of the party,¹ and galloping off together keep one another’s horses at speed; perhaps you may escape.’ The advice was not a bad one; for, since we could not engage them, this presented a possibility of escape; but I could not consent in such circumstances to leave any of my followers dismounted in the midst of the His follow-
ers taken
one after
another. enemy. At length, however, the party began to separate and fall behind each other. The horse on which I was mounted began to lag. Jān Kuli dismounted and gave me his horse. I leaped from my own and mounted his, while he mounted mine. At this very instant Shahim Nāsir, with Abdal Kadūs Sayyidī Kāra, who had fallen behind, were dismounted by the enemy. Jān Kuli also fell behind; but it was no season for trying to shield or assist him. We, therefore, pushed our horses to their utmost speed, but they gradually flagged and fell off. The horse of Dost Beg too began to flag, and fell behind; and the horse which I rode likewise began to be worn out. Kamber Ali dismounting, gave me his own horse. He mounted mine, and presently dropped behind. Khwājeh Hūssaini, who was lame, turned off towards the heights. I now remained alone with Mirza Kuli Gokultāsh. Our horses were too weak to admit of being put to the gallop; we went on at a canter, but the horse of Mirza Kuli began to move slower and slower. I said to him, ‘If deprived of you, whither can I go? Come, then, and be it death or life, let us meet it together.’—I kept on, turning from time to time, to see Mirza Kuli. At last, Mirza Kuli said, ‘My horse is completely blown, and it is impossible for you to escape if you encumber yourself with me. Push on, and shift for yourself. Perhaps you may still escape.’ I was in a singularly Is left alone,
and pursued
by Baba
Seirāmi and
Bandeh Ali. distressful situation. Mirza Kuli also fell behind, and I was left alone. Two of the enemy were in sight; the name of the one was Baba Seirāmi, that of the other Bandeh Ali; they gained upon me; my horse began to flag. There was a hill about a kos off, and I came up to a heap of stones. I reflected with myself that my horse was knocked up, and the hill still a considerable way off. What was to be done? I had about twenty arrows left in my quiver. Should I dismount at this heap of stones, and keep my ground as long as my arrows lasted? But it occurred to me again, that perhaps I might be able to gain the hill, and that if I did I might stick a few arrows in my belt and succeed in climbing it. I had great reliance on my own nimbleness. Impelled by this idea I kept on my course. My horse was unable to make any speed, and my pursuers got within arrow’s reach of me; I was sparing of my arrows, however, and did not shoot. They also were somewhat chary and did not come nearer than a bowshot, but kept on tracking me.

About sunset I got near the hill, when they suddenly called out to me, ‘Where do you intend going that you flee in this manner? Jehāngīr Mirza has been taken and brought in; Nāsir Mirza, too, has been seized.’ I was greatly alarmed at these words; because, if all of us¹ fell into their hands, we had everything to dread. I made no reply but kept on for the hill. When we had gone a certain way farther they again called out to me. This time they spoke to me in a more gracious style than at first. They dismounted from their horses and began to address me. I did not attend to what they said, but proceeded in my course and, entering a glen, I began to ascend it, and went on till about bedtime prayers, when I reached a large rock about the size of a house. I went behind it and came to an ascent of steep ledges, where the horse could not keep his feet. They also dismounted and began to address me in a still more courteous and respectful style, expostulating with me, and saying, ‘What end can it serve to go on in this manner, in a dark night, and where there is no road? Where can you possibly go?’ Both of them, with a solemn oath, asserted, ‘Sultan Ahmed Beg wishes to place you on the throne.’ ‘I cannot’, I replied, ‘confide in anything of the sort; and to join him is for me impossible. If you are serious in your wish to do me an important service you have now such an opportunity as may not occur for years. Point out to me a road by which I may rejoin the Khans, and I will show you kindness and favour even beyond your highest wishes. If you refuse this, return by the way you came, and leave me to fulfil my destiny—even that will be no mean service.’ ‘Would to God’, they replied, ‘that we had never come; but, since we have come, how can we desert you in this desolate situation? Since you will not accompany us we shall follow you and serve you, go where They swear
to be true
to him. you will.’ I answered, ‘Swear then unto me by the Holy Book that you are sincere in your offer.’ And they swore the heavy and awful oath.

I now began to have a certain degree of confidence in them, and said to them, ‘An open road was formerly pointed out to me near this same valley; do you proceed by it.’ Though they had sworn to me, yet still I could not perfectly confide in them; I therefore made them go on before and followed them. We had advanced a kos or two, when we reached a rivulet. I said, ‘This cannot be the road by the open valley that I spoke of.’ They hesitated, and said, ‘That road is still a considerable way forward.’ The truth is, that we then really were on the very road of the open valley and they were deceiving me and concealing the truth. We went on till midnight, when we again came to a stream. They now said, ‘We have not been sufficiently attentive, and have certainly left behind the road in the open valley.’ I said, ‘What then is to be done?’ They said, ‘The road to Ghava lies a little farther on, and by it you may go to Farket.’ We kept on in our way, therefore, and continued travelling forward till the end of the third watch of the night,¹ when we reached the river of Karnān, which comes down from Ghava. Baba Seirāmi then said, ‘Stop here, while I go on before, and I will return after reconnoitring the road to Ghava.’ He did return in a short time and told us, ‘A good many men are passing over the plain along the road; it will be impossible for us to go this way.’ I was alarmed at this information. I was in the midst of an enemy’s country, the morning was near at hand, and I was far from the place to which I had wished to go. ‘Show me, then,’ I said, ‘some spot where we may remain concealed during the day, and, when it is night, we can get something for our horses, pass the river of Khojend, and then proceed straight for Khojend by the other side of the river.’ They answered, ‘Hard by there is a hillock, in which we may hide ourselves.’ Bandeh Ali was the Dārogha of Karnān. He said, ‘Neither we nor our horses can long stand out unless we get something to eat. I will go to Karnān, and will bring out whatever I can procure.’ We therefore passed on, and took the road for Karnān. We stopped about a kos from Karnān, while Bandeh Ali went on, and stayed away for a long time. The morning had dawned, yet there was no appearance of our man. I began to be greatly alarmed. Just as it was day, Bandeh Ali came cantering back, bringing three loaves, but no grain for the horses. Each of us taking a loaf under his arm we went off without loss of time, reached the hillock where we wished to Bābur com-
pelled to
conceal
himself. remain in concealment, and, having tied our horses in the low marshy broken grounds, we all mounted the eminence and sat keeping watch on different sides.

It was now near mid-day, when we spied Ahmed Kūshchi (the falconer), with four horsemen, coming from Ghava towards Akhsi. I once thought of sending for the falconer, and getting possession of their horses by fair words and promises; for our horses were quite worn out, having been in constant exercise and on the stretch for a day and night, without having got a grain of anything to eat. But my heart immediately began to waver again, and I could not make up my mind to put confidence in them. I and my companions arranged, however, that as these people were likely to stay all night at Karnān, we should secretly enter the town, carry off their horses, and so make our escape to some place of safety.

It was about noon, when, as far off as the sight could reach, we perceived something that glittered on a horse. For some time we could not distinguish what it was. It was, in truth, Muhammed Bākir Beg. He had been in Akhsi along with me; and in the dispersion that followed our leaving the place, when every one was scattered here and there, Muhammed Bākir Beg had come in this direction, and was now wandering about and concealing himself. Bandeh Ali and Baba Seirāmi said, ‘For two days past our horses have had neither grain nor fodder. Let us go down into the valley, and suffer them to graze.’ We accordingly mounted, and, having descended into the valley, set them a-grazing. It was about the time of afternoon prayers, when we descried a horseman passing along over the very height on which we had been hiding. I recognized him to be Kādir Berdi, the head-man of Ghava. I said to them, ‘Let us call Kādir Berdi.’ We called him, and he came and joined us. Having greeted him, asked him some questions, spoken obligingly and with kindness to him, made him promises, and disposed him favourably towards me by every means in my power, I sent him to bring a rope, a grass-hook, an axe, apparatus for crossing a river, provender for the horses and food for ourselves, and, if possible, a horse likewise; and we made an appointment to meet him on this same spot at bedtime prayers.

Evening prayers were over, when a horseman was seen passing from Karnān towards Ghava. We called out, ‘Who goes there?’ He answered us. This was, in truth, the same Muhammed Bākir Beg, whom we had observed at noon. He had, in the course of the day,¹ moved from the place in which he had lain concealed, to another lurking-place; and now so thoroughly changed his voice, that, although he had lived for years with me, I did not discover him. Had I known him, and kept him with me, it had been well for me. I was rendered very uneasy by this man’s passing us, and durst not adhere to the assignation we had made with Kādir Berdi of Ghava by waiting till the specified time. Bandeh Ali said, ‘There are many retired gardens among the suburbs of Karnān, where nobody will suspect us of lurking. Let us go thither, and send a person to conduct Kādir Berdi to us.’ With this intention we mounted Hides him-
self in Kar-
nān. and proceeded to the suburbs of Karnān. It was winter, and excessively cold. They brought me an old mantle of year-old lambskin, with the wool on the inside, and of coarse woven cloth without, which I put on. They also procured and brought me a dish of pottage of boiled millet-flour, which I ate, and found wonderfully comfortable. I asked Bandeh Ali, ‘Have you sent anybody to Kādir Berdi?’ He answered, ‘Yes, I have.’ These unlucky perfidious clowns had in reality met Kādir Berdi, and had dispatched him to Tambol at Akhsi.

Having gone into a house that had stone walls, and kindled a fire, I closed my eyes for a moment in sleep. These crafty fellows, pretending an extreme anxiety to serve me, ‘We must not stir from this neighbourhood,’ said they, ‘till we have news of Kādir Berdi. The house where we are, however, is in the very middle of the suburbs. There is a place in the outskirts of the suburbs where we might be quite unsuspected, could we but reach it.’ We mounted our horses, therefore, about midnight, and proceeded to a garden on the outskirts of the suburbs. Baba Seirāmi watched on the terrace-roof of the house, keeping a sharp look-out in every direction. It was near noon when he came down from the terrace and said to me, ‘Here comes Yūsef, the Dārogha.’ I was seized with prodigious alarm and said, ‘Learn if he comes in consequence of knowing that I am here.’ Baba went out, and, after some conversation, returned and said, ‘Yūsef, the Dārogha, says, that, at the gate of Akhsi, he met a man on foot, who told him that the King was in Karnān, at such a place; that, without communicating this intelligence to any one, he had put the man into close custody, along with Wali, the treasurer, who had fallen into his hands in the action; after which he hastened to you full speed; and that the Begs are not^a informed of the circumstance.’ I asked him, ‘What do you think of the matter?’ He answered, ‘They are all your servants; there is nothing left for it but to join them. They will undoubtedly make you king.’ ‘But after such wars and quarrels,’ I replied, ‘with what confidence can I place myself in their power?’ I was still speaking, when Yūsef suddenly presented himself, and throwing himself on both his knees before me, exclaimed, ‘Why should I conceal anything from you? Sultan Ahmed Beg knows nothing of the matter; but Sheikh Bayezīd Beg has got information where you are, and has sent me hither.’

On hearing these words I was thrown into a dreadful state of agitation. There is nothing in the world which affects a man with more painful feelings than the near prospect of death. ‘Tell me the truth,’ I exclaimed, ‘if indeed things are about to go with me contrary to my wishes, that I may at least perform my last ablutions.’ Yūsef swore again and again, but I did not heed his oaths. I felt my strength gone. I rose and went to a corner of the garden. I meditated with myself, and said, ‘Should a man live a hundred, nay a thousand years, yet at last he¹——.’ [The copyist adds, ‘The remaining transactions of this year, viz. 908, may God grant that they come to hand.’ In this wish I most heartily join.—Leyden.]

SUPPLEMENT
CONTAINING

A SHORT ACCOUNT OF THE EVENTS THAT OCCURRED IN THE END OF A.H. 908 AND IN A.H. 909¹

THE narrative of Bābur is here broken off, at one of the most interesting moments of his history. Whether this defect be owing to the imperfection of the copies or to design in the author, it is not easy to decide; though, from A D. 1508. a similar interruption at the beginning of the year 914 of the Hijira, when Bābur appears to be on the point of falling into the hands of a desperate band of conspirators, it seems probable that it was intentional; and, we may be almost tempted to believe, that the Imperial author derived a sort of dramatic pleasure from working up to a very high pitch the curiosity of his reader or hearer, and leaving the mind in a state of awakened suspense by a sudden break in the narrative. All the three copies which I have had an opportunity of comparing, break off precisely at the same period in both instances. This holds in the original Tūrki as well as in the translation; and it is hardly conceivable that a translator would have deserted his hero in the most memorable passages of his life. The copy which Dr. Leyden followed was evidently, in this respect, exactly like the others. The blank which Bābur has left in his own Memoirs it is difficult to supply, in spite of the great number of authors who have written the details of his reign; as they have in general confined themselves to the grand military and political actions of his times, and give us little assistance where Bābur, who is his own best biographer, happens to fail in detailing the earlier, which are by no means the least interesting events of his life.

The Memoirs break off in A. H. 908, and are resumed in A. H. 910.² Whether Bābur was delivered into the hands of Sheikh Bayezīd, or whether he effected his escape from the painful custody in which he was held at Karnān, I have not been able to discover. The narrative of Abul-Fazel¹ is here very imperfect. It would appear, however, from the brief account of Ferishta,² and of Khāfi Khan,³ that Bābur had succeeded in rejoining his maternal uncles the two Khans; but, if this was the case, the advantage derived from this junction was of short continuance. Sheibāni Khan, whom Ahmed Tambol had invited to his assistance, arrived soon after with an army more in number than the rain-drops, says Mīr Khāwend Shah,⁴ attacked the Moghuls, defeated them in a bloody battle,⁵ made both the brothers prisoners, and compelled Bābur to fly into Moghulistān. Immediately after the battle, Sheibāni Khan dispatched a messenger to Tāshkend, to communicate information that the two Khans were in his hands, and that Bābur had been obliged to abandon the country; and with instructions to add that, if the inhabitants had any wish to save their princes, they must prevent the escape of Khwājeh Abul Makāram and detain him in custody. Sheibāni Khan, after having kept the Khans a few days as his prisoners, dismissed them to go where they would; ‘and they came by their end’, continues Mīr Khāwend Shah, ‘in the way mentioned in the Account of the family of Chaghatāi Khan.’ The particulars of their death I have not been able to ascertain, and there is some disagreement among historians on the subject.⁶ By some, Sheibāni Khan⁷ is represented as having used his victory with considerable lenity. He is said to have set the brothers at liberty, prompted by the recollection that he had formerly been in their service, and that he had been received and kindly treated by Yunis Khan, their father. We are told by Ferishta that Sultan Mahmūd Khan, the elder brother, fell into a deep melancholy; when advised by one of his friends to use a famous antidote brought from China, for the purpose of averting the effects of poison, which it was suggested might have been administered by Sheibāni Khan, he is said to have replied, ‘Yes; Sheibāni has indeed poisoned me! He has taken away my kingdom, which your antidote cannot restore.’¹ But these accounts are not very consistent with the narrative of Bābur himself, who informs us that Sheibāni Khan put Sultan Mahmūd Khan to death in Khojend, with his son Baba Khan, and many other princes of his family. It is not improbable that Sheibāni Khan affected to set the Khan at liberty a few days after the battle, as is mentioned by Mīr Khāwend Shah, and that he gave orders to pursue, and put him to death privately, along with his family; a policy which he appears to have followed on other occasions, in order to avoid part of the odium likely to arise from an unpopular act.

Khwājeh Abul Mukāram was thrown into prison at Tāshkend, but in two or three days effected his escape and set out from that city on foot. That he might not be recognized, he submitted to the mortification of cutting off his beard: but being unable, from his age and infirmities, to reach any place of safety, he was compelled to take refuge with a man who lived in a neighbouring village. This person concealed him for a day or two, but having afterwards informed against him, he was seized and carried before Sheibāni Khan. The Khan, on seeing him, inquired, ‘What have you done with your beard?’ to which the Khwājeh answered in two Persian verses, the sense of which is, that he who puffs at the lamp which God has lighted, singes his beard. But the felicity of this allusion did not avail him, and he¹ was put to death. Sheibāni Khan, following up the advantages which he had gained, took possession of Tāshkend, Shahrokhīa, and all the dominions of Sultan Mahmūd Khan, as well probably as of the territories of his younger brother Alacheh Khan, so that his territories now extended along both sides of the Sirr or Jaxartes, and stretched southward to the banks of the Amu. He fixed the seat of his government at Samarkand, and gave his brother Mahmūd Sultan the charge of Bokhāra. Tāshkend, with the dominions of the two Khans, he gave to his paternal uncles, Gujenjeh Khan and Sanjek Sultan, whose mother was the daughter of the celebrated Mirza Ulugh Beg Gurgān. The office of Dārogha of Shahrokhīa he bestowed on Amīr Yākub, who was one of the chief of his nobles.

Bābur is said to have taken refuge after this disaster in Moghulistān, an incident to which he himself never refers. This at least is certain, that he was soon after fortunate enough to escape from the north side of the Sirr, and to gain the hill country of Sūkh and Hūshiār, villages which lie in the district of Asfera, among the mountains that separate Ferghāna from Hissār and Karatigīn, where he wandered for nearly a year as a fugitive, often reduced to A. D. 1503-
4. the greatest difficulties.² Finding his partisans completely dispersed, however, and all hopes gone of recovering his hereditary kingdom, after consulting with his few remaining adherents, he resolved to try his fortune in Khorasān, which was at that time held by Sultan Hussain Mirza, a sovereign of great power and reputation, and beyond comparison the most distinguished prince then living of the family of Taimūr.

When Bābur bade adieu for the last time to his native country, which he appears to have regarded during all the future years of his life with the fondness which a man of warm attachments feels for the scenes of his early affections, he crossed the high range of hills to the south of Ferghāna, and came down west of Karatigīn on the country of Cheghāniān and Hissār, territories at that time belonging to His conduct
to Khosrou
Shah. Khosrou Shah, to whom Bābur always professes a deep-rooted hatred. The murder of Baiesanghar Mirza, and the blinding of Sultan Masaūd Mirza, both cousins of Bābur, and the latter the full brother of one of his wives, were certainly sufficient to justify the terms of strong detestation in which that prince always speaks of him; but Ferishta seems to insinuate that he hated the man whom he had injured; and that Bābur, though treated by Khosrou Shah with great hospitality, stirred up a faction in his court, seduced the affections of his army, and by his intrigues forced him to abandon his troops, his treasure, and his dominions. Whether or not Bābur was aware that such charges had been made, or were likely to be brought against him, is uncertain; but the narrative in his Memoirs is certainly fitted to meet accusations of this nature; and he appears throughout to show uncommon solicitude to justify himself in regard to Khosrou Shah, whose general character for hospitality and generosity to others he acknowledges, while he pointedly accuses him of niggardliness and want of common civility to himself, in the two different instances in which he was obliged to pass through the country of that chieftain. That he intrigued with the army of Khosrou Shah, particularly with the Moghul troops, Bābur boldly avows, but appears to regard his conduct in that respect as only an act of fair hostility towards an inveterate foe.

Ulugh Beg Mirza, Bābur’s paternal uncle, the King of Kābul and Ghazni, had died in the year A. H. 907, leaving his territories to his son Abdal Razāk Mirza, who was still young. The whole power was usurped by one of his ministers, Shīrīm Ziker, who soon rendered himself odious to the chief men of the country. A conspiracy, headed by Muhammed Kāsim Beg and Yunis Ali, was formed against Confused
state of that
kingdom. the minister, in consequence of which the conspirators, entering Kābul with a formidable band of adherents, put Ziker to death while sitting in state at a grand festival, which was held for celebrating the Id.¹ The kingdom for some time was a prey to disorder and tumult. Muhammed Mukīm Beg, the son of Zūlnūn Arghūn and brother of Shah A. H. 908.
A. D. 1502-
3. Beg, names which often occur in the following pages, availing himself of this situation of things, marched without orders from the Garmsīr,¹ which he held for his father, and appeared suddenly before Kābul, which opened its gates. Zūlnūn Beg, without professing to approve of the proceedings of Mukīm, sanctioned his retaining possession of A. H. 910.
A. D. 1504. his conquest. Abdal Razāk Mirza had retired among the hills, and was still making ineffectual efforts for the recovery of his capital, when Bābur entered the territories of Khosrou Shah.²

It is necessary then to recollect that, at this period, when Bābur resumes the history of his own adventures, Sheibāni Khan had conquered Samarkand and Bokhāra, Ferghāna and Uratippa, Tāshkend and Shahrokhīa; Sultan Hussain Mirza governed Khorasān; Khosrou Shah still held Hissār, Khutlān, Kunduz, and Badakhshān; and Zūlnūn Beg, though he acknowledged Sultan Hussain Mirza, had the chief and almost independent power in Kandahār and Zamīn-dāwer, the country of the Hazāras³ and Nukderis⁴, the Garmsīr, and great part of Sīstān, and the country south of Kandahār.

MEMOIRS OF BĀBUR
EVENTS OF THE YEAR 910

IN the month of Muharrem,¹ I set out from the vicinity of Ferghāna, intending to proceed to Khorasān, and halted at the summer-cots of Ilāk,² one of the summer pasturing districts belonging to the country of Hissār. I here entered my twenty-third year, and began to apply the razor to my face.³ The followers who still adhered to my fortunes, great and small, exceeded two hundred, and fell short of three hundred. The greater part of them were on foot, with brogues on their feet, clubs in their hands, and long frocks⁴ over their shoulders. Such was our distress, that among us all we had only two tents. My own tent was pitched for my mother, and they erected for me at each stage a felt-tent of cross-poles,⁵ in which I used to take up my quarters. Although I was on my way for Khorasān, yet, in the present state of things, I was not quite without hopes of still effecting something here among the territories and servants of Khosrou Shah. Scarce a day passed in which somebody did not join me, bringing such reports regarding the country and wandering tribes as served to feed my expectation.

At this very time, Mulla Baba Peshāgheri, whom I had sent on a mission to Khosrou Shah, came back. From Khosrou Shah he brought me no message that could cheer my mind; but he brought me favourable accounts of the disposition of the Īls and Ulūses (the wandering Tūrki and Moghul tribes of the country).

From Ilāk, in three or four journeys, I reached Khwājeh Imād, a place in the territory of Hissār. In this station, Muhibb Ali Korchi waited on me as ambassador from Khosrou Shah. Twice did my course lie through the country of this Khosrou Shah, so far-famed for his liberal conduct and generosity; and that humanity which he displayed to the meanest of men, he never showed to me. As I had expectations from the Īls and Ulūses of these districts, I halted a day at each stage. Shīrīm Taghai, than whom I had not with me a man of more eminence, from a dislike to the plan of going to Khorasān, began to think of leaving me. At the time when I had been defeated at Sir-e-pul,¹ and was forced to retire, he had sent away the whole of his family, and had remained with me in the fort (of Samarkand) alone, and without any encumbrance to impede his going off. He was rather unmanly, and had several times played the same game.

When I arrived at Kabādiān,² Bāki Cheghāniāni, the younger brother of Khosrou Shah, who held Cheghāniān,³ with the towns of Safa and Termez, sent the Khatīb⁴ of Karshi, to express to me his wishes for my prosperity, and his desire to be permitted to join and accompany me as his prince; and, as I crossed the Amu, at the ferry of Ubāj, he himself came and paid his respects to me. At the desire of Bāki Cheghāniāni, I moved down towards Termez, when he brought his whole family and effects across the river and joined me, after which we proceeded towards Kahmerd and Bamiān (places at this time held by the son of Ahmed Kāsim,⁵ the sister’s son of Khosrou Shah), intending to place our families in the fortress of Ajer, one of the towns of Kahmerd,¹ and, after having put it in a posture of defence, to follow whatever plan seemed best to promise success. When we reached Aibek,² Yār Ali Belāl, who had formerly been in my service, and had conducted himself with bravery, but who had been separated from me during the commotions, and was now in the employment of Khosrou Shah, deserted with several young cavaliers, and came and joined me, bringing assurances from the Moghuls in Khosrou Shah’s service that they were all attached to my interests. On reaching the valley of Zindān,³ Kamber Ali Beg, surnamed Salākh (or the skinner), fled and came to me. In three or four marches Reaches
Kahmerd. we reached Kahmerd, having left our wives and families in the fortress of Ajer.

While we remained in the fort of Ajer, the marriage of Jehāngīr Mirza with the daughter of Sultan Mahmūd Mirza by Khanzādeh Begum was consummated. They had been engaged during the lifetime of the Mirzas, their fathers.

At this same period, Bāki Beg repeatedly, and with much earnestness, urged his sentiments, that to have two sovereigns in one country, and two generals in one army, was an unfailing source of confusion and ruin, and inevitably productive of rebellion, mutiny, and finally of dissolution; as the poet says,

(Persian)—

Ten dervīshes may repose on one cloak, But two sovereigns cannot be contained in the same climate. The man of God, when he eats half a loaf, Divides the other half among the poor and needy. If a king subdues a whole kingdom, nay a climate, Still, as before, he covets yet another.4

That there was every reason to expect that, in a few days, all the chiefs and servants of Khosrou Shah would come in and make their submission to the King; that among them there were many seditious and turbulent men, such as the sons of Ayūb Beg and some others, who had always been the movers and exciters of discord and enmity among the Mirzas; that it was best, at the present moment, to send away Jehāngīr Mirza for Khorasān on good and friendly terms, that he might not, by and by, occasion me regret and repentance. As it was not in my nature to treat my brothers or any of my relations with disrespect or harshness, however instant he was in his representations, He refuses. I could not be prevailed on to assent to them. For although great heart-burning and difference had formerly existed between Jehāngīr Mirza and me, arising from our rivalry in authority, and from our both aiming at the possession of the sovereignty,^a yet, at this time, he had left his country to accompany me, he was my brother and my dependant, and, in addition to this, had not at this time done anything which could be the ground of dissatisfaction. Afterwards, however, these very exciters of sedition who had been pointed out, Yūsef Ayūb and Behlūl Ayūb, deserted from me, went over to Jehāngīr Mirza, and were so successful in their seditious schemes and machinations, that they alienated his mind from me, and carried him into Khorasān, exactly as Bāki Beg had predicted.

At this time there came strange long-winded letters from Sultan Hussain Mirza to Badīa-ez-zemān, to me, to Khosrou Shah, and to Zūlnūn Beg. These letters are still by me. The purport of them was as follows: When the three brothers, Sultan Ahmed Mirza, Sultan Mahmūd Mirza, and Ulugh Beg Mirza, united their forces and advanced against me, I guarded the banks of the river Murghāb,¹ and the Mirzas, after having come close up to me, were compelled to retreat, without effecting anything. Should the Uzbeks now advance, I will again defend the banks of the Murghāb. Badīa-ez-zemān Mirza, after having put the fortresses of Balkh, Shaberghān, and Andekhūd,² in a state of defence, and confided them to trusty officers, must himself proceed to Garzewān, the Dareh-e-Zang,¹ and the rest of that hill-country. He also wrote to me to this effect^a: Do you defend Kahmerd, Ajer, and the tract of hill-country in that neighbourhood. Khosrou Shah, after leaving trusty men in Hissār and Kunduz, is to proceed, accompanied by his brother Wali, to the defence of the hilly tracts of Badakhshān and Khutlān, so that the Uzbeks will be forced to retreat without effecting anything.

These letters of Sultan Hussain Mirza threw us into despair; for, at that time, of the whole house of Taimūr Beg, there was no sovereign so respectable, either in regard to age, dominions, or military force; and it was expected that envoys and agents would have been treading hard on each other’s heels, and assiduously giving orders to collect so many vessels at the passes of Termez, Kilif, and Kirki,² and so many materials for constructing bridges; and that commands would have been issued for guarding carefully the upper passes³ of Togūzūlūm, that the inhabitants, whose spirit for some years had been quite broken down by the incursions of the Uzbeks, might have time to recover heart. But when a mighty prince, like Sultan Hussain Mirza, who occupied the throne of Taimūr Beg, instead of proposing to march against the enemy, only issued directions to strengthen a few posts, what hopes could people entertain?

Meanwhile, having left in Ajer such of the men and horses that had accompanied me as had been worn out with hunger and fatigue, together with the family, women, effects, and baggage of Bāki Cheghāniāni, of Ahmed Kāsim’s son, of the troops that accompanied them, and of the Aimāks who adhered to them, as well as everything on which they set a value, we marched out and took the field. Persons now arrived in uninterrupted succession from the The Mo-
ghuls in
Khosrou
Shah’s ser-
vice declare
for Bābur. Moghuls in Khosrou Shah’s service, announcing that the whole Moghul tribes, desirous of professing their allegiance to the King, were on their march from Taikhān,¹ towards Ishkamish and Felūl; that it was necessary, therefore, that his Majesty should move with the utmost speed to join them; that many of Khosrou Shah’s followers were much distracted,^a and would embrace the King’s service.

At this very period, information arrived that Sheibāni Khan had taken Andejān, and was advancing against Hissār and Kunduz. On hearing this news, Khosrou Shah, unable to support himself in Kunduz, took the route of Kābul with his whole force. No sooner had he left Kunduz, than Mulla Muhammed Tūrkestāni, one of his old and confidential servants, occupied that fortress, and declared for Sheibāni Khan. Just as I reached the Kizil-sū² (the Red River), by the route of Shamtū, three or four thousand heads of houses of the Moghul clans, who had been dependent on Khosrou Shah, and who had been in Hissār and Kunduz, came and joined me, with their whole families. Here, in order to gratify Bāki Beg, I was obliged to discharge Kamber Ali, the Moghul, who has been so often mentioned. He was a thoughtless and rude talker; and Bāki Beg could not put up with his manners. From this time forward, his son Abdal Shakūr continued in the service of Jehāngīr Mirza.

When Khosrou Shah learned that the Moghul tribes had joined me, he felt his own helplessness; and, seeing no remedy left, sent his son-in-law, Yākūb Ayūb, as his envoy, to make professions of submission and allegiance, and to assure me that, if I would enter into terms with him, he would come and submit himself. As Bāki Cheghāniāni, a man of much weight, though steadily attached to my service, yet was not without a natural bias in favour of his brother, he recommended a compromise to be made, on condition that Khosrou’s life should be spared, and his property left entirely to his own disposal. A treaty was accordingly concluded on these terms. After Yākūb had and visits
Bābur. taken leave, we marched down the Kizil-sū, and encamped near its conflux with the river of Anderāb.

Next morning (it was about the middle of the first Rabīa¹) I passed the Anderāb with a few attendants, and took my seat under the shade of a lofty palm-tree,^a in the territory of Dūshi.² From the opposite quarter Khosrou Shah advanced with great pomp and retinue; according to the custom and usage, he dismounted at a considerable distance, and walked up on foot. In approaching to salute, he bowed three times, and as often when he retired back. He also bowed once on the usual inquiries being made, and when he presented his offering; and he showed the same marks of respect to Jehāngīr Mirza, and Mirza Khan. This pompous man,^b who for years had acted according to his own will and pleasure, and who wanted nothing of royalty, except that he had not caused the Khutbeh to be read in his own name, now bent himself for twenty-five or twenty-six times successively, and went and came back and forward, till he was so tired that he nearly fell right forward. The visions of empire and authority in which for years he had indulged, vanished from his view. After he had saluted me and presented his tributary offering, I desired him to be seated. He sat down and for one or two garis³ we conversed on various subjects and incidents. Besides being of an unmanly and perfidious character, he showed also great want of propriety, and a sneering turn in his conversation.^c He made two remarks, in particular, which appeared singular as coming from him, at the moment when his most trusty and confidential servants were going over in troops before his eyes, and taking service with me; and when his affairs had arrived at such a pass, that though a man who in his day had enacted the sovereign, he yet was compelled, sore against his will, to come in this wretched and miserable way, and submit himself in a very paltry manner. One of these was when I was consoling him for the desertion of his servants; he replied, ‘These fellows have already left me four times, and always come back again.’ The other was on my asking after his younger brother, Wali; when he would come, and by what ford he would cross the Amu? he answered, ‘If he can find a ford he will come over speedily; but when a river comes down in flood, the fords change; as the proverb runs, “the river has carried down its fords.”’ At the very moment of the change of his fortune and of the desertion of his servants, Almighty God brought these words out of his own mouth. After one or two garis, I mounted and returned back to the camp, and he also returned to his encampment. That same day, great and small, good and bad, officers and servants, began to forsake him, and came and joined me with their families and effects; so that, on the morrow, between mid-day and afternoon prayers, not a man remained with him. (Arabic) ‘Say, O my Lord! Thou art the King of kings! Thou givest empire unto whom thou pleasest, and takest empire from whom thou pleasest; and increasest whom thou pleasest, and reducest whom thou pleasest: Beneficence is in thy hand; for, verily, thou art powerful over all things.’¹ The Lord is wonderful in his might! A man who was master of twenty or thirty thousand retainers, and who possessed the whole tract of country formerly subject to Sultan Mahmūd Mirza, extending from Kalūgheh,² which is also termed Derbend-e-āheni (the Iron-gate), as far as the Hindū-kūsh mountains, and one of whose tax-gatherers, named Hassan Birlās, an aged man, had conducted me, in the surliest manner, from Ilāk to Ubāj, giving me orders how far I was to march, and where I was to encamp; that this very person, in the space of half a day, without battle, without contest, should be reduced to appear in such a state of distress and wretchedness before a needy and reduced fugitive like me, who had only two hundred or two hundred and fifty tatterdemalions, all in the greatest want; that he should no longer have any power over his own servants, nor over his wealth, nor even his life, was a wonderful dispensation of the Omnipotent!

The evening of the same day in which I returned from the interview with Khosrou Shah, Mirza Khan¹ came into my presence and accused him of^a the murder of his brothers. Many among us were for receiving the charge; and, indeed, it was conformable to every law, human and divine, that such a man should meet with condign punishment; but as an agreement had been entered into with butsuffered
to depart. Khosrou Shah, he was left free and unmolested, and orders were given that he might carry off as much of his property as he chose. He accordingly loaded three or four strings² of mules, and as many camels as he had, with jewels, gold and silver utensils, and other valuables, and set out with them. I directed Shīrīm Taghāi to conduct Khosrou Shah by the route of Ghūri³ and Dehāneh towards Khorasān, and then to proceed himself to Kahmerd and bring my family after me to Kābul.

I now left my encampment and marched against Kābul. I halted at Khwājeh zaid. That same day, as Hamzah-bī Mangfat, who headed a plundering party of Uzbeks, had made an incursion, and was ravaging the territory of Dūshi,¹ I dispatched Syed Kāsim, the chamberlain, and Ahmed Kāsim Kohbur, with a party of horse, who fell upon the pillagers, completely routed them, and brought in a number of their heads. At this station the arms and armour which were left in the stores of Khosrou Shah were divided among the troops. There were about seven or eight hundred coats of mail, and suits of horse furniture. These were one part of the articles which Khosrou Shah left behind^a; there were many others beside, but nothing of consequence.

From Khwājeh zaid, by three or four marches, we reached Ghūrbend.² On coming to our ground at Ushter-sheher, we got intelligence that Sherkeh Arghūn, the Beg in whom Mukīm reposed the greatest confidence, still ignorant of my approach, had advanced with an army, and taken post on the river Bārān, for the purpose of intercepting any who might attempt, by the route of Penjhīr,³ to join Abdal Razāk Mirza,⁴ who had fled at that time from Kābul, and was then among the Turkolāni Afghans in the territory of Lamghān. The instant I received this information, which was between mid-day and afternoon prayers, we set out, and marching all night, ascended the hill-pass of Hupiān.^b5 Till this time I had never seen the star Soheil¹ (Canopus), but on reaching the top of a hill, Soheil appeared below,^a bright to the south. I said, ‘This cannot be Soheil!’ They answered, ‘It is indeed Soheil.’ Bāki Cheghāniāni recited the following verse:

O Soheil, how far dost thou shine, and where dost thou rise?
Thine eye is an omen of good fortune to him on whom it falls.

The sun was a spear’s length high when we reached the foot of the valley of Sanjed and alighted. The party whom we had sent on in advance to reconnoitre, with a number of enterprising young warriors, fell in with Sherkeh below Karabāgh,² in the territory of Aikeri-yār, and instantly attacked him; they kept harassing him for some time in a skirmishing fight, till reinforcements came up, when they made a vigorous charge, and completely routed his troops. Sherkeh himself was dismounted and made prisoner, with seventy, eighty, or a hundred of his best men. I spared his life, and he entered into my service.

When Khosrou Shah abandoned Kunduz, and set out for Kābul, without troubling himself about his Īls and Ulūses (the wandering Tūrki and Moghul tribes), the troops in his service, including the Īls and Ulūses, formed five or six bodies. One of these bodies was composed of the men from the hill-country of Badakhshān. Sīdīm Ali Darbān,³ with the Hazāras of the desert,^b having passed the straits of Penjhīr,⁴ joined me at this stage, and entered into my service. Another of these bodies, under Yūsef Ayūb and Behlūl Ayūb, joined me in like manner at the same place. Other two of these bodies, the one from Wali de-
feated, and
put to
death. Khutlān, under the command of Wali, the brother of Khosrou; the other from Ilānchuk, Nūkderi, and Kākshāl, with the Aimāks⁵ that had settled in Kunduz, advanced by the route of Anderāb and Seirāb,¹ with an intention of passing by the straits of Penjhīr. The Aimāks reached Seirab first; and as Wali was advancing in their rear, they took possession of the road, engaged and defeated him. Wali himself, after his discomfiture, fled for refuge to the Uzbeks; but his head was struck off in the public market² of Samarkand by the orders of Sheibāni Khan; all the rest of his servants and officers, being discomfited, plundered, and destitute, came and joined me, along with the Aimāks, at this same stage. Syed Yūsef Beg Oghlākchi also came along with the Aimāks to this place.

Marching thence, we halted in the auleng, or meadow, of Āk-serāi,³ which is situated close upon Karabāgh: Khosrou Shah’s men, who had long been inured to the practice of violence, and to disregard of discipline, now began to oppress the people of the country. At last an active retainer of Sīdīm Ali Darbān having carried off a jar of oil from some person by force, I ordered him to be brought out^a and beaten with sticks. He expired under the punishment. This example put an end to such practices.

We here held a consultation whether or not it was advisable to proceed against Kābul. Syed Yūsef Beg and others were of opinion that, as the winter was at hand, we should proceed to Lamghān, and there act as circumstances might require. Bāki Cheghāniāni and several others were for marching directly on Kābul; and that plan being finally adopted, we marched off from our station, and stopped at the kūrūgh (or Park) of Āma. I was here joined by my mother the Khanum, and the rest of the household that had been left behind at Kahmerd. They had endured Khosrou
Shah ex-
pelled from
Kahmerd. great hardships in their march to meet me. The incidents were as follows: I had sent Shīrīm Taghāi to conduct Khosrou Shah on the route to Khorasān, and directed him afterwards to bring on my household. By the time, however, that they reached Dehāneh, Shīrīm Taghāi found that he was not his own master, and Khosrou Shah took the resolution of accompanying him to Kahmerd. Ahmed Kāsim, the sister’s son of Khosrou Shah, was then in Kahmerd. Khosrou Shah prevailed upon Ahmed Kāsim to behave very ill to the families left in the place. Many of the Moghul retainers of Bāki Cheghāniāni were in Kahmerd along with these families. They privately, in concert with Shīrīm Taghāi, prepared to seize both Khosrou Shah and Ahmed Kāsim, who, however, taking the alarm, fled away by the road which leads by the skirts of the valley of Ajer, and took the route of Khorasān. The effect of this firmness of the Moghuls having been to rid themselves of these enemies, the guard which was with the families being now freed from any danger from Khosrou Shah, left Ajer. By the time they reached Kahmerd, however, the Saghānchi clan were up in arms, seized the passes on the road, and plundered a number of the families, and of the Īls and Ulūses (or wandering clans), who had followed the fortunes of Bāki Beg. The son of Kūl Bayezīd Tūrk,¹ who was young, was made a prisoner by them. He came to Kābul three or four years after. The families which had been plundered and dispersed came on by way of the pass of Kipchāk, the same by which I had come, and joined me in the kūrūgh of Āma.

Leaving this station, the second march brought us to Bābur re-
solves to
besiege
Kābul. the auleng (or pasture grounds)^a of Chālāk, where we halted. Having held a consultation, in which the siege of Kābul was determined on, we marched forward. I, with the main body, halted between Haider Tāki’s garden and the tomb of Kūl Bayezīd, the cup-bearer. Jehāngīr Mirza, with the right wing, took his station at my great Chārbāgh.² Nāsir Mirza, with the left wing, took post in an auleng (or meadow) behind the tomb of Kūtluk Kadem. I repeatedly sent persons to confer with Mukīm; they sometimes brought back insincere excuses, sometimes conciliatory answers. But his real object, all the while, was to gain time; for, when I took Sherkeh prisoner, he had dispatched expresses to his father and elder brother, and he now attempted to create delays, in hopes of getting succour from them.

One day I ordered that the whole host, main body, right wing, and left, after arraying themselves in complete armour, and clothing their horses in mail, should advance close up to the city, display their arms, and inflict a little chastisement on the town’s people. Jehāngīr Mirza, with the right wing, marched forward towards the Kūcheh bāgh.¹ As there was a river in front of the main body, I proceeded by the tomb of Kūtluk kadem, and stationed myself on an eminence in front of a rising ground. The advanced body spread themselves out above Kūtluk kadem’s bridge; at that time, however, there was no bridge there. Our troops galloped insultingly close up to the Currier’s² gate. The men who had advanced out of the town, being few in number, could not stand their ground, but took to flight, and sought shelter in the city. A number of the town’s people of Kābul had gone out on the glacis of the citadel, on the side of an eminence, in order to witness the sight. As they fled, a great dust arose, and many of them were thrown down. Between the gate and the bridge, on a rising ground, and in the high road, pits had been dug, in which pointed stakes had been fixed,^a and then the whole covered over with grass. Sultan Kuli Chanāk, and several other cavaliers, fell into these pits as they pushed on at full speed. On the right wing, one or two cavaliers exchanged a few sabre blows with a part of the garrison who sallied out on the side of the Kūcheh bāgh, but soon returned, as they had no orders to engage.

The men in the town were now greatly alarmed and dejected, when Mukīm, through some of the Begs, offered to submit, and agreed to surrender Kābul; on which he was introduced by the mediation of Bāki Beg Cheghāniāni, and tendered his allegiance. I did all that I could to dispel his apprehensions, and received him with affability and kindness. It was arranged that he should next day march out with all his soldiers, adherents, effects, and property, and surrender the fortress. As the retainers of Khosrou Shah had not, for a long period, been subjected to discipline, but, on the contrary, had indulged in all kind of injustice and rapine, I appointed Jehāngīr Mirza, and Nāsir Mirza, with some of the principal Begs, and my most trusty servants,^a to guard the family of Mukīm, as well as Mukīm himself and his dependants, while they left Kābul with their goods and property; and I appointed Tībah¹ as his place of residence. Next morning the Mirzas and Begs who had gone to the gate, observing an uproar and mobbing of people, dispatched a man to inform me of the circumstance; adding, ‘Until you come, we shall not be able to put a stop to the commotion.’ I mounted, and having repaired to the spot, allayed the tumult, but not until I had ordered three or four of the rioters to be shot with arrows, and one or two to be cut to pieces. Mukīm and his train then set out, and reached Tībah in quiet and safety.

In the latter end of the month of the latter Rabīa,² by the blessing of Almighty God, I gained possession of Kābul and Ghazni, with the country and provinces dependent on them, without battle or contest.

The country of Kābul is situate in the fourth climate, in the midst of the inhabited part of the world. On the east it has the Lamghānāt,³ Pershāwer, Hashnaghar,⁴ and some of the countries of Hind. On the west it has the mountain districts, in which are situated Karnūd and Ghūr. This mountainous tract is at present occupied and inhabited by the Hazāra and Nūkderi tribes. On the north are the countries of Kunduz and Anderāb, from which it is separated by the mountain of Hindū-kūsh. On the south are Fermūl and Naghz,¹ and Bannu and Afghanistān.² It is a narrow City of
Kābul. country, but stretching to a considerable extent. Its length is in the direction of east and west. It is surrounded on all sides by hills. The walls of the town extend up a hill. To the south-west of the town there is a small hill, which is called Shah-Kābul,³ from the circumstance of a King of Kābul’s having built a palace on its summit. This hill begins at the defile of Deveren,⁴ and reaches all the way to that of Deh-Yākūb. It may be about a farsang⁵ in circumference. The skirts of this hill are entirely covered with gardens. In the time of my paternal uncle Ulugh Beg Mirza, Weis Ātkeh^a conducted a stream of water along the bottom of it; and all the gardens about the hill are cultivated by means of this stream. Lower down^b the river there is a place called Kulkīneh,¹ in a retired, hidden situation. Much debauchery has gone on at that place. The verse of Khwājeh Hāfiz may be parodied and applied to it—

O for the happy times, when, free and uncontroll’d,
We lived in Kulkīneh with no very good fame.

Southward from the town, and to the east of Shah-Kābul, there is a lake² nearly a farsang in circumference. Three springs of water issue from Shah-Kābul, and flow towards the city; two of them are in the vicinity of Kulkīneh. One of these runs by the tomb of Khwājeh Shams, and the other by the Kademgāh³ (place of the footsteps) of Khwājeh Khizer. These two places are the favourite resorts of the people of Kābul. The third fountain is opposite to Khwājeh Abd-al-samad, and bears the name of Khwājeh Roushenāi. There is a small ridge which runs out from the hill of Shah-Kābul, and is called Ukābein;⁴ and there is besides another small hill, on which stands the citadel of Kābul. The fortified town lies on the north of the citadel. The citadel is of surprising height, and enjoys an excellent climate, overlooking the large lake, and the three aulengs (or meadows) called Siāh-sang, Sung-kurghān, and Chālāk, which stretch below it. These aulengs present a very beautiful prospect when the plains are green. In the spring,^a the north wind blows incessantly; they call it bād e Parwān (the pleasant breeze).¹ In the north part of the citadel there are houses with windows, which enjoy a delightful atmosphere. Mulla Muhammed Tālib Maamāi² composed the following distich in praise of the citadel of Kābul, under the character of Badia-ez-zemān Mirza³:

(Persian)—

Drink wine in the citadel of Kābul, and send round the cup without stopping; For it is at once a mountain and a sea, a town and a desert.

The people of Hindustān call every country beyond their own Khorasān, in the same manner as the Arabs term all except Arabia, Ajem. On the road between Hindustān and Khorasān, there are two great marts: the one Kābul, the other Kandahār. Caravans, from Ferghāna, Tūrkestān, Samarkand, Balkh, Bokhāra, Hissār, and Badakhshān, all resort to Kābul; while those from Khorasān repair to Its trade. Kandahār. This country lies between Hindustān and Khorasān. It is an excellent and profitable market for commodities. Were the merchants to carry their goods as far as Khitā or Rūm,⁴ they would scarcely get the same profit on them. Every year, seven, eight, or ten thousand horses arrive in Kābul. From Hindustān, every year, fifteen or twenty thousand pieces of cloth are brought by caravans. The commodities of Hindustān are slaves,^b white clothes, sugar-candy, refined and common sugar, drugs, and spices. There are many merchants that are not satisfied with getting thirty or forty for ten.⁵ The productions of Khorasān, Rūm, Irāk, and Chīn,¹ may all be found in Kābul, which is the very emporium of Hindustān. Climate of
Kābul. Its warm and cold districts are close by each other. From Kābul you may in a single day go to a place where snow never falls, and in the space of two astronomical hours, you may reach a spot where snow lies always, except now and then when the summer happens to be peculiarly hot. In the districts dependent on Kābul, there is great abundance of the fruits both of hot and cold climates, and they are found in its immediate vicinity. Produce. The fruits of the cold districts in Kābul are grapes, pomegranates, apricots, peaches, pears, apples, quinces, jujubes,² damsons, almonds, and walnuts; all of which are found in great abundance. I caused the sour-cherry-tree³ to be brought here and planted; it produced excellent fruit, and continues thriving. The fruits it possesses peculiar to a warm climate are the orange, citron, the amlūk,⁴ and sugar-cane, which are brought from the Lamghānāt. I caused the sugar-cane to be brought, and planted it here. They bring the jilghūzek⁵ from Nijrau. They have numbers of bee-hives, but honey is brought only from the hill-country on the west.^a The rawāsh⁶ of Kābul is of excellent quality; its quinces and damask plums are excellent, as well as its bādrengs.¹ There is a species of grape which they call the water-grape, that is very delicious; its wines are strong and intoxicating. That produced on the skirt of the mountain of Khwājeh Khan-Saīd is celebrated for its potency, though I describe it only from what I have heard;

The drinker knows the flavour of the wine; how should the sober know it?

Kābul is not fertile in grain; a return of four or five to one is reckoned favourable. The melons too are not good, but those raised from seed brought from Khorasān are tolerable. The climate is extremely delightful, and in this respect there is no such place in the known world. In the nights of summer you cannot sleep without a postīn (or lambskin cloak). Though the snow falls very deep in the winter, yet the cold is never excessively intense. Samarkand and Tabrīz are celebrated for their fine climate, but the cold there is extreme beyond measure.

In the neighbourhood of Kābul there are four fine aulengs or meadows. On the north-east is the auleng of Sung-Kurghān, at the distance of about two kos. It is a fine plain, and the grass agrees well with horses; there are few mosquitoes in it. To the north-west lies the auleng of Chālāk, about one kos from Kābul. It is extensive; but in the summer the mosquitoes greatly annoy the horses. On the west is the auleng of Deveren,² which consists properly of two plains, the one the auleng of Tībah, the other that of Kūsh-nāder, which would make the aulengs of Kābul five in number. Each of these two aulengs lies about a farsang from Kābul. Though but of small extent, they afford excellent pasture for horses, and are not pestered with gnats. There is not in all Kābul any auleng equal to these. The auleng of Siāh-Sang lies on the east of Kābul. Between this last auleng and the Currier’s-gate stands the tomb of Kūtluk kadem. This auleng being much infested with mosquitoes in the hot weather, is not in such high estimation as the others. Adjoining to this last valley is that of Kamri. By this computation it appears that there are six aulengs about Kābul, but we hear only of the four aulengs.

The country of Kābul is very strong, and of difficult access, whether to foreigners or enemies. Between Balkh, Kunduz, and Badakhshān on the one side, and Kābul on the other, is interposed the mountain of Hindū-kūsh, the passes over which are seven in number. Three of these are by Penjhīr;¹ the uppermost² of which is Khawāk;³ lower down is that of Tūl;⁴ and still lower that of Bazārak. Of these three passes, the best is that of Tūl, but the way is somewhat longer, whence it probably got its name of Tūl (or the long). The most direct pass is that of Bazārak. Both of these passes lead over to Sirāb.⁵ As the pass of Bazārak terminates at a village named Parendi, the people of Sarāb call it the pass of Parendi. Another route is that of Parwān. Between Parwān and the high mountain^a there are seven minor passes, which they call Haft-bacheh (the Seven Younglings). As you come from the Anderāb side, two roads unite below the main pass, and lead down on Parwān by way of the Seven Younglings. This is a very difficult road. There are besides three roads in^a Ghūrbend. That which is nearest to Parwān is the pass of Yangi-yuli (the new road), which descends by Waliān and Khinjān. Another route is that of Kipchāk, which leads by the junction of the rivers of Surkhāb and Anderāb. This is a good pass. Another route is by the pass of Shibertu. During the summer, when the waters are up, you can go by this pass only by taking the route of Bāmiān and Sikān;¹ but in the winter season, they travel by way of Ābdareh. In winter, all the roads are shut up for four or five months, except this alone;^b such as then proceed to Shibertu through this pass, travel by way of Ābdareh. In the season of spring,^c when the waters are in flood, it is as difficult to pass these roads as in winter; for it is impossible to cross the water-courses, on account of the flooding of the torrents, so that the road by the water-courses is not passable; and as for passing along the mountains, the mountain track is so difficult, that it is only for three or four months in autumn, when the snow and the waters decrease, that it is practicable. The Kafir robbers also issue from the mountains and narrow paths, and infest this passage.

The road from Khorasān leads by way of Kandahār. It is a straight level road, and does not go through any hill-passes.

From Hindustān there are four roads which lead up to Kābul. One of these is by way of the Lamghānāt,² and comes by the hill of Kheiber, in which there is one short hill-pass. Another road leads by Bangash; a third by Naghz,³ and the fourth by Fermūl.⁴ In all of these roads there are passes of more or less difficulty.^a Those who come by them cross the river Sind at three different places.¹ Those who go by the Nilāb passage,² take the road of Lamghānāt. In the winter season, however, they cross the river Sind, the river of Sawād, and the river of Kābul, above the conflux of this last river with the Sind. In most of the expeditions which I made into Hindustān, I forded [A.D. 1525.] these rivers in this way; but the last time, when I invaded that country, defeated Sultan Ibrahīm and conquered Hindustān, I crossed at the Nilāb passage in boats. Except at the place that has been mentioned, the river Sind can nowhere be passed unless in boats. Those again who cross at Dīnkōt³ take the Bangash road; while those who cross at Choupāreh⁴ take the road of Fermūl, if proceeding to Ghazni, and the road of the dasht or plains if they are going to Kandahār.

In the country of Kābul there are many and various tribes. Its valleys and plains are inhabited by Tūrks, Aimāks, and Arabs. In the city and the greater part of the villages, the population consists of Tājiks.^b Many other of the villages and districts are occupied by Pashāis, Parāchis, Tājiks, Berekis, and Afghans. In the hill-country to the west, reside the Hazāras and Nukderis. Among the Hazāra and Nukderi tribes, there are some who speak the Moghul language. In the hill-country to the north-east lies Kaferistān, such as Kattor¹ and Gebrek. To the south is Afghanistān. There are eleven or twelve different languages spoken in Kābul: Arabic, Persian, Tūrki, Moghuli, Hindi, Afghani, Pashāi, Parāchi, Geberi, Bereki, and Lamghāni.² Pashai and Laghmāni are Pisāchah languages, in fact Laghmāni is Pashai, the difference, if any, being one of dialect. Prāchi is the general name given to the languages of East India by those living in the west. As a specific language it often denotes the tongue of Oudh (Purbi), and might have got to Kābul through the Purbyas, who were and are great travellers. Geberi or Gabri is the language of the Parsees of Yezd and Kirmān. It is a very interesting dialect of Persian (see Grundriss der iranischen Philologie, vol. i (2, p. 381). Bereki or Baraki is the language generally known as Urmuri, though by its speakers it is called Bragistah. It is spoken by a tribe living mainly at Kāniguram in Waziristan, and gets its name of Baraki from Barak in the Logar Valley, where some of them lived. Urmuri is a curious linguistic island, and presents an interesting ethnological problem, as it is an Eranian language having no connexion whatever with Pushtu or Baluchi, being most nearly allied to Kurdish.]

It is dubious whether so many distinct races, and different languages, could be found in any other country.

The country of Kābul is divided into fourteen Tumāns. In Samarkand, Bokhāra, and those quarters, the smaller districts into which a country is divided are called Tumān: in Andejān, Kāshghar, and the neighbouring countries they get the name of Urchīn, and in Hindustān they call them Perganah. Although Bajour, Sawād, Pershāwer, and Hashnaghar³ originally belonged to Kābul; yet at the present date some of these districts have been desolated, and others of them entirely occupied by the tribes of Afghans, so that they can no longer be properly regarded as provinces.^a

On the east lies the Lamghānāt,⁴ which comprehends five Tumāns and two Bulūks.⁵ The largest of the Tumāns of Lamgān is Nangenhār,¹ which, in many histories, is written Nagarhār. The residence of the Dārogha, or commandant of this district, is Adīnapūr. Nangenhār lies to the east of Kābul, thirteen farsangs of very difficult road. In three or four places there are some very short kotals or steep hill-passes, and in two or three places there are narrows or straits. The Khirilchi and other robber Afghan tribes infest this road with their depredations.^a There was no population along this road till I settled Karatū below the Kurūk-sāi,² which rendered the road safe. The Garmsīl (or region of warm temperature) is divided from the Sardsīl (or region of cold temperature) only by the steep pass of Bādām-chashmeh.³ Snow falls on the Kābul side of this pass, but not on the Kurūk-sāi and Lamghānāt side. The moment you descend this hill-pass, you see quite another world. Its timber is different, its grains^b are of another sort, its animals of a different species, and the manners and customs of the inhabitants are of a different kind. Nangenhār has nine streams.⁴ Its rice and wheat are excellent. Oranges, citrons, and pomegranates are very abundant, and of good quality. Opposite to the fort of Adīnapūr,⁵ to the south, on a rising ground, I formed a chārbāgh (or great garden), in the year nine hundred and fourteen.¹ It is called Bāgh e wafā (the Garden of Fidelity). It overlooks the river, which flows between the fort and the palace.^a In the year in which A. H. 930.
A. D. 1524. I defeated Behār Khan and conquered Lahore and Dipālpūr, I brought plantains and planted them here. They grew and thrived. The year before I had also planted the sugar-cane in it, which throve remarkably well. I sent some of them to Badakhshān and Bokhāra. It is on an elevated site, enjoys running water, and the climate in the winter season is temperate. In the garden there is a small hillock, from which a stream of water, sufficient to drive a mill, incessantly flows into the garden below. The fourfold field-plot² of this garden is situated on this eminence. On the south-west part of this garden is a reservoir of water ten gaz square, which is wholly planted round with orange trees; there are likewise pomegranates. All around the piece of water the ground is quite covered with clover. This spot is the very eye of the beauty of the garden. At the time when the orange becomes yellow, the prospect is delightful. Indeed the garden is charmingly laid out. To the south of this garden lies the Koh-e-sefīd (the White Mountain) of Nangenhār, which separates Bangash from Nangenhār. There is no road by which one can pass it on horseback. Nine streams descend from this mountain. The snow on its summit never diminishes, whence probably comes the name of Koh-e-sefīd³ (the White Mountain). No snow ever falls in the dales at its foot. Between the mountain and the garden there may be as much interval as would serve a party to encamp on.^b On the skirts of this hill there are many airy and beautiful situations. The water which descends from it is naturally so cold, that it does not require ice to cool it. On the south of the fort of Adīnapūr is the Surkh-rūd¹ (the Red Rivulet). The fort is situated on an eminence, which, towards the river, is forty or fifty gaz in perpendicular height. On the north there is a detached mass of mountain. The fortress is very strong. This last mountain forms the division between Nangenhār and the Lamghānāt. Whenever it snows at Kābul, the snow falls also on the top of this mountain, by which means the people of the Lamghānāt can tell, from the appearance of its top, when it snows at Kābul. In travelling from Kābul to Lamghān,² there is one road by which, after passing Kurūk-sāi, you proceed through the steep pass of Dibri, and reach the Lamghānāt by way of Būlān.^a There is another road,³ by which, crossing Kurūk-sāi lower down than Karabūk, and passing the river Bārān⁴ at Uluk-Nūr,⁵ and thence proceeding by the hill-pass of Badij,⁶ you come down upon Lamghān. If one travel by the road of Nijrau he passes on by Bedrau, and, proceeding by Karabankerik,^b falls into the hill-pass of Badij. Though Nangenhār be spoken of as one of the five Tumāns of Lamghān,¹ yet there are only three Tumāns which properly bear the name of Lamghān.

The first of these three is the Tumān of Alisheng,² which, on the north, consists of rugged snowy hills that join the mountain of Hindū-kūsh. That mountainous country is entirely in Kaferistān. The part of Kaferistān nearest to Alisheng is Mīl; and the river of Alisheng comes down from Mīl.³ The tomb of the holy Lām, the father of Nūh,⁴ is in the Tumān of Alisheng. In some histories, the holy Lām is denominated Lāmek and Lāmekān. The people of that country have a general practice of changing the letter Kāf into Ghain, and it seems very probable that the name Lamghān originated from that circumstance.

The second Tumān is Alingār. The part of Kaferistān that is nearest to Alingār is Gawār, and the river of Alingār comes down from Gawār. These two rivers,⁵ after passing through Alisheng and Alingār, unite with each other, and afterwards fall into the river Bārān,⁶ below the third Tumān, which is called Mandrāwar.

Of the two Bulūks which have been mentioned, one is Dareh-Nūr⁷ (the Valley of Light), which is an uncommonly fine tract. The fort is situated at the entrance of the valley, on the projecting point of a mountain, and washed by a river on both of its sides. The grounds are chiefly laid out in rice-fields, and can be passed only by the high road. It has the orange, the citron, and the fruits of a warm climate. It has likewise a few date trees. The banks of the river, which flows on the two sides of the fort, are quite covered with trees; the most abundant of which is the chob-amlūk, which the Tūrks generally name karayemūsh.¹ This fruit is very abundant in the Dareh-Nūr, but is found nowhere else. It has also grapes, all of which they grow upon trees.² The wine of Dareh-Nūr is famous over all the Lamghānāt. It is of two kinds, which they term areh-tāshi (the stone-saw), and suhān-tāshi (the stone file). The stone-saw is of a yellowish colour; the stone-file, of a fine red. The stone-saw, however, is the better wine of the two, though neither of them equals their reputation. Higher up, at the head of the glens, in this mountain, there are some apes to be met with. Apes are found lower down towards Hindustān, but none higher up than this hill. The inhabitants used formerly to keep hogs,³ but in my time they have renounced the practice.

Kūner and Nūrgil form another Tumān, which lies out of the way, and at some distance from Lamghān. It is situated in the midst of Kaferistān, which forms its boundary. Although it is equal in extent to the other Tumāns, yet, from this circumstance, it yields less revenue, and the inhabitants pay less. The river of Cheghānserāi,⁴ after passing through Kaferistān from the north-east, and dividing this country, unites with the river Bārān, in the Bulūk of Kāmeh, and then passes onward to the east. Nūrgil¹ lies on the west, and Kuner on the east of this river. Amīr Syed Ali Hamadāni departed this life in a spot one farsang higher up than Kuner.^a His disciples carried him hence to Khutlān. A mausoleum A. D. 1514. is erected on the place where he died. In the year 920, when I came and took Cheghānserāi, I circumambulated his tomb²; the orange, citron, and karenj³ abound there. They get a strong and heady wine from Kaferistān. The inhabitants relate a strange circumstance, which appears to be impossible, but which is, however, constantly told. The lower part of this Tumān is called Milteh-Kandi, below which the country belongs to the Dareh-Nūr and Ater.⁴ Higher up than this Milteh-Kandi, in the whole of this hill country, comprehending Kuner, Nūrgil, Bajour, Sawād, and all that neighbourhood, it is the custom, when a woman dies, to place her on a bier, which they lift up by the four sides. If the woman has lived virtuously, she shakes the bearers to such a degree, that, even when they are upon their guard, and attempting to prevent it, the corpse falls from the bier. If, however, she has done anything amiss, no motion takes place. It is not solely from the people of this place that I have had information of the practice, but the men of Bajour, Sawād, and the whole of the hill-country, agree in their accounts. Haider Ali Bajouri, who was Sultan of Bajour, and who governed that country with much justice, when his mother died, neither made lamentation, nor expressed sorrow, nor arrayed himself in black, but only said, ‘Go and place her on the bier; if she does not move, I will burn her.’⁵ They placed her on the bier, and the corpse had the desired motion. On hearing this he put on black, and gave vent to his sorrow.

Another Bulūk is Cheghānserāi, which contains one village only, and is of limited extent, lying in the very jaws or entrance of Kaferistān. As its inhabitants, though Musulmans, are mingled with the Kafers, they live according to the customs of that race. The large river, known by the name of the River of Cheghānserāi, comes from the north-east of Cheghānserāi, behind Bajour. Another smaller stream,¹ coming from the west, after flowing down through the midst of Pīch, a district of Kaferistān, falls into it, The wine of Cheghānserāi is strong and yellowish; but bears no sort of comparison with that of the Dareh-Nūr. In Cheghānserāi there are neither grapes nor vineyards; but they bring the wines down the river from Kaferistān and Kaferistān-Pīch. When I took Cheghānserāi, the Kafers of Pīch came to their assistance. So prevalent is the use of wine among them, that every Kafer has a khīg, or leathern bottle of wine about his neck; they drink wine instead of water.

Kāmeh,² though not a distinct district, but under Nangenhār, yet gets the name of a Bulūk.

Another Tumān is Nijrau, which lies north-east from Kābul, in the hill-country. Behind it, in the hill-country, all the inhabitants are Kafers, and the country is Kaferistān, It is a sort of sequestered corner. Grapes and fruits are extremely abundant in this district; and it produces a great quantity of wine, but in making they boil it. In the winter season they fatten a number of fowls. The inhabitants are wine-bibbers, never pray, fear neither God nor man, and are heathenish in their usages. In the hills of this district they have the pine, the jilgūzeh,³ the oak, and the mastic tree⁴ in abundance. The fir, pine, and oak trees grow beneath Nijrau, but are not met with higher up; they are among the trees of Hindustān. The people of this hill-country burn the fir instead of lamps; it gives light, and burns like a candle. It has a very singular appearance. In the mountain districts of Nijrau, the flying-fox¹ is found. It is an animal larger than a squirrel, with a kind of leathern web stretching between its fore and hind feet, like a bat’s wing. They frequently brought them to me. It is said that they can fly a bowshot from a higher tree to a lower one. I myself have never seen them fly, but have let one go beside a tree, which it quickly clung to and ascended; and, when driven away, expanded its wings like a bird, and came to the ground without injury. In these mountains is found the bird lūkheh,² which is also termed the būkalamūn, or Chameleon-bird, and which has, between its head and its tail, five or six different colours. It has a brilliant changeable colour, like the neck of a dove, and is larger than the beautiful partridge, named kibk-i-dari. It is probable that this bird is that which in Hindustān passes for the kibk-i-dari. The people of the country relate a singular circumstance concerning it. In the winter season these birds come down to the skirts of the hills; and if in their flight they happen to pass over a vineyard, they are no longer able to fly, and are caught.³ In Nijrau there is also a species of rat, which is named the musk-rat, and has scent of musk, but I have not seen it.⁴

Penjhīr⁵ is another Tumān. It lies upon the road, and is in the immediate vicinity of Kaferistān. The thoroughfare and inroads of the robbers of Kaferistān are through Penjhīr. In consequence of their vicinity to the Kafers, the inhabitants of this district are happy to pay them a fixed contribution. Since I last invaded Hindustān, and subdued it, the Kafers have descended into Penjhīr, and returned, after slaying a great number of people, and committing extensive ravages.

There is another Tumān, named Ghūrbend.¹ In this country they call a steep hill-pass bend; and as they cross over to Ghūr by this pass, the district, from that circumstance, has acquired the name of Ghūrbend. The Hazāras have got possession of the tops of its valleys. It contains a few villages, but yields little revenue. It is said, that on the mountains of Ghūrbend there are mines of silver and of lapis-lazuli. On the skirts of the hills there are some districts; in the upper part are Mīteh, Kacheh, and Parwān; and lower down are twelve or thirteen villages. All of them abound in fruits, and their wines come from this tract; the strongest wine comes from Khwājeh Khan-Saīd. As all these villages lie on the skirts of the mountain, or on the mountain itself, although they pay something as revenue, yet they are not regularly rated in the revenue rolls. Lower down than these villages, along the skirts of the mountains, and between them and the river Bārān, lie two detached spots of level ground; the one called the Kurrah-e-Tāziān, the other the Dasht-e-Sheikh.² In the warm season they are covered with the chekīn-taleh grass in a very beautiful manner,^a and the Aimāks and Tūrks resort to them. In the skirts of these mountains the ground is richly diversified by various kinds of tulips. I once directed them to be counted, and they brought in thirty-two or thirty-three different sorts of tulips. There is one species which has a scent in some degree like the rose, and which I termed lāleh-gulbūi (the rose-scented tulip). This species is found only in the dasht-e-Sheikh (the Sheikh’s plain), in a small spot of ground, and nowhere else. In the skirts of the same hills, below Parwān, is produced the lāleh-sad barg¹ (or hundred-leaved tulip), which is likewise found only in one narrow spot of ground, as we emerge from the straits of Ghūrbend. Between these two plains there is a small hill, on which there is a line of sandy ground, reaching from the top to the bottom of the hill. They called it Khwājeh reg i rawān.² They say that in the summer season the sound of drums and nagarets issues from this sand.

There are a number of other districts^a belonging to Kābul. On the south-west of Kābul, is a high snowy³ mountain, on which the snow of one year generally falls on the snow of another. It happens very rarely that the old snow has disappeared before the new falls. When the ice-houses of Kābul are exhausted, they fetch ice from this mountain to cool their water. It is three farsangs from Kābul. This hill and that of Bāmiān are both exceedingly lofty. The Hirmand,⁴ the Sind, the Dūghābeh of Kunduz, and the river of Balkh, all take their rise in this mountain; and it is said, that in the same day a person may drink from the streams of all these four rivers. The districts^b which I mentioned are chiefly on the skirts of this mountain. Their gardens are numerous,^c and their grapes, as well as every other kind of fruit, abundant. Among these villages there are none to be compared with Istālīf and Isterghach,⁵ which were termed by Ulugh Beg Mirza, Khorasān and Samarkand. Pamghān is also within the range of these districts^a; and though it cannot be compared with those just mentioned, in respect to grapes and fruits, is beyond all comparison superior to them in respect to climate. The mountain of Pamghān¹ always keeps its snow. Few quarters possess a district^b that can rival Istālīf. A large river runs through it, and on either side of it are gardens,^c green, gay, and beautiful. Its water is so cold, that there is no need of icing it; and it is particularly pure. In this district is a garden, called Bāgh-e-kalān (or the Great Garden), which Ulugh Beg Mirza² seized upon. I paid the price of the garden to the proprietors, and received from them a grant of it. On the outside of the garden are large and beautiful spreading plane-trees, under the shade of which there are agreeable spots finely sheltered. A perennial stream, large enough to turn a mill, runs through the garden; and on its banks are planted planes^d and other trees. Formerly this stream flowed in a winding and crooked course, but I ordered its course to be altered^e according to a regular plan, which added greatly to the beauty of the place. Lower down than these villages, and about a kos or a kos and a half above the level plain, on the lower skirts of the hills, is a fountain, named Khwājeh sih-yārān (Khwājeh three-friends), around which there are three species of trees; above the fountain are many beautiful plane-trees, which yield a pleasant shade. On the two sides of the fountain, on small eminences at the bottom of the hills, there are a number of oak-trees; except on these two spots where there are groves of oak, there is not an oak to be met with on the hills to the west of Kābul. In front of this fountain, towards the plain, there are many spots, covered with the flowering arghwān³ tree, and besides these arghwān plots, there are none else in the whole country. It is said that these three kinds of trees were bestowed on it by the power of these three holy men, beloved of God; and that this is the origin of the name Sih yārān.¹ I directed this fountain to be built round with stone, and formed a cistern of lime and mortar ten gaz by ten. On the four sides of the fountain, a fine level platform for resting was constructed on a very neat plan.^a At the time when the arghwān flowers begin to blow, I do not know that any place in the world is to be compared to it. The yellow arghwān is here very abundant, and the yellow arghwān’s blossom mingles with the red. On the south-west of this fountain there is a valley, in which is a rivulet, containing half as much water as would suffice to turn a mill. This rivulet I confined within artificial banks, and caused a channel to be dug for it over one of the heights on the south-west of Sih yārān. On the top of this height I formed a circular platform for sitting on.^b The date of my forming this rivulet was found in the words, Jūi khush² (a charming stream).

Lohūger³ is another Tumān, the largest town of which is Chirkh. Moulāna Yākūb, on whom be mercy, was of Chirkh; the Mulla zādeh Mulla Osmān is also from Chirkh. Sajāwend⁴ is also one of the towns of Lohūger, whence are Khwājeh Ahmed and Khwājeh Yunis. Chirkh has numerous gardens, but there are none in any of the other villages of Lohūger. The men are Aughān-shāl, a term well known in Kābul; it is probable, that the phrase Afghān-shaār (or Afghanlike) has been converted into Aughān-shāl.

There is also the country of Ghazni,¹ which is often denominated a Tumān. Ghazni was the capital of Sabuktegīn, of Sultan Mahmūd, and of the dynasty sprung from them. Many call it Ghaznīn. This was also the capital of Shāhāb-ed-dīn Ghūri,² who, in the Tabakāt-e-Nāsiri, and many of the histories of Hind, is called Muizzeddīn. It is situated in the third climate. It is also named Zābul, and it is to this country that the term Zābulistān relates; many include Kandahār in Zābulistān. It lies to the west of Kābul,³ at the distance of fourteen farsangs. A person setting out from Ghazni at early dawn may reach Kābul between noonday and afternoon prayers. Adīnapūr is only thirteen farsangs distant; but, from the badness of the road, it is never travelled in one day. Ghazni is a country of small extent. Its river⁴ may be large enough to drive four or five mills. The city of Ghazni, and four or five other districts,^a are supplied from this river, while as many more are fertilized by subterraneous water-courses.⁵ The grapes of Ghazni are superior to those of Kābul, and its melons more abundant. Its apples too are excellent, and are carried into Hindustān. Cultivation is carried on with great difficulty and labour, and whatever ground is cultivated is obliged to have a new dressing of mould every year; but the produce of the crops exceeds that of Kābul. The madder is chiefly cultivated here, and is carried over all Hindustān.^b It is the most profitable crop in this district. The inhabitants of the open country are Hazāras and Afghans. Ghazni is a cheap place compared with Kābul. The inhabitants are Moslems of the sect of Hanīfah, and orthodox in their faith. Many of them fast for three months¹ in the year, and their wives and children live in a correct and sequestered manner. Mulla Abdal Rahmān was one of the eminent men of Ghazni. He was a man of learning, and always taught a class.^a He was a holy, pious, and virtuous person. He [A.D. 1515.] took his departure from this world the same year with Nāsir Mirza. The tomb of Sultan Mahmūd is in one of the suburbs of Ghazni, which, from that circumstance, is termed Rauzeh.² The best grapes in Ghazni are from Rauzeh. The tombs of his descendants, Sultan Māsaūd and Sultan Ibrahīm, are in Ghazni. There are many holy tombs at [A. D.
1504-5.] that city. In the year in which I took Kābul, after ravaging Kohat, the plain of Bannu, and Afghanistān with great slaughter, I proceeded by Dūki, and having come on to Ghazni, along the banks of Āb-istādeh,³ I was told, that in one of the villages of Ghazni there was a mausoleum, in which the tomb moved itself whenever the benediction on the Prophet was pronounced over it. I went and viewed it, and there certainly seemed to be a motion of the tomb. In the end, however, I discovered that the whole was an imposture, practised by the attendants of the mausoleum. They had erected over the tomb a kind of scaffolding; contrived that it could be set in motion when any of them stood upon it, so that a looker-on imagined that it was the tomb that had moved; just as to a person sailing in a boat, it is the bank which appears to be in motion. I directed the persons who attended the tomb to come down from the scaffolding; after which, let them pronounce as many benedictions as they would, no motion whatever took place. I ordered the scaffolding to be removed, and a dome to be erected over the tomb, and strictly enjoined the servants of the tomb not to dare to repeat this imposture.

Ghazni is but a poor, mean place, and I have always wondered how its princes, who possessed also Hindustān and Khorasān, could have chosen such a wretched country for the seat of their government, in preference to Khorasān. In the time of the Sultan, there were three or four mounds for collecting water.¹ One of these, which is of great dimensions, was formed by the Sultan of Ghazni, on the river of Ghazni, about three farsangs up the river, on the north-west of the town. The height of this mound is about forty or fifty gaz, and its length may be about three hundred gaz. The water is here collected, and drawn off according as it is wanted for cultivation. Alāeddīn Jehānsōz² Ghūri, when he subdued this country, broke down the mound, burned and destroyed many of the tombs of the royal family of the Sultan, ruined and burned the city of Ghazni, and plundered and massacred the inhabitants. In short, there was no act of desolation and destruction from which he refrained. Ever since that time, the mound had remained in a state of ruin. In the year³ in which I conquered Hindustān, I sent by Khwājeh Kalān a sum of money for the purpose of rebuilding it, and I entertain hopes that, by the mercy of God, this mound may once more be repaired. Another mound is that of Sakhen, which lies to the east of Ghazni at the distance of three or four farsangs from that city. This also has long been in a state of ruin, and is not reparable. Another mound is that of Sardeh,⁴ which is in good repair. Some books mention, that in Ghazni there is a fountain, into which, if any filth or ordure be thrown, immediately there rises a tempest and hurricane, with snow and rain. I have seen in another history, that, when the Rai of Hind besieged Sabuktegīn in Ghazni, Sabuktegīn ordered dead flesh and other impurities to be thrown into this fountain, when there instantly arose a tempest and hurricane, with rain and snow, and by this device he drove away the enemy.¹ I made strict inquiry in Ghazni for this well, but nobody could give me the slightest information about it. In these countries, Ghazni and Khwārizm are celebrated for their cold, in the same manner as Sultanīah and Tabrīz are in the Irāks and Azarbāijān.

Another Tumān is that of Zurmet,² which lies on the south of Kābul, and south-east of Ghazni. It is distant twelve or thirteen farsangs from Kābul, and seven or eight from Ghazni. It contains seven or eight districts or villages, and the residence of the Dārogha is at Gerdez. In the walled town of Gerdez, the greater part of the houses are three or four stories in height. Gerdez is of considerable strength; and when the inhabitants were in a state of hostility to Nāsir Mirza, occasioned the Mirza no small trouble. The inhabitants of Zurmet are Aughān-shāl (Afghans in their manners). They apply to agriculture, and the raising of corn, but not to orchards or gardening. On the south of this Tumān, there is a mountain which is termed the Hill of Tūrkestān;³ on the skirts of which, on a rising ground, is a fountain, near which is the tomb of Sheikh Muhammed Muselmān.

Another Tumān is that of Fermūl,⁴ which is of small extent, and little importance; but its apples are tolerable, and they are carried even to Multān and Hindustān. The Sheikh zādehs (descendants of Sheikhs), who were treated with such distinguished favour in Hindustān during the time of the Afghans, were all of Fermūl, and descended of Sheikh Muhammed Musalmān.

Bangash¹ is another Tumān. It is entirely surrounded by hills inhabited by Afghan robbers, such as the Khugiāni, the Khirilchi, the Tūri, and the Lander, who, lying out of the way, do not willingly pay taxes. Being occupied by many affairs of superior importance, such as the conquest of Kandahār, Balkh, Badakhshān, and Hindustān, I never found leisure to apply myself to the settlement of Bangash. But if Almighty God prosper my wishes, my first moments of leisure shall be devoted to the settlement of that district, and of its plundering neighbours.

One of the Bulūks of Kābul is Alah-sāi,² which lies two or three farsangs to the east of Nijrau, from which you advance in a straight level direction towards Alah-sāi. On reaching a place named Kūrah, you proceed by a small kotal, or hill-pass, towards Alah-sāi. In this quarter, the space between the warm climate (garmsīl) and the cold (sardsīl) is merely the extent of this hill-pass of Kūrah. By this hill-pass, at the beginning of the spring, the birds take their flight from the one to the other. The people of Pīchghān, a place dependent on Nijrau, catch a great number of birds in their passage. In the ascent of the pass they build from distance to distance cots of stone, in which the fowlers sit and conceal themselves. They fasten one side of a net strongly, at the distance of five or six gaz;³ one side of it is fixed down to the ground by stones, the other end, as far as half its length, three or four gaz, they fix to a stick, one end of which is held by the fowler, who is concealed, and sits on the watch, looking through holes left in the cot for the purpose, and waiting for the approach of the game from below. As soon as the birds come close up, he elevates one end of the net, and they rush into it by their own impulse. By this device, they take a great quantity of fowl; they boast, that sometimes they take such a number, that they have not time to kill them in the mode commanded by the law.¹ In this country, the pomegranates of Alah-sāi are famous: for, although they are not very excellent, yet there are none better in the country. They carry them all to Hindustān. Its grapes too are pretty good. The wines of Alah-sāi are not stronger, but are pleasanter than those of Nijrau.^a

Bedrau² is another Bulūk, which lies close by Alah-sāi. Here there are no fruits, and the cultivators are all Kafers. They raise corn.

As in Khorasān and Samarkand the possessors of the Wolds³ are the Tūrks and Aimāks, so, in this country, the inhabitants of the Waste are Hazāras and Afghans. The most powerful of the Hazāras in this territory are the Sultan Masaūdi Hazāras, and the most powerful of the Afghans are the Mahmend Afghans.

The amount of the revenue of Kābul, whether arising from settled lands, or raised from the inhabitants of the wastes, is eight laks of shahrokhis.⁴

The mountainous country on the east frontier of Kābul is broken and of two kinds, and the mountainous country on the west of Kābul is also of two sorts, in which it differs from the hilly countries in the direction of Anderāb, Khost, and the Badakhshānāt, which are all covered with the archeh, or mountain pine, well watered with springs, and abounding with soft and smooth heights; the vegetation on these last, whether on the hills, the gentle heights and eminences, or the valleys, is all of one sort, and is of good quality. It abounds with the grass named kāh-būtkeh, which is excellent for horses. In the country of Andejān, they also call this grass būtkeh-aūti,¹ but I was not acquainted with the origin of the name. In this country I learned that it is so called because it grows in būteh, knots, or patches.² The yāilāks, or summer residences of Hissār, Khutlān, Samarkand, Ferghāna, and Moghulistān, are all the same kind of yāilāks and pasturages as these; and though the summer retreats of Ferghāna and Moghulistān are not to be compared with the others, yet the hills and pastures are of the same sort. Nijrau again, and the hill country of Lamghānāt, Bajour, and Sawād, are of another kind, having many forests of pine, fir,^a oak, olive, and mastic, but the grass is by no means equal to that of the hill country just mentioned. It is abundant enough and likewise tall enough, but good for nothing, and not kindly either for horses or sheep. Though these mountains are not nearly so elevated as those that compose the other hill-country, and appear diminutive in comparison, yet they are singularly hard³ hills; there are indeed slopes and hillocks which have a smooth, level surface; yet hillocks and hills are equally hard, are covered with rocks, and inaccessible to horses. In these mountains there are many of the birds and animals of Hindustān, such as the parrot, the shārak,⁴ the peacock, the lūkheh, the ape, the nil-gau,⁵ and the koteh-pāi (short-foot⁶), and besides these, many other kinds of birds and animals, exceeding in number what I have heard of even in Hindustān.^b

The mountainous country which lies to the west is composed of the hills that form the valley of Zindān,⁷ the vale of Sūf, with Garzewān and Gharjestān, which hills are all of the same description. Their grazing grounds are all in the valleys; the hills, or hillocks, have not a single handful of grass such as is to be found on the mountains to the north, nor do they even abound much with the archeh pine. The grass in the grazing grounds is very fit for both horses and sheep. Above these hills, the whole country is good riding ground, and level, and there all the cultivated ground lies. The deer are very numerous in these mountains. The courses of the streams are generally profound glens, often quite perpendicular, and incapable of being descended. It is a singular circumstance, that, while in all other mountainous tracts, the strengths,¹ and steep and rugged places, are at the top of the hills, in these mountains the strong places are all towards the bottom. The hill-countries of Ghūr, Karbū,² and Hazāra are all of the kind that has been described. Their pasture-grass is in the valleys and plains. They have few trees, and even the archeh pine does not grow in them. The grass is nutritive to horses and sheep. The deer are numerous; and the rugged and precipitous places, and strengths of these hills, are also near the bottom.^a

This hill-country, however, bears no resemblance to the hill-countries of Khwājeh Ismāel, Dasht,³ Dūki, and Afghanistān, which have all a uniformity of aspect, being very low, having little grass, bad water, and not a tree, and which are an ugly and worthless country. At the same time, the mountains are worthy of the men; as the proverb says, ‘A narrow place is large to the narrow-minded.’ There are perhaps scarcely in the whole world such dismal-looking hill-countries as these.

In Kābul, although the cold is intense, and much snow falls in winter, yet there is plenty of firewood, and near at hand. They can go and fetch it in one day. The fuel consists chiefly of mastic, oak, bitter almond, and the karkend. The best of these is the mastic, which burns with a bright light, and has also a sweet perfume; it retains its heat long, and burns even when green. The oak, too, is an excellent firewood, though it burns with a duller light; yet it affords much heat and light; its embers last a long time, and it yields a pleasant smell in burning. It has one singular property: if its green branches and leaves are set fire to, they blaze up and burn from the bottom to the top briskly and with a crackling noise, and catch fire all at once. It is a fine sight to see this tree burn. The bitter almond is the most abundant and common of all, but it does not last. The karkend is a low, prickly thorn, that burns alike whether green or dry; it constitutes the only fuel of the inhabitants of Ghazni.

The different districts of Kābul lie amid mountains which extend like so many mounds,¹ with the vales and level plains expanding between them. The greater part of the villages and population is found on these intermediate spaces. Deer and game are scarce. In the autumn and spring, the red deer, which is the arkārghalcheh, always has a stated track which it follows, in going from its winter to its summer range. Those who are fond of hunting, and who have hounds, preoccupy this track, and, remaining on the watch, catch the deer. The red deer² and^a wild ass³ are also found near the Surkhāb,⁴ and Little Kābul, but the white deer⁵ is never found there. In Ghazni, they have both the white deer and wild ass, and the white deer is seldom to be met with so plump as near Ghazni. In the spring^a there are many hunting grounds in Kābul. The great passage of the fowls and animals^b is by the banks of the river Bārān, for that river is enclosed by Modes of
fowling. mountains both on the east and west. Right opposite to this spot, that is, by the banks of the river Bārān, is the grand pass up Hindū-kūsh, and there is no pass but itself in this vicinity. On that account all the game ascend the mountain by this route. If there be wind, or if any clouds rest on the pass up Hindū-kūsh, the birds are unable to ascend it, and they all alight in the vale of Bārān, when multitudes of them are taken by the people of the neighbourhood. About the close of the winter, the banks of the river Bārān are frequented by multitudes of water-fowl, which are extremely fat. The cranes, the karkareh¹ (or begla heron), and the larger game afterwards arrive in innumerable flocks, and are seen in immense quantities. On the banks of the river Bārān, great numbers of cranes are caught in springes, which they make for that purpose, as well as the heron,² the begla heron, and the khawāsil.³ This last-mentioned fowl is rare. The mode of taking these fowls is as follows: They spin a thin sliding springe, about an arrow’s flight long, and to the one end of this cord fix a double-pointed arrow, while on the other end of it they fasten a cross handle of horn.^c They then take a stick, of the thickness of the wrist, and a span in length, and commencing at the arrow, wind up the cord till it is all wound on, after which they make fast the horn handle, and pull out the stick of the thickness of the wrist, on which the cord had been wound; the cord remaining wound up and hollow. Taking a firm hold of the horn handle, they throw the dart, having the cord attached to it, at any fowl that comes near. If it falls on the neck or wings of the bird it twists round it, and brings it down. All the people on the Bārān catch birds in this manner; but this mode of fowling is extremely difficult and unpleasant, as it must be practised on dark and rainy nights, for on such nights for fear of the ravenous animals and beasts of prey, they fly about constantly all night long, never resting till the morning; and at such times they fly low. In the dark nights they keep flying over the running water, as it appears bright and white, and it is at such times when, from fear, they fly up and down above the streams all night long, that the fowlers cast their cords. One night I threw the cord many times, but at last it severed and the bird escaped; next morning, however, they brought in both the bird and the severed cord twisted round it. In this manner the people of the Bārān catch great numbers of herons. The kalk i tāj¹ are of the heron’s feathers. These plumes, or kalk i tāj, are one of the commodities carried into Irāk and Khorasān from Kābul. There is a body of slave Slave
fowlers. fowlers,² whose trade and occupation is to act as fowlers; they may consist of about two hundred or three hundred houses. One of the family of Taimūr Beg first caused them to be brought from the neighbourhood of Multān. They have constructed tanks, and bending down the branches of trees,^a have placed nets over the tanks; in this way they take every species of bird. These, however, are not the only persons who practise fowling, for all the inhabitants along the river Bārān are extremely skilful in throwing the cord, in laying nets, and in every other device for taking fowl; and they take birds of every description.

In the same season the migration of the fish takes place in the river Bārān; they first of all take great quantities of them by the net, and by erecting gratings.¹ In the autumn season, when the plant named kūlān kūirūghi (or wild-ass-tail) has come out, reached maturity, flowered and seeded, they take ten or twelve loads of it, and twenty or thirty loads of the plant named gūk-shibāk, and having brought them to the banks of the river, shred them down and throw them into the stream; the instant that the plants touch the water the fishes become intoxicated, and they begin to catch them. Farther down the river they construct gratings, in a convenient place, in the following manner: They take twigs of the tāl² tree, of the thickness of one’s finger, and weave them into open gratings, latticewise; this lattice-work they place under a water-fall where there is a hollow, and lay heaps of stones all around it, so that the water rushes through the wicker-work with a loud noise, and runs off below, while the fish that come down the stream are borne along and retained by the wicker-work above; and thus the fishes that have been intoxicated, while they come in numbers floating down the current, are taken within these gratings. They catch great quantities of fish in this manner, in the rivers of Gulbehār, Purwān, and Istālīf.³

There is another singular way in which they catch fish in Lamghānāt during the winter. In places where the water falls from a height, they dig out hollow pits of about the size of a house, and laying them with stones in the form of the lower part of a cooking furnace, they heap on stones above the pits, leaving only one passage for the water to descend; and they pile the stones up in such a manner, that, except by this single passage, there is no other for any fish either to come or go. The water of the stream finds its way through these stones that have been heaped on, so that this contrivance answers the purpose of a fish pool. In winter, whenever fish are required, they open one of these pits, and take out forty or fifty fishes at a time. In some convenient place of the pit an opening is formed, and excepting at that outlet, all the sides of it are secured with rice straw, over which stones are piled up. At the opening they fasten a kind of wicker-work like a net, the two extremities of which are contracted and brought near each other. In the middle of this first wicker-net they fix another piece of wicker net-work, in such a way that the mouth of this last may correspond with that of the other, but its whole length be only about half of that of the one first mentioned. They make the mouth of this inner net-work very narrow. Whatever enters it must pass into the larger wicker-net, the lower part of which is so constructed that no fish can escape back. The lower part of the mouth of the inner wicker-net is so formed that, when fish have once entered the upper part, they must proceed one by one down to the lower part of its mouth. The sharpened sticks forming the lower part of the mouth are brought close together. Whatever passes this mouth comes into the larger wicker-net, the lower passage of which is strongly secured, so that the fish cannot escape; and should it turn and attempt to swim back, it cannot get up, in consequence of the sharpened prongs that form the lower mouth of the small inner wicker-net. Every time that they bring these nets, they fasten them in the water-course of the fish-pool, and then take off the covering of the fish-pool, leaving all its sides secured by the rice-straw. Whatever they can lay hold of in the hollow pit they seize, while every fish that attempts to escape by the only issue left necessarily comes into the wicker-net that has been mentioned, and is taken there. This mode of catching fish I never saw practised elsewhere.

Some days after the taking of Kābul, Mukīm requested permission to proceed to Kandahār; and, as had been settled by the capitulation, I dismissed him safe and sound, with all his baggage, effects, and followers, to join his Bābur di-
vides the
country
among his
followers. father and elder brother. After his departure I partitioned out the country of Kābul among those Begs only who had lately taken service with me.^a Ghazni and its dependencies I gave to Jehāngīr Mirza; the Tumān of Nangenhār, Mandrāwar, the Dareh-Nūr, the Dareh-Kuner, Nūrgil, and Cheghānserāi, I gave to Nāsir Mirza. Those Begs and young officers who had followed me in my expeditions and dangers, I rewarded; giving to one of them a village, to another an estate in land, but to none of them did I give the government of a district. Nor was this the sole occasion in which I acted in this manner; but uniformly, whenever the Most High God prospered my undertakings, I always regarded and provided for those Begs and soldiers who were strangers and guests, in the first place, and in a superior manner to the Bāburians,¹ and those who were of Andejān. In spite of this, it has been a great misfortune to me^a that I have always been charged with favouring none but my own Bāburians and the Andejānians. There is a proverb,

(Tūrki)—	What is it enemies will not say? What is it dreams will not display?
(Persian)—	The gates of a city you may shut; You cannot shut the mouth of an enemy.

As many Īls and Ulūses had come to me from Hissār, Samarkand, and Kunduz, it appeared advisable, as Kābul was a confined country, and to be governed by the sword, not the pen, and incapable of supplying a contribution in money sufficient for all my people, that a levy of corn should be made and given to the wives, families, and followers of the Īls and Ulūses, to enable them to proceed with us in our wars and expeditions. It was therefore determined to raise thirty thousand loads of grain,² from Kābul, Ghazni, and their dependencies. As I was at that time very imperfectly acquainted with the revenues and resources of Kābul, the amount was excessive, and the country suffered extremely.

It was at this time that I invented a kind of writing called the Bāburi hand.

I had imposed a large contribution of horses and sheep on the Sultan Masaūdi Hazāras, and sent collectors to receive it. In a few days I heard from them that the Hazāras¹ refused to pay, and were in a state of rebellion. Several times before, they had been guilty of depredations on the roads of Ghazni and Gerdēz.² On these accounts I took the field for the purpose of falling on them by surprise; and having advanced by way of Meidān, we cleared the pass of Nirkh³ by night, and, by the time of morning prayers, fell upon the Hazāras in the territory of Chātū, and beat them to our heart’s content. Returning thence by way of Sang-e-surākh, Jehāngīr Mirza took leave to go to Ghazni, while I returned to Kābul. When I reached Kābul, Yār Hussain, the son of Daryā Khan, came from Behreh⁴ to offer me his services.

A few days afterwards, having mustered my army, and Bābur re-
solves on an
irruption
into Hin-
dustān. assembled the persons best acquainted with the situation of the country, I made particular inquiries regarding the state and condition of the different districts on every hand. Some advised that we should march against Dasht;⁵ January
1505. others preferred Bangash; while others proposed to advance against Hindustān. It was at last determined in council to make an irruption into Hindustān.

In the month of Shābān, when the sun was in Aquarius, I set out from Kābul towards Hindustān; and proceeding by way of Badām-chashmeh and Jagdālīk,⁶ in six marches reached Adīnapūr. I had never before seen the garmsīl (or countries of warm temperature), nor the country of Hindustān. Immediately on reaching them,^a I beheld a new world. The grass was different, the trees different, the wild animals of a different sort, the birds of a different plumage, the manners and customs of the Īls and Ulūses (the wandering tribes) of a different kind.¹ I was struck with astonishment, and indeed there was room for wonder.

Nāsir Mirza, who, a little before, had come to his government, now waited upon me at Adīnapūr. As the Aimāks of that neighbourhood, with their followers, had moved down with all their families into Lamghānāt, for the purpose of wintering there, I halted a day or two in that vicinity, till I was joined by them and the troops that were behind; and then taking them along with me, I went on to Kūsh-gumbez,² lower down than Jūi-Shāhi.³ Nāsir Mirza having made^b some provision for his dependants and followers from the country under his government, stayed behind by permission at Kūsh-gumbez, promising to follow in two or three days.

Marching from Kūsh-gumbez, when we halted at Garm-cheshmeh,⁴ they brought me one Pekhi,⁵ a head-man of the Gagiānis, who had been used to accompany the caravans. I carried on Pekhi along with me, in order to have the benefit of his information concerning the road and the Passes
Kheiber. country. In one or two marches I passed Kheiber, and encamped at Jām.¹ I had heard of the fame of Gurh-Katri,² which is one of the holy places of the Jogis of the Hindus, who come from great distances to cut off their hair and shave their beards at this Gurh-Katri. As soon as I reached Jām, I immediately rode out to visit Bekrām.³ I saw its stupendous tree, and surveyed the country. Our guide was Malik Bu-saīd Kamari. Although we asked particularly for Gurh-Katri, he did not show us where it was; but just as we had returned, and were close upon the camp, he said to Khwājeh Muhammed Amīn that Gurh-Katri was close upon Bekrām, but that he did not mention it, for fear of being obliged to go among its narrow caverns and dangerous recesses. The Khwājeh, exclaiming against him as a perfidious rogue, immediately repeated what he had said; but as the day was nearly spent, and the way long, I could not go back to visit it.

At this station I held a consultation about passing the river Sind, and which way I should direct my course. Bāki Cheghāniāni advised that, instead of crossing the Sind, we should proceed against a place called Kohat, which lay at the distance of two marches; that the inhabitants were very numerous and very wealthy; and he produced some Kābul men, who confirmed what he had stated. I had never even heard the name of the place; but as my principal man, and the one who possessed most influence and authority in the army, had urged our marching against Kohat, and had even called in evidence to fortify his opinion, I gave up my plan of crossing the river and invading Hindustān; and therefore, marching off from Jām, and crossing the Bāreh,⁴ advanced up to Muhammed Pekh and Abāni, and encamped not far from them.

At this time the Gagiāni Afghans were in Peshāwar, and, from dread of my army, they had all drawn off to the skirts of the mountains. At this encampment, Khosrou Gagiāni, one of the chief men of the Gagiānis, came and paid me his respects. I took him to accompany Pekhi, in order to have the benefit of their advice regarding the roads and the country.

Marching from this station about midnight, and passing Muhammed Pekh at sunrise, we fell upon and plundered Kohat¹ about luncheon-time,² and found a great many bullocks and buffaloes. We also made a great many Afghans prisoners; but the whole of these I sought out and released. In their houses immense quantities of grain were found. Our plundering parties pushed on as far as the river Sind, on the banks of which they stayed all night, and next day came and rejoined me. The army, however, found none of the riches which Bāki Cheghāniāni had led us to expect; and Bāki was greatly ashamed of his expedition.

Having tarried two days and two nights in Kohat, and called in our plundering detachments, we held a council to consider whither we should now bend our course; and it was determined that we should ravage the lands of the Afghans in Bannu and Bangash, and then return back by way of Naghz³ and Fermūl. Yār Hussain, the son of Daryā Khan, who had come and joined me in Kābul, and tendered his allegiance, requested that instructions might be issued to the Dilāzāks, the Yūsuf-zais, and Gagiānis,⁴ to act under his orders, pledging himself that he would carry my power beyond the Sind. I granted him the authority which he required, and he took leave of me at Kohat.

Taking our departure from Kohat, we marched up⁵ towards Marches by
Bangash. Bangash, by the route of Hangu. Between Kohat and Hangu there lies a valley, with a high mountain on each side, through which the road passes. When in the course of our march we had reached this glen, the Afghans of Kohat and that quarter having collected, occupied the hills that overhang the glen on both sides, raised the war-shout, and made a loud clamour. Malik Bu-saīd Kamari, who was well acquainted with the whole of Afghanistān, was our guide. He told us that, a little farther on, there was a small hill on the right of the road, and that, if the Afghans should pass from their mountain to that hill, which was detached, we might then surround them on all sides, and get hold of them. Almighty God accomplished our wishes. The Afghans having descended upon us, came and occupied that detached hill. I instantly dispatched a party of my men to take possession of the neck of ground between the mountain and the hill. I ordered the rest of the army to attack the hill on both sides, and, moving regularly forward, to punish them for their temerity. The moment my troops advanced upon them, the Afghans found that they could not stand their ground, and in an instant a hundred or a hundred and fifty of them were brought down; of these some were brought in alive, but only the heads of the greater part of them. The Afghans, when they are reduced to extremities in war, come into the presence of their enemy with grass between their teeth; being as much as to say ‘I am your ox’. This custom¹ I first observed on the present occasion; for the Afghans, when they could not maintain the contest, approached us with grass in their teeth. Orders were given for beheading such of them as had been brought in alive, and a minaret² was erected of their heads at our next halting-place.

On the morrow I marched on and encamped at Hangu. The Afghans of that quarter had fortified a hill, or made it a sanger. I first heard the word sanger³ on coming to Kābul. They called a detached piece of a hill strongly fortified a sanger. The troops, immediately on coming up to the sanger, stormed and took it, and cut off a hundred or two hundred heads of the refractory Afghans, which they brought down along with them. Here also we erected a minaret of heads.

Marching from Hangu, the second stage brought us to a place called Til,¹ at the bottom of the upper Bangash. The soldiers set out to plunder the Afghans of the neighbourhood. Some of them, who had made an attack on a sanger, returned without success.^a

Marching from thence, and proceeding in a direction in which there was no road, we halted one night, and on the day after reached a very precipitous declivity, where we were obliged to dismount, and descended by a long and steep defile, after which we encamped in Bannu.² The soldiers, as well as the camels and horses, suffered extremely in the steep descent and the narrow defile; and the greater part of the bullocks, which we had brought away as plunder in the course of this expedition, dropped down by the way. The common road was only a kos or two to our right; and the road by which we were conducted was not a horse-road. As the herds and shepherds sometimes drove their flocks of sheep and mares down this descent and by the defile, it was for that reason termed Gosfend-liār, or the Sheep-road, liār signifying a road in the Afghan language. Our chief guide was Malik Bu-saīd Kamari; and the soldiers in general attributed the taking of this left-hand road to some design in him.

Immediately on descending from the hills of Bangash and Naghz, Bannu appeared in sight. It has the appearance of a flat and level champaign. On the north are the hills³ of Bangash and Naghz. The Bangash river¹ runs through the Bannu territory, and by means of it chiefly is the country cultivated. On the south are Choupāreh and the river Sind; on the east is Dīnkōt, and on the west is Dasht, which is also called Bāzār and Tāk.² Of the Afghan tribes, the Kerāni, the Kivi, the Sūr, the Īsakhail, and Niāzai cultivate the ground in this country. On ascending into the Bannu territory, I received information that the tribes inhabiting the plain had erected a sanger in the hills to the north. I therefore dispatched against them a body of troops under Jehāngīr Mīrza. The sanger against which he went was that of the Kivi tribe. It was taken in an instant, a general massacre ensued, and a number of heads were cut off and brought back to the camp. A great quantity of cloth was taken on this occasion by the army. Of the heads a pile of skulls was formed in the Bannu country. After the taking of this sanger, one of the chiefs of the Kivis, named Shādi Khan, came to me with grass in his mouth, and made his submission. I spared and gave up to him all the prisoners who had been taken alive.

After the sack of Kohat, it had been resolved that, after plundering the Afghans about BangashandBannu, we should return back to Kābul by way of Naghz or Fermūl. After ravaging Bannu, however, persons perfectly acquainted with the whole routes represented to me that Dasht was near at hand; that the inhabitants were wealthy and the roads good; and it was finally determined that, instead of returning by Fermūl, we should plunder the Dasht, and return back by that road.^a3