The Bābur-nāma. Babur

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531

Amongst Turks and Mughūls, gifts were made by nines.

532

Ḥiṣār was his earlier home.

533

Many of these will have been climbed in order to get over places impassable at the river’s level.

534

Schuyler quotes a legend of the lake. He and Kostenko make it larger.

535

The second occasion was when he crossed from Sūkh for Kābul in 910 AH. (fol. 120).

536

This name appears to indicate a Command of 10,000 (Bretschneider’s Mediæval Researches, i, 112).

537

It seems likely that the cloth was soiled. Cf. f. 25 and Hughes Dict. of Islām s. n. Eating.

538

As, of the quoted speech, one word only, of three, is Turkī, others may have been dreamed. Shaikh Maṣlaḥat’s tomb is in Khujand where Bābur had found refuge in 903 AH.; it had been circumambulated by Tīmūr in 790 AH. (1390 AD.) and is still honoured.

This account of a dream compares well for naturalness with that in the seemingly-spurious passage, entered with the Ḥai. MS. on f. 118. For examination of the passage see JRAS, Jan. 1911, and App. D.

539

He was made a Tarkhān by diploma of Shaibānī (Ḥ.S. ii, 306, l. 2).

540

Here the Ḥai. MS. begins to use the word Shaibāq in place of its previously uniform Shaibānī. As has been noted (f. 5b n. 2), the Elph. MS. writes Shaibāq. It may be therefore that a scribe has changed the earlier part of the Ḥai. MS. and that Bābur wrote Shaibāq. From this point my text will follow the double authority of the Elph. and Ḥai. MSS.

541

In 875 AH. (1470 AD.). Ḥusain was then 32 years old. Bābur might have compared his taking of Samarkand with Tīmūr’s capture of Qarshī, also with 240 followers (Z̤.N. i, 127). Firishta (lith. ed. p. 196) ascribes his omission to do so to reluctance to rank himself with his great ancestor.

542

This arrival shews that Shaibānī expected to stay in Samarkand. He had been occupying Turkistān under The Chaghatāī Khān.

543

‘Alī-sher died Jan. 3rd. 1501. It is not clear to what disturbances Bābur refers. He himself was at ease till after April 20th. 1502 and his defeat at Sar-i-pul. Possibly the reference is to the quarrels between Binā’ī and ‘Alī-sher. Cf. Sām Mīrzā’s Anthology, trs. S. de Saçy, Notices et Extraits iv, 287 et seq.

544

I surmise a double play-of-words in this verse. One is on two rhyming words, ghala and mallah and is illustrated by rendering them as oat and coat. The other is on pointed and unpointed letters, i. e. ghala and ‘ala. We cannot find however a Persian word ‘ala, meaning garment.

545

Bābur’s refrain is ghūsīdūr, his rhymes būl, (buyur)ūl and tūl. Binā’ī makes būlghūsīdūr his refrain but his rhymes are not true viz. yīr, (sa)mar and lār.

546

Shawwāl 906 AH. began April 20th. 1501.

547

From the Bū-stān, Graf ed. p. 55, l. 246.

548

Sīkīz Yīldūz. See Chardin’s Voyages, v, 136 and Table; also Stanley Lane Poole’s Bābur, p. 56.

549

In 1791 AD. Muḥ. Effendi shot 482 yards from a Turkish bow, before the R. Tox. S.; not a good shot, he declared. Longer ones are on record. See Payne-Gallwey’s Cross-bow and AQR. 1911, H. Beveridge’s Oriental Cross-bows.

550

In the margin of the Elph. Codex, here, stands a Persian verse which appears more likely to be Humāyūn’s than Bābur’s. It is as follows:

This verse is written into the text of the First W. – i-B. (I.O. 215 f. 72) and is introduced by a scribe’s statement that it is by ān Ḥaẓrat, much as notes known to be Humāyūn’s are elsewhere attested in the Elph. Codex. It is not in the Ḥai. and Kehr’s MSS. nor with, at least many, good copies of the Second W. – i-B.

551

This subterranean water-course, issuing in a flowing well (Erskine) gave its name to a bastion (Ḥ.S. ii, 300).

552

nāwak, a diminutive of nāo, a tube. It is described, in a MS. of Bābur’s time, by Muḥ. Budhā’ī, and, in a second of later date, by Amīnu’d-dīn (AQR 1911, H.B.’s Oriental Cross-bows).

553

Kostenko, i, 344, would make the rounds 9 m.

554

bīr yūz ātliqnīng ātinī nāwak aūqī bīla yakhshī atīm. This has been read by Erskine as though būz āt, pale horse, and not yūz ātlīq, Centurion, were written. De. C. translates by Centurion and a marginal note of the Elph. Codex explains yūz ātlīq by ṣad aspagī.

555

The Sh. N. gives the reverse side of the picture, the plenty enjoyed by the besiegers.

556

He may have been attached to the tomb of Khwāja ‘Abdu’l-lāh Anṣārī in Harāt.

557

The brusque entry here and elsewhere of e. g. Taṃbal’s affairs, allows the inference that Bābur was quoting from perhaps a news-writer’s, contemporary records. For a different view of Taṃbal, the Sh. N. cap. xxxiii should be read.

558

Five-villages, on the main Khujand-Tāshkīnt road.

559

turk, as on f. 28 of Khusrau Shāh.

560

Elph. MS. f. 68b; W. – i-B. I.O. 215 f. 78 and 217 f. 61b; Mems. p. 97.

The Kehr-Ilminsky text shews, in this year, a good example of its Persification and of Dr. Ilminsky’s dealings with his difficult archetype by the help of the Memoirs.

561

tāshlāb. The Sh. N. places these desertions as after four months of siege.

562

It strikes one as strange to find Long Ḥasan described, as here, in terms of his younger brother. The singularity may be due to the fact that Ḥusain was with Bābur and may have invited Ḥasan. It may be noted here that Ḥusain seems likely to be that father-in-law of ‘Umar Shaikh mentioned on f. 12b and 13b.

563

This laudatory comment I find nowhere but in the Ḥai. Codex.

564

There is some uncertainty about the names of those who left.

565

The Sh. N. is interesting here as giving an eye-witness’ account of the surrender of the town and of the part played in the surrender by Khān-zāda’s marriage (cap. xxxix).

566

The first seems likely СКАЧАТЬ