The Bābur-nāma

Moreover Ayūb’s sons, Yūsuf and Bahlūl (Begchīk), more seditious, silly and arrogant persons than whom there may not exist, – to whom I had given, to Yūsuf Alangār, to Bahlūl ‘Alī-shang, they like Nāṣir Mīrzā, were to have taken something from their districts and to have come on with him, but, he not coming, neither did they. All that winter they were the companions of his cups and social pleasures. They also over-ran the Tarkalānī Afghāns in it.[918 - They were located in Mandrāwar in 926 AH. (f. 251).] With the on-coming heats, the Mīrzā made march off the families of the clans, outside-tribes and hordes who had wintered in Nīngnahār and the Lamghānāt, driving them like sheep before him, with all their goods, as far as the Bārān-water.[919 - This was done, manifestly, with the design of drawing after the families their fighting men, then away with Bābur.]

(o. Affairs of Badakhshān.)

While Nāṣir Mīrzā was in camp on the Bārān-water, he heard that the Badakhshīs were united against the Aūzbegs and had killed some of them.

Here are the particulars: – When Shaibāq Khān had given Qūndūz to Qaṃbar Bī and gone himself to Khwārizm[920 - f. 163. Shaibāq Khān besieged Chīn Ṣufī, Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā’s man in Khwārizm (T. R. p. 204; Shaibānī-nāma, Vambéry, Table of Contents and note 89).]; Qaṃbar Bī, in order to conciliate the Badakhshīs, sent them a son of Muḥammad-i-makhdūmī, Maḥmūd by name, but Mubārak Shāh, – whose ancestors are heard of as begs of the Badakhshān Shāhs, – having uplifted his own head, and cut off Maḥmūd’s and those of some Aūzbegs, made himself fast in the fort once known as Shāf-tiwār but re-named by him Qila‘-i-z̤afar. Moreover, in Rustāq Muḥammad qūrchī, an armourer of Khusrau Shāh, then occupying Khamalangān, slew Shaibāq Khān’s ṣadr and some Aūzbegs and made that place fast. Zubair of Rāgh, again, whose forefathers also will have been begs of the Badakhshān Shāhs, uprose in Rāgh.[921 - Survey Map 1889, Sadda. The Rāgh-water flows n.w. into the Oxus (Amū).] Jahāngīr Turkmān, again, a servant of Khusrau Shāh’s Walī, collected some of the fugitive soldiers and tribesmen Walī had left behind, and with them withdrew into a fastness.[922 - birk, a mountain stronghold; cf. f. 149b note to Birk (Barak).]

Nāṣir Mīrzā, hearing these various items of news and spurred on by the instigation of a few silly, short-sighted persons to covet Badakhshān, marched along the Shibr-tū and Āb-dara road, driving like sheep before him the families of the men who had come into Kābul from the other side of the Amū.[923 - They were thus driven on from the Bārān-water (f. 154b).]

(p. Affairs of Khusrau Shāh.)

At the time Khusrau Shāh and Aḥmad-i-qāsim were in flight from Ājar for Khurāsān,[924 - f. 126b.] they meeting in with Badī‘u’z-zamān Mīrzā and Ẕū’n-nūn Beg, all went on together to the presence of Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā in Herī. All had long been foes of his; all had behaved unmannerly to him; what brands had they not set on his heart! Yet all now went to him in their distress, and all went through me. For it is not likely they would have seen him if I had not made Khusrau Shāh helpless by parting him from his following, and if I had not taken Kābul from Ẕū’n’nūn’s son, Muqīm. Badī‘u’z-zamān Mīrzā himself was as dough in the hands of the rest; beyond their word he could not go. Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā took up a gracious attitude towards one and all, mentioned no-one’s misdeeds, even made them gifts.

Shortly after their arrival Khusrau Shāh asked for leave to go to his own country, saying, “If I go, I shall get it all into my hands.” As he had reached Herī without equipment and without resources, they finessed a little about his leave. He became importunate. Muḥammad Barandūq retorted roundly on him with, “When you had 30,000 men behind you and the whole country in your hands, what did you effect against the Aūzbeg? What will you do now with your 500 men and the Aūzbegs in possession?” He added a little good advice in a few sensible words, but all was in vain because the fated hour of Khusrau Shāh’s death was near. Leave was at last given because of his importunity; Khusrau Shāh with his 3 or 400 followers, went straight into the borders of Dahānah. There as Nāṣir Mīrzā had just gone across, these two met.

Now the Badakhshī chiefs had invited only the Mīrzā; they had not invited Khusrau Shāh. Try as the Mīrzā did to persuade Khusrau Shāh to go into the hill-country,[925 - Ḥiṣār, presumably.] the latter, quite understanding the whole time, would not consent to go, his own idea being that if he marched under the Mīrzā, he would get the country into his own hands. In the end, unable to agree, each of them, near Ishkīmīsh, arrayed his following, put on mail, drew out to fight, and – departed. Nāṣir Mīrzā went on for Badakhshān; Khusrau Shāh after collecting a disorderly rabble, good and bad of some 1,000 persons, went, with the intention of laying siege to Qūndūz, to Khwāja Chār-tāq, one or two yīghāch outside it.

(q. Death of Khusrau Shāh.)

At the time Shaibāq Khān, after overcoming Sult̤ān Aḥmad Taṃbal and Andijān, made a move on Ḥiṣār, his Honour Khusrau Shāh[926 - Here “His Honour” translates Bābur’s clearly ironical honorific plural.] flung away his country (Qūndūz and Ḥiṣār) without a blow struck, and saved himself. Thereupon Shaibāq Khān went to Ḥiṣār in which were Sherīm the page and a few good braves. They did not surrender Ḥiṣār, though their honourable beg had flung his country away and gone off; they made Ḥiṣār fast. The siege of Ḥiṣār Shaibāq Khān entrusted to Ḥamza Sl. and Mahdī Sult̤ān,[927 - These two sult̤āns, almost always mentioned in alliance, may be Tīmūrids by maternal descent (Index s. nn.). So far I have found no direct statement of their parentage. My husband has shewn me what may be one indication of it, viz. that two of the uncles of Shaibāq Khān (whose kinsmen the sult̤āns seem to be), Qūj-kūnjī and Sīūnjak, were sons of a daughter of the Tīmūrid Aūlūgh Beg Samarkandī (Ḥ.S. ii, 318). See Vambéry’s Bukhārā p. 248 note.] went to Qūndūz, gave Qūndūz to his younger brother, Maḥmūd Sult̤ān and betook himself without delay to Khwārizm against Chīn Ṣūfī. But as, before he reached Samarkand on his way to Khwārizm, he heard of the death in Qūndūz of his brother, Maḥmūd Sult̤ān, he gave that place to Qaṃbar Bī of Marv.[928 - For the deaths of Taṃbal and Maḥmūd, mentioned in the above summary of Shaibāq Khān’s actions, see the Shaibānī-nāma, Vambéry, p. 323.]

Qaṃbar Bī was in Qūndūz when Khusrau Shāh went against it; he at once sent off galloppers to summon Ḥamza Sl. and the others Shaibāq Khān had left behind. Ḥamza Sl. came himself as far as the sarāī on the Amū bank where he put his sons and begs in command of a force which went direct against Khusrau Shāh. There was neither fight nor flight for that fat, little man; Ḥamza Sult̤ān’s men unhorsed him, killed his sister’s son, Aḥmad-i-qāsim, Sherīm the page and several good braves. Him they took into Qūndūz, there struck his head off and from there sent it to Shaibāq Khān in Khwārizm.[929 - Ḥ.S. ii, 323, for Khusrau Shāh’s character and death.]

(r. Conduct in Kābul of Khusrau Shāh’s retainers.)

Just as Khusrau Shāh had said they would do, his former retainers and followers, no sooner than he marched against Qūndūz, changed in their demeanour to me,[930 - f. 124.] most of them marching off to near Khwāja-i-riwāj.[931 - Khwāja-of-the-rhubarb, presumably a shrine near rhubarb-grounds (f. 129b).] The greater number of the men in my service had been in his. The Mughūls behaved well, taking up a position of adherence to me.[932 - yakshī bārdīlār, lit. went well, a common expression in the Bābur-nāma, of which the reverse statement is yamānlīk bīla bārdī (f. 163). Some Persian MSS. make the Mughūls disloyal but this is not only in opposition to the Turkī text, it is a redundant statement since if disloyal, they are included in Bābur’s previous statement, as being Khusrau Shāh’s retainers. What might call for comment in Mughūls would be loyalty to Bābur.] On all this the news of Khusrau Shāh’s death fell like water on fire; it put his men out.

911 AH. – JUNE 4th 1505 to MAY 24th 1506 AD.[933 - Elph. MS. f. 121b: W. – i-B. I.O. 215 f. 126 and 217 f. 106b; Mems. p. 169.]

(a. Death of Qūtlūq-nigār Khānīm.)

In the month of Muḥarram my mother had fever. Blood was let without effect and a Khurāsānī doctor, known as Sayyid T̤abīb, in accordance with the Khurāsān practice, gave her water-melon, but her time to die must have come, for on the Saturday after six days of illness, she went to God’s mercy.

On Sunday I and Qāsim Kūkūldāsh conveyed her to the New-year’s Garden on the mountain-skirt[934 - tāgh-dāmanasī, presumably the Koh-dāman, and the garden will thus be the one of f. 136b.] where Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā had built a house, and there, with the permission of his heirs,[935 - If these heirs were descendants of Aūlūgh Beg M. one would be at hand in ‘Abdu’r-razzāq, then a boy, and another, a daughter, was the wife of Muqīm Arghūn. As Mr. Erskine notes, Musalmāns are most scrupulous not to bury their dead in ground gained by violence or wrong.] we committed her to the earth. While we were mourning for her, people let me know about (the death of) my younger Khān dādā Alacha Khān, and my grandmother Aīsān-daulat Begīm.[936 - The news of Aḥmad’s death was belated; he died some 13 months earlier, in the end of 909 AH. and in Eastern Turkistān. Perhaps details now arrived.] Close upon Khānīm’s Fortieth[937 - i. e. the fortieth day of mourning, when alms are given.] arrived from Khurāsān Shāh Begīm the mother of the Khāns, together with my maternal-aunt Mihr-nigār Khānīm, formerly of Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā’s ḥaram, and Muḥammad Ḥusain Kūrkān Dūghlāt.[938 - Of those arriving, the first would find her step-daughter dead, the second her sister, the third, his late wife’s sister (T. R. p. 196).] Lament broke out afresh; the bitterness of these partings was extreme. When the mourning-rites had been observed, food and victuals set out for the poor and destitute, the Qorān recited, and prayers offered for the departed souls, we steadied ourselves and all took heart again.

(b. A futile start for Qandahār.)

When set free from these momentous duties, we got an army to horse for Qandahār under the strong insistance of Bāqī Chaghānīānī. At the start I went to Qūsh-nādir (var. nāwar) where on dismounting I got fever. It was a strange sort of illness for whenever with much trouble I had been awakened, my eyes closed again in sleep. In four or five days I got quite well.

(c. An earthquake.)

At that time there was a great earthquake[939 - This will be the earthquake felt in Agra on Ṣafar 3rd 911 AH. (July 5th 1505 AD. Erskine’s History of India i, 229 note). Cf. Elliot and Dowson, iv, 465 and v, 99.] such that most of the ramparts of forts and the walls of gardens fell down; houses were levelled to the ground in towns and villages and many persons lay dead beneath them. Every house fell in Paghmān-village, and 70 to 80 strong heads-of-houses lay dead under their walls. Between Pagh-mān and Beg-tūt[940 - Raverty’s Notes p. 690.] a piece of ground, a good stone-throw[941 - bīr kitta tāsh ātīmī; var. bāsh ātīmī. If tāsh be right, the reference will probably be to the throw of a catapult.] wide may-be, slid down as far as an arrow’s-flight; where it had slid springs appeared. On the road between Istarghach and Maidān the ground was so broken up for 6 to 8 yīghāch (36-48 m.) that in some places it rose as high as an elephant, in others sank as deep; here and there people were sucked in. When the Earth quaked, dust rose from the tops of the mountains. Nūru’l-lāh the t̤ambourchī[942 - Here almost certainly, a drummer, because there were two tambours and because also Bābur uses ‘aūdī & ghachakī for the other meanings of t̤ambourchi, lutanist and guitarist. The word has found its way, as tambourgi, into Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (Canto ii, lxxii. H. B.).] had been playing before me; he had two instruments with him and at the moment of the quake had both in his hands; so out of his own control was he that the two knocked against each other. Jahāngīr Mīrzā was in the porch of an upper-room at a house built by Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā in Tīpa; when the Earth quaked, he let himself down and was not hurt, but the roof fell on some-one with him in that upper-room, presumably one of his own circle; that this person was not hurt in the least must have been solely through God’s mercy. In Tīpa most of the houses were levelled to the ground. The Earth quaked 33 times on the first day, and for a month afterwards used to quake two or three times in the 24 hours. The begs and soldiers having been ordered to repair the breaches made in the towers and ramparts of the fort (Kābul), everything was made good again in 20 days or a month by their industry and energy.

(d. Campaign against Qalāt-i-ghilzāī.)

Owing to my illness and to the earthquake, our plan of going to Qandahār had fallen somewhat into the background. The illness left behind and the fort repaired, it was taken up again. We were undecided at the time we dismounted below Shniz[943 - Kābul-Ghaznī road (R.’s Notes index s. n.).] whether to go to Qandahār, or to over-run the hills and plains. Jahāngīr Mīrzā and the begs having assembled, counsel was taken and the matter found settlement in a move on Qalāt. On this move Jahāngīr Mīrzā and Bāqī Chaghānīānī insisted strongly.

At Tāzī[944 - var. Yārī. Tāzī is on the Ghaznī-Qalāt-i-ghilzāī road (R.’s Notes, Appendix p. 46).] there was word that Sher-i-‘alī the page with Kīchīk Bāqī Diwāna and others had thoughts of desertion; all were arrested; Sher-i-‘alī was put to death because he had given clear signs of disloyalty and misdoing both while in my service and not in mine, in this country and in that country.[945 - i. e. in Kābul and in the Trans-Himalayan country.] The others were let go with loss of horse and arms.

On arriving at Qalāt we attacked at once and from all sides, without our mail and without siege-appliances. As has been mentioned in this History, Kīchīk Khwāja, the elder brother of Khwāja Kalān, was a most daring brave; he had used his sword in my presence several times; he now clambered up the south-west tower of Qalāt, was pricked in the eye with a spear when almost up, and died of the wound two or three days after the place was taken. Here that Kīchīk Bāqī Dīwāna who had been arrested when about to desert with Sher-i-‘alī the page, expiated his baseness by being killed with a stone when he went under the ramparts. One or two other men died also. Fighting of this sort went on till the Afternoon Prayer when, just as our men were worn-out with the struggle and labour, those in the fort asked for peace and made surrender. Qalāt had been given by Ẕū’n-nūn Arghūn to Muqīm, and in it now were Muqīm’s retainers, Farrukh Arghūn and Qarā Bīlūt (Afghān). When they came out with their swords and quivers hanging round their necks, we forgave their offences.[946 - These will be those against Bābur’s suzerainty done by their defence of Qalāt for Muqīm.] It was not my wish to reduce this high family[947 - tabaqa, dynasty. By using this word Bābur shews recognition of high birth. It is noticeable that he usually writes of an Arghūn chief either simply as “Beg” or without a title. This does not appear to imply admission of equality, since he styles even his brothers and sisters Mīrzā and Begīm; nor does it shew familiarity of intercourse, since none seems to have existed between him and Ẕū’n-nūn or Muqīm. That he did not admit equality is shewn on f. 208. The T.R. styles Ẕū’n-nūn “Mīrzā”, a title by which, as also by Shāh, his descendants are found styled (A. – i-a. Blochmann, s. n.).] to great straits; for why? Because if we did so when such a foe as the Aūzbeg was at our side, what would be said by those of far and near, who saw and heard?

As the move on Qalāt had been made under the insistance of Jahāngīr Mīrzā and Bāqī Chaghānīānī, it was now made over to the Mīrzā’s charge. He would not accept it; Bāqī also could give no good answer in the matter. So, after such a storming and assaulting of Qalāt, its capture was useless.

We went back to Kābul after over-running the Afghāns of Sawā-sang and Ālā-tāgh on the south of Qalāt.

The night we dismounted at Kābul I went into the fort; my tent and stable being in the Chār-bāgh, a Khirilchī thief going into the garden, fetched out and took away a bay horse of mine with its accoutrements, and my khachar.[948 - Turkī khachar is a camel or mule used for carrying personal effects. The word has been read by some scribes as khanjar, dagger.]

(e. Death of Bāqī Chaghānīānī.)

From the time Bāqī Chaghānīanī joined me on the Amū-bank, no man of mine had had more trust and authority.[949 - In 910 AH. he had induced Bābur to come to Kābul instead of going into Khurāsān (Ḥ.S. iii, 319); in the same year he dictated the march to Kohāt, and the rest of that disastrous travel. His real name was not Bāqī but Muḥammad Bāqir (Ḥ.S. iii, 311).] If a word were said, if an act were done, that word was his word, that act, his act. Spite of this, he had not done me fitting service, nor had he shewn me due civility. Quite the contrary! he had done things bad and unmannerly. Mean he was, miserly and malicious, ill-tongued, envious and cross-natured. So miserly was he that although when he left Tīrmīẕ, with his family and possessions, he may have owned 30 to 40,000 sheep, and although those masses of sheep used to pass in front of us at every camping-ground, he did not give a single one to our bare braves, tortured as they were by the pangs of hunger; at last in Kāh-mard, he gave 50!

Spite of acknowledging me for his chief (pādshāh), he had nagarets beaten at his own Gate. He was sincere to none, had regard for none. What revenue there is from Kābul (town) comes from the t̤amghā[950 - These transit or custom duties are so called because the dutiable articles are stamped with a t̤amghā, a wooden stamp.]; the whole of this he had, together with the dārogha-ship in Kābul and Panjhīr, the Gadai (var. Kidī) Hazāra, and kūshlūk[951 - Perhaps this word is an equivalent of Persian goshī, a tax on cattle and beasts of burden.] and control of the Gate.[952 - Bāqī was one only and not the head of the Lords of the Gate.] With all this favour and finding, he was not in the least content; quite the reverse! What medley of mischief he planned has been told; we had taken not the smallest notice of any of it, nor had we cast it in his face. He was always asking for leave, affecting scruple at making the request. We used to acknowledge the scruple and excuse ourselves from giving the leave. This would put him down for a few days; then he would ask again. He went too far with his affected scruple and his takings of leave! Sick were we too of his conduct and his character. We gave the leave; he repented asking for it and began to agitate against it, but all in vain! He got written down and sent to me, “His Highness made compact not to call me to account till nine[953 - The choice of the number nine, links on presumably to the mystic value attached to it e. g. Tarkhāns had nine privileges; gifts were made by nines.] misdeeds had issued from me.” I answered with a reminder of eleven successive faults and sent this to him through Mullā Bābā of Pashāghar. He submitted and was allowed to go towards Hindūstān, taking his family and possessions. A few of his retainers escorted him through Khaibar and returned; he joined Bāqī Gāgīānī’s caravan and crossed at Nīl-āb.

Daryā Khān’s son, Yār-i-ḥusain was then in Kacha-kot,[954 - It is near Ḥasan-abdāl (A. – i-A. Jarrett, ii, 324).] having drawn into his service, on the warrant of the farmān taken from me in Kohāt, a few Afghāns of the Dilazāk (var. Dilah-zāk) and Yūsuf-zāī and also a few Jats and Gujūrs.[955 - For the farmān, f. 146b; for Gujūrs, G. of I.] With these he beat the roads, taking toll with might and main. Hearing about Bāqī, he blocked the road, made the whole party prisoner, killed Bāqī and took his wife.

We ourselves had let Bāqī go without injuring him, but his own misdeeds rose up against him; his own acts defeated him.

Leave thou to Fate the man who does thee wrong;

For Fate is an avenging servitor.

(f. Attack on the Turkmān Hazāras.)

That winter we just sat in the Chār-bāgh till snow had fallen once or twice.

The Turkmān Hazāras, since we came into Kābul, had done a variety of insolent things and had robbed on the roads. We thought therefore of over-running them, went into the town to Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā’s house at the Būstān-sarāī, and thence rode out in the month of Sha‘bān (Feb. 1506 AD.).

We raided a few Hazāras at Janglīk, at the mouth of the Dara-i-khūsh (Happy-valley).[956 - var. Khwesh. Its water flows into the Ghūr-bund stream; it seems to be the Dara-i-Turkmān of Stanford and the Survey Maps both of which mark Janglīk. For Hazāra turbulence, f. 135b and note.] Some were in a cave near the valley-mouth, hiding perhaps. Shaikh Darwīsh Kūkūldāsh went incautiously right (auq) up to the cave-mouth, was shot (aūqlāb) in the nipple by a Hazāra inside and died there and then (aūq).[957 - The repetition of aūq in this sentence can hardly be accidental.]

(Author’s note on Shaikh Darwīsh.) He had been with me in the guerilla-times, was Master-armourer (qūr-begī), drew a strong bow and shot a good shaft.

As most of the Turkmān Hazāras seemed to be wintering inside the Dara-i-khūsh, we marched against them.

The valley is shut in,[958 - t̤aur [dara], which I take to be Turkī, round, complete.] by a mile-long gully stretching inwards from its mouth. The road engirdles the mountain, having a straight fall of some 50 to 60 yards below it and above it a precipice. Horsemen go along it in single-file. We passed the gully and went on through the day till between the Two Prayers (3 p.m.) without meeting a single person. Having spent the night somewhere, we found a fat camel[959 - Three MSS. of the Turkī text write bīr sīmīzlūq tīwah; but the two Persian translations have yak shuturlūq farbīh, a shuturlūq being a baggage-camel with little hair (Erskine).] belonging to the Hazāras, had it killed, made part of its flesh into kabābs[960 - brochettes, meat cut into large mouthfuls, spitted and roasted.] and cooked part in a ewer (aftāb). Such good camel-flesh had never been tasted; some could not tell it from mutton.

Next day we marched on for the Hazāra winter-camp. At the first watch (9 a.m.) a man came from ahead, saying that the Hazāras had blocked a ford in front with branches, checked our men and were fighting. That winter the snow lay very deep; to move was difficult except on the road. The swampy meadows (tuk-āb) along the stream were all frozen; the stream could only be crossed from the road because of snow and ice. The Hazāras had cut many branches, put them at the exit from the water and were fighting in the valley-bottom with horse and foot or raining arrows down from either side.

Muḥammad ‘Alī Mubashshir[961 - Perhaps he was officially an announcer; the word means also bearer of good news.] Beg, one of our most daring braves, newly promoted to the rank of beg and well worthy of favour, went along the branch-blocked road without his mail, was shot in the belly and instantly surrendered his life. As we had gone forward in haste, most of us were not in mail. Shaft after shaft flew by and fell; with each one Yūsuf’s Aḥmad said anxiously, “Bare[962 - yīlāng, without mail, as in the common phrase yīgīt yīlāng, a bare brave.] like this you go into it! I have seen two arrows go close to your head!” Said I, “Don’t fear! Many as good arrows as these have flown past my head!” So much said, Qāsim Beg, his men in full accoutrement,[963 - aūpchīn, of horse and man (f. 113b and note).] found a ford on our right and crossed. Before their charge the Hazāras could make no stand; they fled, swiftly pursued and unhorsed one after the other by those just up with them.

In guerdon for this feat Bangash was given to Qāsim Beg. Ḥātim the armourer having been not bad in the affair, was promoted to Shaikh Darwīsh’s office of qūr-begī. Bābā Qulī’s Kīpik (sic) also went well forward in it, so we entrusted Muḥ. ‘Alī Mubashshir’s office to him.

Sl. Qulī Chūnāq (one-eared) started in pursuit of the Hazāras but there was no getting out of the hollow because of the snow. For my own part I just went with these braves.

Near the Hazāra winter-camp we found many sheep and herds of horses. I myself collected as many as 4 to 500 sheep and from 20 to 25 horses. Sl. Qulī Chūnāq and two or three of my personal servants were with me. I have ridden in a raid twice[964 - Manifestly Bābur means that he twice actually helped to collect the booty.]; this was the first time; the other was when, coming in from Khurāsān (912 AH.), we raided these same Turkmān Hazāras. Our foragers brought in masses of sheep and horses. The Hazāra wives and their little children had gone off up the snowy slopes and stayed there; we were rather idle and it was getting late in the day; so we turned back and dismounted in their very dwellings. Deep indeed was the snow that winter! Off the road it was up to a horse’s qāptāl,[965 - This is that part of a horse covered by the two side-pieces of a Turkī saddle, from which the side-arch springs on either side (Shaw).] so deep that the night-watch was in the saddle all through till shoot of dawn.

Going out of the valley, we spent the next night just inside the mouth, in the Hazāra winter-quarters. Marching from there, we dismounted at Janglīk. At Janglīk Yārak T̤aghāī and other late-comers were ordered to take the Hazāras who had killed Shaikh Darwīsh and who, luckless and death-doomed, seemed still to be in the cave. Yārak T̤aghāī and his band by sending smoke into the cave, took 70 to 80 Hazāras who mostly died by the sword.

(g. Collection of the Nijr-aū tribute.)