The Bābur-nāma

In[29 - The manuscripts relied on for revising the first section of the Memoirs, (i. e. 899 to 908 AH. -1494 to 1502 AD.) are the Elphinstone and the Ḥaidarābād Codices. To variants from them occurring in Dr. Kehr’s own transcript no authority can be allowed because throughout this section, his text appears to be a compilation and in parts a retranslation from one or other of the two Persian translations (Wāqi‘āt-i-bāburī) of the Bābur-nāma. Moreover Dr. Ilminsky’s imprint of Kehr’s text has the further defect in authority that it was helped out from the Memoirs, itself not a direct issue from the Turkī original.Information about the manuscripts of the Bābur-nāma can be found in the JRAS for 1900, 1902, 1905, 1906, 1907 and 1908.The foliation marked in the margin of this book is that of the Ḥaidarābād Codex and of its facsimile, published in 1905 by the Gibb Memorial Trust.] the month of Ramẓān of the year 899 (June 1494) and in the twelfth year of my age,[30 - Bābur, born on Friday, Feb. 14th. 1483 (Muḥarram 6, 888 AH.), succeeded his father, ‘Umar Shaikh who died on June 8th. 1494 (Ramẓān 4, 899 AH.).] I became ruler[31 - pād-shāh, protecting lord, supreme. It would be an anachronism to translate pādshāh by King or Emperor, previous to 913 AH. (1507 AD.) because until that date it was not part of the style of any Tīmūrid, even ruling members of the house being styled Mīrzā. Up to 1507 therefore Bābur’s correct style is Bābur Mīrzā. (Cf. f. 215 and note.)] in the country of Farghāna.

(a. Description of Farghāna.)

Farghāna is situated in the fifth climate[32 - See Āyīn-i-akbarī, Jarrett, p. 44.] and at the limit of settled habitation. On the east it has Kāshghar; on the west, Samarkand; on the south, the mountains of the Badakhshān border; on the north, though in former times there must have been towns such as Ālmālīgh, Ālmātū and Yāngī which in books they write Tarāz,[33 - The Ḥai. MS. and a good many of the W. – i-B. MSS. here write Aūtrār. [Aūtrār like Tarāz was at some time of its existence known as Yāngī (New).] Tarāz seems to have stood near the modern Auliya-ātā; Ālmālīgh, – a Metropolitan see of the Nestorian Church in the 14th. century, – to have been the old capital of Kuldja, and Ālmātū (var. Ālmātī) to have been where Vernoe (Vierny) now is. Ālmālīgh and Ālmātū owed their names to the apple (ālmā). Cf. Bretschneider’s Mediæval Geography p. 140 and T.R. (Elias and Ross) s. nn.] at the present time all is desolate, no settled population whatever remaining, because of the Mughūls and the Aūzbegs.[34 - Mughūl u Aūzbeg jihatdīn. I take this, the first offered opportunity of mentioning (1) that in transliterating Turkī words I follow Turkī lettering because I am not competent to choose amongst systems which e. g. here, reproduce Aūzbeg as Ūzbeg, Özbeg and Euzbeg; and (2) that style being part of an autobiography, I am compelled, in pressing back the Memoirs on Bābur’s Turkī mould, to retract from the wording of the western scholars, Erskine and de Courteille. Of this compulsion Bābur’s bald phrase Mughūl u Aūzbeg jihatdīn provides an illustration. Each earlier translator has expressed his meaning with more finish than he himself; ‘Abdu’r-raḥīm, by az jihat ‘ubūr-i (Mughūl u) Aūzbeg, improves on Bābur, since the three towns lay in the tideway of nomad passage (‘ubūr) east and west; Erskine writes “in consequence of the incursions” etc. and de C. “grace aux ravages commis” etc.]

Farghāna is a small country,[35 - Schuyler (ii, 54) gives the extreme length of the valley as about 160 miles and its width, at its widest, as 65 miles.] abounding in grain and fruits. It is girt round by mountains except on the west, i. e. towards Khujand and Samarkand, and in winter[36 - Following a manifestly clerical error in the Second W. – i-B. the Akbar-nāma and the Mems. are without the seasonal limitation, “in winter.” Bābur here excludes from winter routes one he knew well, the Kīndīrlīk Pass; on the other hand Kostenko says that this is open all the year round. Does this contradiction indicate climatic change? (Cf. f. 54b and note; A.N. Bib. Ind. ed. i, 85 (H. Beveridge i, 221) and, for an account of the passes round Farghāna, Kostenko’s Turkistān Region, Tables of Contents.)] an enemy can enter only on that side.

The Saiḥūn River (daryā) commonly known as the Water of Khujand, comes into the country from the north-east, flows westward through it and after passing along the north of Khujand and the south of Fanākat,[37 - Var. Banākat, Banākas̤, Fīākat, Fanākand. Of this place Dr. Rieu writes (Pers. cat. i, 79) that it was also called Shāsh and, in modern times, Tāshkīnt. Bābur does not identify Fanākat with the Tāshkīnt of his day but he identifies it with Shāhrukhiya (cf. Index s. nn.) and distinguishes between Tāshkīnt-Shāsh and Fanākat-Shāhrukhiya. It may be therefore that Dr. Rieu’s Tāshkīnt-Fanākat was Old Tāshkīnt, – (Does Fanā-kīnt mean Old Village?) some 14 miles nearer to the Saiḥūn than the Tāshkīnt of Bābur’s day or our own.] now known as Shāhrukhiya, turns directly north and goes to Turkistān. It does not join any sea[38 - hech daryā qātīlmās. A gloss of dīgar (other) in the Second W. – i-B. has led Mr. Erskine to understand “meeting with no other river in its course.” I understand Bābur to contrast the destination of the Saiḥūn which he [erroneously] says sinks into the sands, with the outfall of e. g. the Amū into the Sea of Aral.Cf. First W. – i-B. I.O. MS. 215 f. 2; Second W. – i-B. I.O. MS. 217 f. 1b and Ouseley’s Ibn Haukal p. 232-244; also Schuyler and Kostenko l. c.] but sinks into the sands, a considerable distance below [the town of] Turkistān.

Farghāna has seven separate townships,[39 - Bābur’s geographical unit in Central Asia is the township or, with more verbal accuracy, the village i. e. the fortified, inhabited and cultivated oasis. Of frontiers he says nothing.] five on the south and two on the north of the Saiḥūn.

Of those on the south, one is Andijān. It has a central position and is the capital of the Farghāna country. It produces much grain, fruits in abundance, excellent grapes and melons. In the melon season, it is not customary to sell them out at the beds.[40 - i. e. they are given away or taken. Bābur’s interest in fruits was not a matter of taste or amusement but of food. Melons, for instance, fresh or stored, form during some months the staple food of Turkistānīs. Cf. T.R. p. 303 and (in Kāshmīr) 425; Timkowski’s Travels of the Russian Mission i, 419 and Th. Radloff’s Réceuils d’Itinéraires p. 343.N.B. At this point two folios of the Elphinstone Codex are missing.] Better than the Andijān nāshpātī,[41 - Either a kind of melon or the pear. For local abundance of pears seeĀyīn-i-akbarī, Blochmann p. 6; Kostenko and Von Schwarz.] there is none. After Samarkand and Kesh, the fort[42 - qūrghān, i. e. the walled town within which was the citadel (ark).] of Andijān is the largest in Mawārā’u’n-nahr (Transoxiana). It has three gates. Its citadel (ark) is on its south side. Into it water goes by nine channels; out of it, it is strange that none comes at even a single place.[43 - Tūqūz tarnau sū kīrār, bū ‘ajab tūr kīm bīr yīrdīn ham chīqmās. Second W. – i-B. I.O. 217 f. 2, nuh jū’ī āb dar qila‘ dar mī āyid u īn ‘ajab ast kah hama az yak jā ham na mī bar āyid. (Cf. Mems. p. 2 and Méms. i, 2.) I understand Bābur to mean that all the water entering was consumed in the town. The supply of Andijān, in the present day, is taken both from the Āq Būrā (i. e. the Aūsh Water) and, by canal, from the Qarā Daryā.] Round the outer edge of the ditch[44 - khandaqnīng tāsh yānī. Second W. – i-B. I.O. 217 f. 2 dar kīnār sang bast khandaq. Here as in several other places, this Persian translation has rendered Turkī tāsh, outside, as if it were Turkī tāsh, stone. Bābur’s adjective stone is sangīn (f. 45b l. 8). His point here is the unusual circumstance of a high-road running round the outer edge of the ditch. Moreover Andijān is built on and of loess. Here, obeying his Persian source, Mr. Erskine writes “stone-faced ditch”; M. de C. obeying his Turkī one, “bord extérieur.”] runs a gravelled highway; the width of this highway divides the fort from the suburbs surrounding it.

Andijān has good hunting and fowling; its pheasants grow so surprisingly fat that rumour has it four people could not finish one they were eating with its stew.[45 - qīrghāwal āsh-kīnasī bīla. Āsh-kīna, a diminutive of āsh, food, is the rice and vegetables commonly served with the bird. Kostenko i, 287 gives a recipe for what seems āsh-kīna.]

Andijānīs are all Turks, not a man in town or bāzār but knows Turkī. The speech of the people is correct for the pen; hence the writings of Mīr ‘Alī-shīr Nawā’ī,[46 - b. 1440; d. 1500 AD.] though he was bred and grew up in Hīrī (Harāt), are one with their dialect. Good looks are common amongst them. The famous musician, Khwāja Yūsuf, was an Andijānī.[47 - Yūsuf was in the service of Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā Shāhrukhī (d. 837 AH. -1434 AD.). Cf. Daulat Shāh’s Memoirs of the Poets (Browne) pp. 340 and 350-1. (H.B.)] The climate is malarious; in autumn people generally get fever.[48 - gūzlār aīl bīzkāk kūb būlūr. Second W. – i-B. (I.O. 217 f. 2) here and on f. 4 has read Turkī gūz, eye, for Turkī gūz or goz, autumn. It has here a gloss not in the Ḥaidarābād or Kehr’s MSS. (Cf. Mems. p. 4 note.) This gloss may be one of Humāyūn’s numerous notes and may have been preserved in the Elphinstone Codex, but the fact cannot now be known because of the loss of the two folios already noted. (See Von Schwarz and Kostenko concerning the autumn fever of Transoxiana.)]

Again, there is Aūsh (Ūsh), to the south-east, inclining to east, of Andijān and distant from it four yīghāch by road.[49 - The Pers. trss. render yīghāch by farsang; Ujfalvy also takes the yīghāch and the farsang as having a common equivalent of about 6 kilomètres. Bābur’s statements in yīghāch however, when tested by ascertained distances, do not work out into the farsang of four miles or the kilomètre of 8 kil. to 5 miles. The yīghāch appears to be a variable estimate of distance, sometimes indicating the time occupied on a given journey, at others the distance to which a man’s voice will carry. (Cf. Ujfalvy Expédition scientifique ii, 179; Von Schwarz p. 124 and de C.’s Dict. s. n.yīghāch. In the present instance, if Bābur’s 4 y. equalled 4 f. the distance from Aūsh to Andijān should be about 16 m.; but it is 33 m. 1-3/4 fur. i. e. 50 versts. Kostenko ii, 33.) I find Bābur’s yīghāch to vary from about 4 m. to nearly 8 m.] It has a fine climate, an abundance of running waters[50 - āqār sū, the irrigation channels on which in Turkistān all cultivation depends. Major-General Gérard writes, (Report of the Pamir Boundary Commission, p. 6,) “Osh is a charming little town, resembling Islāmābād in Kāshmīr, – everywhere the same mass of running water, in small canals, bordered with willow, poplar and mulberry.” He saw the Āq Būrā, the White wolf, mother of all these running waters, as a “bright, stony, trout-stream;” Dr. Stein saw it as a “broad, tossing river.” (Buried Cities of Khotan, p. 45.) Cf. Réclus vi, cap. Farghāna; Kostenko i, 104; Von Schwarz s. nn.] and a most beautiful spring season. Many traditions have their rise in its excellencies.[51 - Aūshnīng faẓīlatīdā khailī aḥādis̤ wārid dūr. Second W. – i-B. (I.O. 217 f. 2) Faẓīlat-i-Aūsh aḥadis̤ wārid ast. Mems. (p. 3) “The excellencies of Ush are celebrated even in the sacred traditions.” Méms. (i, 2) “On cite beaucoup de traditions qui célèbrent l’excellence de ce climat.” Aūsh may be mentioned in the traditions on account of places of pilgrimage near it; Bābur’s meaning may be merely that its excellencies are traditional. Cf. Ujfalvy ii, 172.] To the south-east of the walled town (qūrghān) lies a symmetrical mountain, known as the Barā Koh;[52 - Most travellers into Farghāna comment on Bābur’s account of it. One much discussed point is the position of the Barā Koh. The personal observations of Ujfalvy and Schuyler led them to accept its identification with the rocky ridge known as the Takht-i-sulaimān. I venture to supplement this by the suggestion that Bābur, by Barā Koh, did not mean the whole of the rocky ridge, the name of which, Takht-i-sulaimān, an ancient name, must have been known to him, but one only of its four marked summits. Writing of the ridge Madame Ujfalvy says, “Il y a quatre sommets dont le plus élevé est le troisième comptant par le nord.” Which summit in her sketch (p. 327) is the third and highest is not certain, but one is so shewn that it may be the third, may be the highest and, as being a peak, can be described as symmetrical i. e. Bābur’s mauzūn. For this peak an appropriate name would be Barā Koh.If the name Barā Koh could be restricted to a single peak of the Takht-i-sulaimān ridge, a good deal of earlier confusion would be cleared away, concerning which have written, amongst others, Ritter (v, 432 and 732); Réclus (vi. 54); Schuyler (ii, 43) and those to whom these three refer. For an excellent account, graphic with pen and pencil, of Farghāna and of Aūsh see Madame Ujfalvy’s De Paris à Samarcande cap. v.] on the top of this, Sl. Maḥmūd Khān built a retreat (ḥajra) and lower down, on its shoulder, I, in 902AH. (1496AD.) built another, having a porch. Though his lies the higher, mine is the better placed, the whole of the town and the suburbs being at its foot.

The Andijān torrent[53 - rūd. This is a precise word since the Āq Būrā (the White Wolf), in a relatively short distance, falls from the Kūrdūn Pass, 13,400 ft. to Aūsh, 3040 ft. and thence to Andijān, 1380 ft. Cf. Kostenko i, 104; Huntingdon in Pumpelly’s Explorations in Turkistān p. 179 and the French military map of 1904.] goes to Andijān after having traversed the suburbs of Aūsh. Orchards (bāghāt)[54 - Whether Bābur’s words, bāghāt, bāghlār and bāghcha had separate significations, such as orchard, vineyard and ordinary garden i. e. garden-plots of small size, I am not able to say but what appears fairly clear is that when he writes bāghāt u bāghlār he means all sorts of gardens, just as when he writes begāt u beglār, he means begs of all ranks.] lie along both its banks; all the Aūsh gardens (bāghlār) overlook it; their violets are very fine; they have running waters and in spring are most beautiful with the blossoming of many tulips and roses.

On the skirt of the Barā-koh is a mosque called the Jauza Masjid (Twin Mosque).[55 - Madame Ujfalvy has sketched a possible successor. Schuyler found two mosques at the foot of Takht-i-sulaimān, perhaps Bābur’s Jauza Masjid.] Between this mosque and the town, a great main canal flows from the direction of the hill. Below the outer court of the mosque lies a shady and delightful clover-meadow where every passing traveller takes a rest. It is the joke of the ragamuffins of Aūsh to let out water from the canal[56 - aūl shāh-jū’īdīn sū qūyārlār.] on anyone happening to fall asleep in the meadow. A very beautiful stone, waved red and white[57 - Ribbon Jasper, presumably.] was found in the Barā Koh in ‘Umar Shaikh Mīrzā’s latter days; of it are made knife handles, and clasps for belts and many other things. For climate and for pleasantness, no township in all Farghāna equals Aūsh.

Again there is Marghīnān; seven yīghāch[58 - Kostenko (ii, 30), 71-3/4 versts i. e. 47 m. 4-1/2 fur. by the Postal Road.] by road to the west of Andijān, – a fine township full of good things. Its apricots (aūrūk) and pomegranates are most excellent. One sort of pomegranate, they call the Great Seed (Dāna-i-kalān); its sweetness has a little of the pleasant flavour of the small apricot (zard-alū) and it may be thought better than the Semnān pomegranate. Another kind of apricot (aūrūk) they dry after stoning it and putting back the kernel;[59 - Instead of their own kernels, the Second W. – i-B. stuffs the apricots, in a fashion well known in India by khūbānī, with almonds (maghz-i badām). The Turkī wording however allows the return to the apricots of their own kernels and Mr. Rickmers tells me that apricots so stuffed were often seen by him in the Zar-afshān Valley. My husband has shewn me that Niz̤āmī in his Haft Paikar appears to refer to the other fashion, that of inserting almonds: —“I gave thee fruits from the garden of my heart,Plump and sweet as honey in milk;Their substance gave the lusciousness of figs,In their hearts were the kernels of almonds.”] they then call it subḥānī; it is very palatable. The hunting and fowling of Marghīnān are good; āq kīyīk[60 - What this name represents is one of a considerable number of points in the Bābur-nāma I am unable to decide. Kīyīk is a comprehensive name (cf. Shaw’s Vocabulary); āq kīyīk might mean white sheep or white deer. It is rendered in the Second W. – i-B., here, by ahū-i-wāriq and on f. 4, by ahū-i-safed. Both these names Mr. Erskine has translated by “white deer,” but he mentions that the first is said to mean argālīi. e.ovis poli, and refers to Voyages de Pallas iv, 325.] are had close by. Its people are Sārts,[61 - Concerning this much discussed word, Bābur’s testimony is of service. It seems to me that he uses it merely of those settled in towns (villages) and without any reference to tribe or nationality. I am not sure that he uses it always as a noun; he writes of a Sārt kīshī, a Sārt person. His Asfara Sārts may have been Turkī-speaking settled Turks and his Marghīnānī ones Persian-speaking Tājiks. Cf. Shaw’s Vocabulary; s. n. Sārt; Schuyler i, 104 and note; Nalivkine’s Histoire du Khanat de Khokand p. 45 n. Von Schwarz s. n.; Kostenko i, 287; Petzbold’s Turkistan p. 32.] boxers, noisy and turbulent. Most of the noted bullies (jangralār) of Samarkand and Bukhārā are Marghīnānīs. The author of the Hidāyat[62 - Shaikh Burhānu’d-dīn ‘Alī Qīlīch: b. circa 530 AH. (1135 AD.) d. 593 AH. (1197 AD.). See Hamilton’s Hidāyat.] was from Rashdān, one of the villages of Marghīnān.

Again there is Asfara, in the hill-country and nine yīghāch[63 - The direct distance, measured on the map, appears to be about 65 m. but the road makes détour round mountain spurs. Mr. Erskine appended here, to the “farsang” of his Persian source, a note concerning the reduction of Tatar and Indian measures to English ones. It is rendered the less applicable by the variability of the yīghāch, the equivalent for a farsang presumed by the Persian translator.] by road south-west of Marghīnān. It has running waters, beautiful little gardens (bāghcha) and many fruit-trees but almonds for the most part in its orchards. Its people are all Persian-speaking[64 - Ḥai. MS. Farsī-gū’ī. The Elph. MS. and all those examined of the W. – i-B. omit the word Farsī; some writing kohī (mountaineer) for gū’ī. I judge that Bābur at first omitted the word Farsī, since it is entered in the Ḥai. MS. above the word gū’ī. It would have been useful to Ritter (vii, 733) and to Ujfalvy (ii, 176). Cf. Kostenko i, 287 on the variety of languages spoken by Sārts.] Sārts. In the hills some two miles (bīrshar‘ī) to the south of the town, is a piece of rock, known as the Mirror Stone.[65 - Of the Mirror Stone neither Fedtschenko nor Ujfalvy could get news.] It is some 10 arm-lengths (qārī) long, as high as a man in parts, up to his waist in others. Everything is reflected by it as by a mirror. The Asfara district (wilāyat) is in four subdivisions (balūk) in the hill-country, one Asfara, one Warūkh, one Sūkh and one Hushyār. When Muḥammad Shaibānī Khān defeated Sl. Maḥmūd Khān and Alacha Khān and took Tāshkīnt and Shāhrukhiya,[66 - Bābur distinguishes here between Tāshkīnt and Shāhrukhiya. Cf. f. 2 and note to Fanākat.] I went into the Sūkh and Hushyār hill-country and from there, after about a year spent in great misery, I set out (‘azīmat) for Kābul.[67 - He left the hill-country above Sūkh in Muḥarram 910 AH. (mid-June 1504 AD.).]

Again there is Khujand,[68 - For a good account of Khujand see Kostenko i, 346.] twenty-five yīghāch by road to the west of Andijān and twenty-five yīghāch east of Samarkand.[69 - Khujand to Andijān 187 m. 2 fur. (Kostenko ii, 29-31) and, helped out by the time-table of the Transcaspian Railway, from Khujand to Samarkand appears to be some 154 m. 5-1/4 fur.] Khujand is one of the ancient towns; of it were Shaikh Maṣlaḥat and Khwāja Kamāl.[70 - Both men are still honoured in Khujand (Kostenko i, 348). For Khwāja Kamāl’s Life and Dīwān, see Rieu ii, 632 and Ouseley’s Persian Poets p. 192. Cf. f. 83b and note.] Fruit grows well there; its pomegranates are renowned for their excellence; people talk of a Khujand pomegranate as they do of a Samarkand apple; just now however, Marghīnān pomegranates are much met with.[71 - kūb artūq dūr, perhaps brought to Hindūstān where Bābur wrote the statement.] The walled town (qūrghān) of Khujand stands on high ground; the Saiḥūn River flows past it on the north at the distance, may be, of an arrow’s flight.[72 - Turkish arrow-flight, London, 1791, 482 yards.] To the north of both the town and the river lies a mountain range called Munūghul;[73 - I have found the following forms of this name, – Ḥai. MS., M: nūgh: l; Pers. trans. and Mems., Myoghil; Ilminsky, M: tugh: l; Méms. Mtoughuil; Réclus, Schuyler and Kostenko, Mogul Tau; Nalivkine, “d’apres Fedtschenko,” Mont Mogol; Fr. Map of 1904, M. Muzbek. It is the western end of the Kurāma Range (Kīndīr Tau), which comes out to the bed of the Sīr, is 26-2/3 miles long and rises to 4000 ft. (Kostenko, i, 101). Von Schwarz describes it as being quite bare; various writers ascribe climatic evil to it.] people say there are turquoise and other mines in it and there are many snakes. The hunting and fowling-grounds of Khujand are first-rate; āq kīyīk,[74 - Pers. trans. ahū-i-safed. Cf. f. 3b note.]būghū-marāl,[75 - These words translate into Cervus marāl, the Asiatic Wapiti, and to this Bābur may apply them. Dictionaries explain marāl as meaning hind or doe but numerous books of travel and Natural History show that it has wider application as a generic name, i. e. deer. The two words būghū and marāl appear to me to be used as e. g. drake and duck are used. Marāl and duck can both imply the female sex, but also both are generic, perhaps primarily so. Cf. for further mention of būghū-marāl f. 219 and f. 276. For uses of the word marāl, see the writings e. g. of Atkinson, Kostenko (iii, 69), Lyddeker, Littledale, Selous, Ronaldshay, Church (Chinese Turkistan), Biddulph (Forsyth’s Mission).] pheasant and hare are all had in great plenty. The climate is very malarious; in autumn there is much fever;[76 - Cf. f. 2 and note.] people rumour it about that the very sparrows get fever and say that the cause of the malaria is the mountain range on the north (i. e. Munūghul).

Kand-i-badām (Village of the Almond) is a dependency of Khujand; though it is not a township (qaṣba) it is rather a good approach to one (qaṣbacha). Its almonds are excellent, hence its name; they all go to Hormuz or to Hindūstān. It is five or six yīghāch[77 - Schuyler (ii, 3), 18 m.] east of Khujand.

Between Kand-i-badām and Khujand lies the waste known as Hā Darwesh. In this there is always (hamesha) wind; from it wind goes always (hameshā) to Marghīnān on its east; from it wind comes continually (dā’im) to Khujand on its west.[78 - Ḥai. MS. Hamesha bū deshttā yīl bār dūr. Marghīnānghā kīm sharqī dūr, hamesha mūndīn yīl bārūr; Khujandghā kīm gharībī dūr, dā’im mūndīn yīl kīlūr.This is a puzzling passage. It seems to say that wind always goes east and west from the steppe as from a generating centre. E. and de C. have given it alternative directions, east or west, but there is little point in saying this of wind in a valley hemmed in on the north and the south. Bābur limits his statement to the steppe lying in the contracted mouth of the Farghāna valley (pace Schuyler ii, 51) where special climatic conditions exist such as (a) difference in temperature on the two sides of the Khujand narrows and currents resulting from this difference, – (b) the heating of the narrows by sun-heat reflected from the Mogol-tau, – and (c) the inrush of westerly wind over Mīrzā Rabāt̤. Local knowledge only can guide a translator safely but Bābur’s directness of speech compels belief in the significance of his words and this particularly when what he says is unexpected. He calls the Hā Darwesh a whirling wind and this it still is. Thinkable at least it is that a strong westerly current (the prevailing wind of Farghāna) entering over Mīrzā Rabāt̤ and becoming, as it does become, the whirlwind of Hā Darwesh on the hemmed-in steppe, – becoming so perhaps by conflict with the hotter indraught through the Gates of Khujand – might force that indraught back into the Khujand Narrows (in the way e. g. that one Nile in flood forces back the other), and at Khujand create an easterly current. All the manuscripts agree in writing to (ghā) Marghīnān and to (ghā) Khujand. It may be observed that, looking at the map, it appears somewhat strange that Bābur should take, for his wind objective, a place so distant from his (defined) Hā Darwesh and seemingly so screened by its near hills as is Marghīnān. But that westerly winds are prevalent in Marghīnān is seen e. g. in Middendorff’s Einblikke in den Farghāna Thal (p. 112). Cf. Réclus vi, 547; Schuyler ii, 51; Cahun’s Histoire du Khanat de Khokand p. 28 and Sven Hedin’s Durch Asien’s Wüsten s.n. būrān.] It has violent, whirling winds. People say that some darweshes, encountering a whirlwind in this desert,[79 - bādiya; a word perhaps selected as punning on bād, wind.] lost one another and kept crying, “Hāy Darwesh! Hāy Darwesh!” till all had perished, and that the waste has been called Hā Darwesh ever since.

Of the townships on the north of the Saiḥūn River one is Akhsī. In books they write it Akhsīkīt[80 - i. e. Akhsī Village. This word is sometimes spelled Akhsīkīs̤ but as the old name of the place was Akhsī-kīnt, it may be conjectured at least that the s̤ā’ī mas̤allas̤a of Akhsīkīs̤ represents the three points due for the nūn and tā of kīnt. Of those writing Akhsīkīt may be mentioned the Ḥai. and Kehr’s MSS. (the Elph. MS. here has a lacuna) the Z̤afar-nāma (Bib. Ind. i, 44) and Ibn Haukal (Ouseley p. 270); and of those writing the word with the s̤ā’ī muṣallas̤a (i. e. as Akhsīkīs̤), Yāqūt’s Dict, i, 162, Reinaud’s Abū’l-feda I. ii, 225-6, Ilminsky (p. 5) departing from his source, and I.O. Cat. (Ethé) No. 1029. It may be observed that Ibn Haukal (Ouseley p. 280) writes Banākaṣ for Banākat. For As̤īru’d-dīn Akhsīkītī, see Rieu ii, 563; Daulat Shāh (Browne) p. 121 and Ethé I.O. Cat. No. 1029.] and for this reason the poet As̤iru-d-dīn is known as Akhsīkītī. After Andijān no township in Farghāna is larger than Akhsī. It is nine yīghāch[81 - Measured on the French military map of 1904, this may be 80 kil. i. e. 50 miles.] by road to the west of Andijān. ‘Umar Shaikh Mīrzā made it his capital.[82 - Concerning several difficult passages in the rest of Bābur’s account of Akhsī, see Appendix A.] The Saiḥūn River flows below its walled town (qūrghān). This stands above a great ravine (buland jar) and it has deep ravines (‘uṃiq jarlār) in place of a moat. When ‘Umar Shaikh Mīrzā made it his capital, he once or twice cut other ravines from the outer ones. In all Farghāna no fort is so strong as Akhsī. *Its suburbs extend some two miles further than the walled town.* People seem to have made of Akhsī the saying (mis̤al), “Where is the village? Where are the trees?” (Dih kujā? Dirakhtān kujā?) Its melons are excellent; they call one kind Mīr Tīmūrī; whether in the world there is another to equal it is not known. The melons of Bukhārā are famous; when I took Samarkand, I had some brought from there and some from Akhsī; they were cut up at an entertainment and nothing from Bukhārā compared with those from Akhsī. The fowling and hunting of Akhsī are very good indeed; āq kīyīk abound in the waste on the Akhsī side of the Saihūn; in the jungle on the Andijān side būghū-marāl,[83 - The W. – i-B. here translates būghū-marāl by gazawn and the same word is entered, under-line, in the Ḥai. MS. Cf. f. 3b and note and f. 4 and note.] pheasant and hare are had, all in very good condition.

Again there is Kāsān, rather a small township to the north of Akhsī. From Kāsān the Akhsī water comes in the same way as the Andijān water comes from Aūsh. Kāsān has excellent air and beautiful little gardens (bāghcha). As these gardens all lie along the bed of the torrent (sā’ī) people call them the “fine front of the coat.”[84 - postīn pesh b: r: h. This obscure Persian phrase has been taken in the following ways: —(a) W. – i-B. I.O. 215 and 217 (i. e. both versions) reproduce the phrase.(b) W. – i-B. MS., quoted by Erskine, p. 6 note, (postīn-i mīsh burra).(c) Leyden’s MS. Trs., a sheepskin mantle of five lambskins.(d) Mems., Erskine, p. 6, a mantle of five lambskins.(e) The Persian annotator of the Elph. MS., underlining pesh, writes, panj, five.(f) Klaproth (Archives, p. 109), pustini pisch breh, d.h. gieb den vorderen Pelz.(g) Kehr, p. 12 (Ilminsky p. 6) postin bīsh b: r:h.(h) De. C, i, 9, fourrure d’agneau de la première qualité.The “lambskins” of L. and E. carry on a notion of comfort started by their having read sayāh, shelter, for Turkī sā’ī, torrent-bed; de C. also lays stress on fur and warmth, but would not the flowery border of a mountain stream prompt rather a phrase bespeaking ornament and beauty than one expressing warmth and textile softness? If the phrase might be read as postīn pesh perā, what adorns the front of a coat, or as postīn pesh bar rah, the fine front of the coat, the phrase would recall the gay embroidered front of some leathern postins.] Between Kāsānīs and Aūshīs there is rivalry about the beauty and climate of their townships.

In the mountains round Farghāna are excellent summer-pastures (yīlāq). There, and nowhere else, the tabalghū[85 - Var. tabarkhūn. The explanation best suiting its uses, enumerated here, is Redhouse’s second, the Red Willow. My husband thinks it may be the Hyrcanian Willow.]grows, a tree (yīghāch) with red bark; they make staves of it; they make bird-cages of it; they scrape it into arrows;[86 - Steingass describes this as “an arrow without wing or point” (barb?) and tapering at both ends; it may be the practising arrow, t‘alīm aūqī, often headless.] it is an excellent wood (yīghāch) and is carried as a rarity[87 - tabarraklūq. Cf. f. 48b foot, for the same use of the word.] to distant places. Some books write that the mandrake[88 - yabrūju’ṣ-ṣannam. The books referred to by Bābur may well be the Rauzatu’ṣ-ṣafā and the Ḥabību’s-siyār, as both mention the plant.] is found in these mountains but for this long time past nothing has been heard of it. A plant called Āyīq aūtī[89 - The Turkī word āyīq is explained by Redhouse as awake and alert; and by Meninski and de Meynard as sobered and as a return to right senses. It may be used here as a equivalent of mihr in mihr-giyāh, the plant of love.] and having the qualities of the mandrake (mihr-giyāh), is heard of in Yītī-kīnt;[90 - Mr. Ney Elias has discussed the position of this group of seven villages. (Cf. T. R. p. 180 n.) Arrowsmith’s map places it (as Iti-kint) approximately where Mr. Th. Radloff describes seeing it i. e. on the Farghāna slope of the Kurāma range. (Cf. Réceuil d’Itinéraires p. 188.) Mr. Th. Radloff came into Yītī-kīnt after crossing the Kīndīrlīk Pass from Tāshkīnt and he enumerates the seven villages as traversed by him before reaching the Sīr. It is hardly necessary to say that the actual villages he names may not be those of Bābur’s Yītī-kint. Wherever the word is used in the Bābur-nāma and the Tārīkh-i-rashīdī, it appears from the context allowable to accept Mr. Radloff’s location but it should be borne in mind that the name Yītī-kīnt (Seven villages or towns) might be found as an occasional name of Altī-shahr (Six towns). See T.R. s. n. Altī-shahr.] it seems to be the mandrake (mihr-giyāh) the people there call by this name (i. e.āyīq aūtī). There are turquoise and iron mines in these mountains.

If people do justly, three or four thousand men[91 - kīshī, person, here manifestly fighting men.] may be maintained by the revenues of Farghāna.

(b. Historical narrative resumed.)[92 - Elph. MS. f. 2b; First W. – i-B. I.O. 215 f. 4b; Second W. – i-B. I.O. 217 f. 4; Mems. p. 6; Ilminsky p. 7; Méms. i. 10.The rulers whose affairs are chronicled at length in the Farghāna Section of the B.N. are, (I) of Tīmūrid Turks, (always styled Mīrzā), (a) the three Mīrān-shāhī brothers, Aḥmad, Maḥmūd and ‘Umar Shaikh with their successors, Bāī-sunghar, ‘Alī and Bābur; (b) the Bāī-qarā, Ḥusain of Harāt: (II) of Chīngīz Khānīds, (always styled Khān,) (a) the two Chaghatāī Mughūl brothers, Maḥmūd and Aḥmad; (b) the Shaibānid Aūzbeg, Muḥammad Shaibānī (Shāh-i-bakht or Shaibāq or Shāhī Beg).In electing to use the name Shaibānī, I follow not only the Ḥai. Codex but also Shaibānī’s Boswell, Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ Mīrzā. The Elph. MS. frequently uses Shaibāq but its authority down to f. 198 (Ḥai. MS. f. 243b) is not so great as it is after that folio, because not till f. 198 is it a direct copy of Bābur’s own. It may be more correct to write “the Shaibānī Khān” and perhaps even “the Shaibānī.”]

As ‘Umar Shaikh Mīrzā was a ruler of high ambition and great pretension, he was always bent on conquest. On several occasions he led an army against Samarkand; sometimes he was beaten, sometimes retired against his will.[93 - bī murād, so translated because retirement was caused once by the overruling of Khwāja ‘Ubaidu’l-lāh Aḥrārī. (T.R. p. 113.)] More than once he asked his father-in-law into the country, that is to say, my grandfather, Yūnas Khān, the then Khān of the Mughūls in the camping ground (yūrt) of his ancestor, Chaghatāī Khān, the second son of Chīngīz Khān. Each time the Mīrzā brought The Khān into the Farghāna country he gave him lands, but, partly owing to his misconduct, partly to the thwarting of the Mughūls,[94 - Once the Mīrzā did not wish Yūnas to winter in Akhsī; once did not expect him to yield to the demand of his Mughūls to be led out of the cultivated country (wilāyat). His own misconduct included his attack in Yūnas on account of Akhsī and much falling-out with kinsmen. (T.R. s. nn.)] things did not go as he wished and Yūnas Khān, not being able to remain, went out again into Mughūlistān. When the Mīrzā last brought The Khān in, he was in possession of

Tāshkīnt, which in books they write Shash, and sometimes Chāch, whence the term, a Chāchī, bow.[95 - i. e. one made of non-warping wood (Steingass), perhaps that of the White Poplar. The Shāh-nāma (Turner, Maçon ed. i, 71) writes of a Chāchī bow and arrows of khadang, i. e. white poplar. (H.B.)] He gave it to The Khān, and from that date (890AH. -1485AD.) down to 908AH. (1503AD.) it and the Shāhrukhiya country were held by the Chaghatāī Khāns.

At this date (i. e., 899AH. -1494AD.) the Mughūl Khānship was in Sl. Maḥ=mūd Khān, Yūnas Khān’s younger son and a half-brother of my mother. As he and ‘Umar Shaikh Mīrzā’s elder brother, the then ruler of Samarkand, Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā were offended by the Mīrzā’s behaviour, they came to an agreement together; Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā had already given a daughter to Sl. Maḥmūd Khān;[96 - i. e. Rābī‘a-sult̤ān, married circa 893 AH. -1488 AD. For particulars about her and all women mentioned in the B.N. and the T.R. see Gulbadan Begīm’s Humāyūn-nāma, Or. Trs. Series.] both now led their armies against ‘Umar Shaikh Mīrzā, the first advancing along the south of the Khujand Water, the second along its north.

Meantime a strange event occurred. It has been mentioned that the fort of Akhsī is situated above a deep ravine;[97 - jar, either that of the Kāsān Water or of a deeply-excavated canal. The palace buildings are mentioned again on f. 110b. Cf. Appendix A.] along this ravine stand the palace buildings, and from it, on Monday, Ramẓān 4, (June 8th.) ‘Umar Shaikh Mīrzā flew, with his pigeons and their house, and became a falcon.[98 - i. e. soared from earth, died. For some details of the accident see A.N. (H. Beveridge, i, 220.)]

He was 39 (lunar) years old, having been born in Samarkand, in 860AH. (1456AD.) He was Sl. Abū-sa‘īd Mīrzā’s fourth son,[99 - Ḥ.S. ii, -192, Firishta, lith. ed. p. 191 and D’Herbélot, sixth.It would have accorded with Bābur’s custom if here he had mentioned the parentage of his father’s mother. Three times (fs. 17b, 70b, 96b) he writes of “Shāh Sulṯan Begīm” in a way allowing her to be taken as ‘Umar Shaikh’s own mother. Nowhere, however, does he mention her parentage. One even cognate statement only have we discovered, viz. Khwānd-amīr’s (Ḥ.S. ii, 192) that ‘Umar Shaikh was the own younger brother (barādar khurdtar khūd) of Aḥmad and Maḥmūd. If his words mean that the three were full-brothers, ‘Umar Shaikh’s own mother was Ābū-sa‘īd’s Tarkhān wife. Bābur’s omission (f. 21b) to mention his father with A. and M. as a nephew of Darwesh Muḥammad Tarkhān would be negative testimony against taking Khwānd-amīr’s statement to mean “full-brother,” if clerical slips were not easy and if Khwānd-amir’s means of information were less good. He however both was the son of Maḥmūd’s wāzir (Ḥ.S. ii, 194) and supplemented his book in Bābur’s presence.To a statement made by the writer of the biographies included in Kehr’s B.N. volume, that ‘U.S.’s family (aūmāgh) is not known, no weight can be attached, spite of the co-incidence that the Mongol form of aūmāgh, i. e.aūmāk means Mutter-leib. The biographies contain too many known mistakes for their compiler to outweigh Khwānd-amīr in authority.] being younger than Sl. Aḥmad M. and Sl. Muḥammad M. and Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā. His father, Sl. Abū-sa‘īd Mīrzā, was the son of Sl. Muḥammad Mīrzā, son of Tīmūr Beg’s third son, Mīrān-shāh M. and was younger than ‘Umar Shaikh Mīrzā, (the elder) and Jahāngīr M. but older than Shāhrukh Mīrzā.

c. ‘Umar Shaikh Mīrzā’s country.

His father first gave him Kābul and, with Bābā-i-Kābulī[100 - Cf.Rauzatu’ṣ-ṣafā vi, 266. (H.B.)] for his guardian, had allowed him to set out, but recalled him from the Tamarisk Valley[101 - Dara-i-gaz, south of Balkh. This historic feast took place at Merv in 870 AH. (1465 AD.). As ‘Umar Shaikh was then under ten, he may have been one of the Mīrzās concerned.] to Samarkand, on account of the Mīrzās’ Circumcision Feast. When the Feast was over, he gave him Andijān with the appropriateness that Tīmūr Beg had given Farghāna (Andijān) to his son, the elder ‘Umar Shaikh Mīrzā. This done, he sent him off with Khudāī-bīrdī Tūghchī Tīmūr-tāsh[102 - Khudāī-bīrdī is a Pers. – Turkī hybrid equivalent of Theodore; tūghchī implies the right to use or (as hereditary standard-bearer,) to guard the tūgh; Tīmūr-tāsh may mean i. a. Friend of Tīmūr (a title not excluded here as borne by inheritance. Cf. f. 12b and note), Sword-friend (i. e. Companion-in-arms), and Iron-friend (i. e. stanch). Cf. Dict. s. n. Tīmūr-bāsh, a sobriquet of Charles XII.] for his guardian.

d. His appearance and characteristics.

He was a short and stout, round-bearded and fleshy-faced person.[103 - Elph. and Ḥai. MSS. qūbā yūzlūq; this is under-lined in the Elph. MS. by ya‘nī pur ghosht. Cf. f. 68b for the same phrase. The four earlier trss. viz. the two W. – i-B., the English and the French, have variants in this passage.] He used to wear his tunic so very tight that to fasten the strings he had to draw his belly in and, if he let himself out after tying them, they often tore away. He was not choice in dress or food. He wound his turban in a fold (dastar-pech); all turbans were in four folds (chār-pech) in those days; people wore them without twisting and let the ends hang down.[104 - The apposition may be between placing the turban-sash round the turban-cap in a single flat fold and winding it four times round after twisting it on itself. Cf. f. 18 and Hughes Dict. of Islām s.n. turban.] In the heats and except in his Court, he generally wore the Mughūl cap.

e. His qualities and habits.

He was a true believer (Ḥanafī maẕhablīk) and pure in the Faith, not neglecting the Five Prayers and, his life through, making up his Omissions.[105 - qaẓālār, the prayers and fasts omitted when due, through war, travel sickness, etc.] He read the Qur’ān very frequently and was a disciple of his Highness Khwāja ‘Ubaidu’l-lāh (Aḥrārī) who honoured him by visits and even called him son. His current readings[106 - rawān sawādī bār īdī; perhaps, wrote a running hand. De C. i, 13, ses lectures courantes étaient…] were the two Quintets and the Mas̤nawī;[107 - The dates of ‘Umar Shaikh’s limits of perusal allow the Quintets (Khamsatīn) here referred to to be those of Niz̤āmī and Amīr Khusrau of Dihlī. The Maṣnawī must be that of Jalālu’d-dīn Rūmī. (H.B.)] of histories he read chiefly the Shāh-nāma. He had a poetic nature, but no taste for composing verses. He was so just that when he heard of a caravan returning from Khitāī as overwhelmed by snow in the mountains of Eastern Andijān,[108 - Probably below the Tīrāk (Poplar) Pass, the caravan route much exposed to avalanches.Mr. Erskine notes that this anecdote is erroneously told as of Bābur by Firishta and others. Perhaps it has been confused with the episode on f. 207b. Firishta makes another mistaken attribution to Bābur, that of Ḥasan of Yaq‘ūb’s couplet. (H.B.) Cf. f. 13b and Dow’s Hindustan ii, 218.] and that of its thousand heads of houses (awīlūq) two only had escaped, he sent his overseers to take charge of all goods and, though no heirs were near and though he was in want himself, summoned the heirs from Khurāsān and Samarkand, and in the course of a year or two had made over to them all their property safe and sound.

He was very generous; in truth, his character rose altogether to the height of generosity. He was affable, eloquent and sweet-spoken, daring and bold. Twice out-distancing all his braves,[109 - yīgītlār, young men, the modern jighit. Bābur uses the word for men on the effective fighting strength. It answers to the “brave” of North. American Indian story; here de C. translates it by braves.] he got to work with his own sword, once at the Gate of Akhsī, once at the Gate of Shāhrukhiya. A middling archer, he was strong in the fist, – not a man but fell to his blow. Through his ambition, peace was exchanged often for war, friendliness for hostility.

In his early days he was a great drinker, later on used to have a party once or twice a week. He was good company, on occasions reciting verses admirably. Towards the last he rather preferred intoxicating confects[110 - ma‘jūn.Cf. Von Schwarz p. 286 for a recipe.] and, under their sway, used to lose his head. His disposition[111 - mutaiyam. This word, not clearly written in all MSS., has been mistaken for yītīm. Cf. JRAS 1910 p. 882 for a note upon it by my husband to whom I owe the emendation.] was amorous, and he bore many a lover’s mark.[112 - na’l u dāghī bisyār īdī, that is, he had inflicted on himself many of the brands made by lovers and enthusiasts. Cf. Chardin’s Voyages ii, 253 and Lady M. Montague’s Letters p. 200.] He played draughts a good deal, sometimes even threw the dice.

f. His battles and encounters.

He fought three ranged battles, the first with Yūnas Khān, on the Saiḥūn, north of Andijān, at the Goat-leap,[113 - tīka sīkrītkū, lit. likely to make goats leap, from sīkrīmāk to jump close-footed (Shaw).] a village so-called because near it the foot-hills so narrow the flow of the water that people say goats leap across.[114 - sīkrīkān dūr. Both sīkrītkū and sīkrīkān dūr, appear to dictate translation in general terms and not by reference to a single traditional leap by one goat.] There he was beaten and made prisoner. Yūnas Khān for his part did well by him and gave him leave to go to his own district (Andijān). This fight having been at that place, the Battle of the Goat-leap became a date in those parts.

His second battle was fought on the Urūs,[115 - i. e. Russian; it is the Arys tributary of the Sīr.] in Turkistān, with Aūzbegs returning from a raid near Samarkand. He crossed the river on the ice, gave them a good beating, separated off all their prisoners and booty and, without coveting a single thing for himself, gave everything back to its owners.

His third battle he fought with (his brother) Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā at a place between Shāhrukhiya and Aūrā-tīpā, named Khwāṣ.[116 - The Fr. map of 1904 shows Kas, in the elbow of the Sīr, which seems to represent Khwāṣ.] Here he was beaten.

g. His country.

The Farghāna country his father had given him; Tāshkīnt and Sairām, his elder brother, Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā gave, and they were in his possession for a time; Shāhrukhiya he took by a ruse and held awhile. Later on, Tāshkīnt and Shāhrukhiya passed out of his hands; there then remained the Farghāna country and Khujand, – some do not include Khujand in Farghāna, – and Aūrā-tīpā, of which the original name was Aūrūshnā and which some call Aūrūsh. In Aūrā-tīpā, at the time Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā went to Tāshkīnt against the Mughūls, and was beaten on the Chīr[117 - i. e. the Chīr-chīk tributary of the Sīr.] (893AH. -1488AD.) was Ḥafiẓ Beg Dūldāī; he made it over to ‘Umar Shaikh M. and the Mīrzā held it from that time forth.

h. His children.

Three of his sons and five of his daughters grew up. I, Z̤ahīru’d-dīn Muḥammad Bābur,[118 - Concerning his name, see T.R. p. 173.] was his eldest son; my mother was Qūtlūq-nigār Khānīm. Jahāngīr Mīrzā was his second son, two years younger than I; his mother, Fāt̤ima-sult̤ān by name, was of the Mughūl tūmān-begs.[119 - i. e. he was a head-man of a horde sub-division, nominally numbering 10,000, and paying their dues direct to the supreme Khān. (T.R. p. 301.)] Nāṣir Mīrzā was his third son; his mother was an Andijānī, a mistress,[120 - ghūnchachī i.e. one ranking next to the four legal wives, in Turkī aūdālīq, whence odalisque. Bābur and Gul-badan mention the promotion of several to Begīm’s rank by virtue of their motherhood.] named Umīd. He was four years younger than I.

‘Umar Shaikh Mīrzā’s eldest daughter was Khān-zāda Begīm,[121 - One of Bābur’s quatrains, quoted in the Abūshqa, is almost certainly addressed to Khān-zāda. Cf. A.Q. Review, Jan. 1911, p. 4; H. Beveridge’s Some verses of Bābur. For an account of her marriage see Shaibānī-nāma (Vambéry) cap. xxxix.] my full sister, five years older than I. The second time I took Samarkand (905AH. -1500AD.), spite of defeat at Sar-i-pul,[122 - Kehr’s MS. has a passage here not found elsewhere and seeming to be an adaptation of what is at the top of Ḥai. MS. f. 88. (Ilminsky, p. 10, ba wujūd … tāpīb.)] I went back and held it through a five months’ siege, but as no sort of help or reinforcement came from any beg or ruler thereabouts, I left it in despair and got away; in that throneless time (fatrat) Khān-zāda Begīm fell[123 - tūshtī, which here seems to mean that she fell to his share on division of captives. Muḥ. Ṣāliḥ makes it a love-match and places the marriage before Bābur’s departure. Cf. f. 95 and notes.] to Muḥammad Shaibānī Khān. She had one child by him, a pleasant boy,[124 - aūgāhlān. Khurram would be about five when given Balkh in circa 911 AH. (1505 AD.). He died when about 12. Cf. Ḥ.S. ii, 364.] named Khurram Shāh. The Balkh country was given to him; he went to God’s mercy a few years after the death of his father (916AH. -1510AD.). Khān-zāda Begīm was in Merv when Shāh Ismā‘īl (Ṣafawī) defeated the Aūzbegs near that town (916AH. -1510AD.); for my sake he treated her well, giving her a sufficient escort to Qūndūz where she rejoined me. We had been apart for some ten years; when Muḥammadī kūkūldāsh and I went to see her, neither she nor those about her knew us, although I spoke. They recognized us after a time.

Mihr-bānū Begīm was another daughter, Nāṣir Mīrzā’s full-sister, two years younger than I. Shahr-bānū Begīm was another, also Nāṣir Mīrzā’s full-sister, eight years younger than I. Yādgār-sult̤ān Begīm was another, her mother was a mistress, called Āghā-sult̤ān. Ruqaiya-sult̤ān Begīm was another; her mother, Makhdūm-sult̤ān Begīm, people used to call the Dark-eyed Begīm. The last-named two were born after the Mīrzā’s death. Yādgār-sult̤ān Begīm was brought up by my grandmother, Aīsān-daulat Begīm; she fell to ‘Abdu’l-lat̤īf Sl., a son of Ḥamza Sl. when Shaibānī Khān took Andijān and Akhsī (908AH. -1503AD.). She rejoined me when (917AH. -1511AD.) in Khutlān I defeated Ḥamza Sl. and other sult̤āns and took Ḥiṣār. Ruqaiya-sult̤ān Begīm fell in that same throneless time (fatrat) to Jānī Beg Sl. (Aūzbeg). By him she had one or two children who did not live. In these days of our leisure (furṣatlār)[125 - This fatrat (interregnum) was between Bābur’s loss of Farghāna and his gain of Kābul; the furṣatlār were his days of ease following success in Hindūstān and allowing his book to be written.] has come news that she has gone to God’s mercy.

i. His ladies and mistresses.

Qūtlūq-nigār Khānīm was the second daughter of Yūnas Khān and the eldest (half-) sister of Sl. Maḥmūd Khān and Sl. Aḥmad Khān.

(j. Interpolated account of Bābur’s mother’s family.)

Yūnas Khān descended from Chaghatāī Khān, the second son of Chīngīz Khān (as follows,) Yūnas Khān, son of Wais Khān, son of Sher-‘alī Aūghlān, son of Muḥammad Khān, son of Khiẓr Khwāja Khān, son of Tūghlūq-tīmūr Khān, son of Aīsān-būghā Khān, son of Dāwā Khān, son of Barāq Khān, son of Yīsūntawā Khān, son of Mūātūkān, son of Chaghatāī Khān, son of Chīngīz Khān.

Since such a chance has come, set thou down[126 - qīlālīng, lit. do thou be (setting down), a verbal form recurring on f. 227b l. 2. With the same form (aīt)ālīng, lit. do thou be saying, the compiler of the Abūshqa introduces his quotations. Shaw’s paradigm, qīlīng only. Cf. A.Q.R. Jan. 1911, p. 2.] now a summary of the history of the Khāns.