kâi, and, going up the Sûrkh-ab, proceeded on to Abdereh; whence, descending by the hill-pass of Shibertû, he reached Kâbul with seventy or eighty plundered and wornout servants and followers, naked and hungry. It was a striking dispensation of Providence. Two or three years before, Nâsir Mirza had instigated all the Ils and Ulûses to rise up and march off with him in rebellion from Kâbul, had proceeded to Badakhshân, put the forts in a state of defence, guarded the valleys, and indulged in the most ambitious views; now he returned, ashamed and distressed at his former doings, and afflicted and distracted at his former defection. I did not show him the least symptom of displeasure, but asked him a number of questions, conversed with him, and showed him marks of regard, in order to dissipate his uneasiness and embarrass

ment.

Baber's fo

EVENTS OF THE YEAR 913.1

I SET out from Kâbul for the purpose of plundering and beating up the quarters of the Ghiljis. Tay against the Ghiljis. By the time we halted at Sirdeh, they brought me notice that a large body of Mehmends, quite unaware of our approach, were lying at Misht and Sekâneh,3 which are about a farsang from Sirdeh. The Amirs, and men who accompanied me, were eager to be allowed to fall upon these Mehmends. I answered, "Would it be right, while the object of the expedition on which we are bent is still unaccomplished, to turn out of our way to chastise and injure our own subjects? It cannot be." Leaving Sirdeh, we crossed the Desht of Kattewâz by night. The night was dark, and the ground uneven. We could see neither hill nor hillock, nor any trace of a road or passage. Nobody was able to guide us. At last I myself led the way. I had passed once or twice before through this ground, and, trusting to my recollection of it, I advanced, keeping the pole-star on my right hand. Almighty God was propitious, and we came right on Kiakiû, and the stream of Ulâbetû, towards the place where the Ghiljis were lying, called Khwâjeh Ismâel Siriti. The road passes over the stream; we halted in the hollow in which the stream flows, rested and refreshed ourselves and our horses for an hour; and having slept and taken breath, towards morning we set out again. The sun was up before we emerged from these hills and knolls, and reached the Desht. From thence, a good farsang from the Ghilji camp, we observed a blackness, which was either owing to the Ghiljis being in motion, or to smoke. The young and inexperienced men of the army all set forward full speed; I followed them for two kos," shooting arrows at their horses, and at length checked their speed. When five or six

1 This year commenced on the 13th of May 1507.

2 The Ghiljis inhabit the tract to the southward and eastward of Ghazni and Lohger.

3 Sekâneh lies south-east of Shorkach, and near Kharbîn. Sirdeh is about twenty-five or thirty miles south of Ghazni.

↑ The Desht of Kattehwâz is to the south of Ghazni.

5 Four miles.

Three miles.

thousand men set out on a pillaging party, it is extremely difficult to maintain discipline. The Almighty directed everything favourably. Our people stopped. When we had got about a Shirai kos from the enemy, we saw the blackness occasioned by the encampment of the Afghans, and sent on the pillagers. In this foray we took a number of sheep. I had never seen so many taken at any other time. While we were dismounted, and employed in collecting the property and spoil, the enemy gathered in troops all around, descended into the plain, and provoked us to fight. Some of the Begs and men having gone out, surrounded and took one body of them whole and entire, and put every man of them to the sword. Nâzir Mirza attacked another body of them, and entirely cut them to pieces. A minaret of skulls was erected of the heads of these Afghans. Dost Piâdeh, the Kotwal, whose name has been already noticed, was wounded in the leg by an arrow, and died by the time we reached Kâbul.

Marching back from Khwâjeh Ismâel, we halted at Ulabetû. Here some of my Begs and officers were directed to go and separate the fifth of the spoil. Kâsim Beg, and some others, as a mark of favour, had not the fifth taken from them. The fifth so taken was returned at sixteen thousand sheep, so that the spoil amounted to eighty thousand, and, making allowance for losses and for the fifths not demanded, must have amounted to a hundred thousand sheep.

hunting

ring.

Marching from this ground next morning, I directed the large hunting-ring to be Forms the formed by the troops in the plain of Kattehwâz, for the purpose of the chase. The deer and gorkhers' of this plain are always very fat, and in great plenty. A number of deer and gorkhers were enclosed in our circle, and many of them were killed. During the hunt I pursued a gorkher, and, on coming near, discharged first one arrow at it, and then another, but the wounds were not such as to bring it down. Yet, in consequence of these two wounds, it ran slower than before. Spurring on my horse, and getting nearer it, I hit it such a blow with my sword on the back part of the head, behind its two ears, that its windpipe was cut, and it fell tumbling over, its hind legs striking my stirrups. My sword cut excessively well, and it was a wonderfully fat gorkher. Its rib might be somewhat less than a gez2 in length. Shirîm Taghai, and some others who had seen the deer of Moghûlistân, were surprised, and declared that, even in Moghûlistân, deer so fat and large were very rarely to be met with. I killed also another gorkher, and the deer and gorkhers in general that were killed in this hunt were very fat; but none equalled in size the gorkher which I have mentioned.

for the purpose of army,

Khorasan.

When this foray was over I returned to Kâbul, and encamped. In the end of last Affairs of year,3 Sheibâk Khan had set out from Samarkand with his conquering Khorasan. Shah Mansûr Bakhshi, a traitor, who held Andekhûd, sent persons to Sheibâk Khan, inviting him to hasten his approach. When he came near Andekhûd, this wretch, relying on his having invited the Uzbeks, dressed himself very fine, put a plume on his head, and taking along with him a peshkesh and a present of his choicest curiosities, issued forth. On his approach, the Uzbeks, who had

4

The gorkher is the wild ass.

2 The gez may be about two feet.

3 Spring of 1507. • Andekhûd may be about twenty-five miles west of Shaberghan, and lies near the Desert.

Irresolution of the Princes.

no officer of rank with them, flocked round him on every side. In the twinkling of an eye they fell upon the procession, pulled away and plundered his effeminate attire, his peshkesh and his rarities, and stripped and robbed him and all his people.

Badîa-ez-zemân Mirza, Mozeffer Mirza, Muhammed Berendûk Birlâs, and Zûlnûn Arghûn, all lay in the vicinity of Bâba Khâki with the army which they had collected. They had neither made up their minds to fight, nor had they agreed to put the fort in a defensible state. They had nothing in order, and had come to no final resolution; but continued lying there panic-struck, ill informed, and irresolute. Muhammed Berendûk Birlâs, who was a man of sense and talent, proposed that Mozeffer Mirza and he should fortify themselves in Heri, while Badîa-ez-zemân Mirza and Zûlnûn Beg should proceed to the hill-country in the adjoining territory, should call in to their assistance, Sultan Ali Arghûn from Sîstân, and Shah Beg and Mokîm, with their armies, from Kandahâr and Zemîn-Dâwer, so as to strengthen themselves by a junction with these chieftains; that when the troops of the Hazâras and Nukderis were once in the field, and in motion, it would be difficult for the enemy to advance into the hillcountry, and that, as they would then be harassed, and kept on the alarm by the army without, it would be quite impossible for them to act with effect against the town. His advice was most judicious, and was founded on deep consideration and foresight. Zûlnûn Arghûn, though a man of courage, yet was mean, avaricious, and of very slender judgment. He was a flighty, crack-brained man. During the time that the brothers were joint-kings in Heri, he was Badîa-ez-zemân Mirza's prime-minister and chief adviser, as has been mentioned. His avarice made him unwilling that Muhammed Berendûk should remain in the city. He was anxious that he himself should be left there; but this he could not accomplish. A more striking proof of his wrong-headedness and derangement is, that he suffered himself to be grossly deluded and cheated, Anecdote by trusting to needy flatterers and impostors. The incident occurred when he was of Zülnûn prime-minister, and in the highest trust at Heri, at which time a body of Sheikhs and Mûllas came and told him, that they had discovered by their communications with the Spheres, that he was to have the appellation of Huzeber-ûlla (the Lion of God), and was to defeat the Uzbeks. Relying on this assurance, and hanging this prediction about his neck, he returned thanks to God; and hence it was that he paid no attention to the wise suggestions of Muhammed Berendûk; did not put the fort in a defensible state; did not prepare ammunition and warlike arms; did not appoint either an advance or picquets to get notice of the enemy's approach, nor even exercise his army, or accustom it to discipline, or battle-array, so as to be prepared and able to fight with readiness when the enemy came.

Beg.

Sheibak

Sheibak Khan having passed the Murghâb in the month of Moharrem,' the first noKhan's ir tice they had of his approach, was the news of his arrival in the vicinity of Sirâkâi.2 ruption into Khorasan. Being filled with consternation, they were unable to do any one thing that was requisite. They could neither assemble their men, nor draw up their army in battle-array; every man went off to shift for himself. Zûlnûn Arghûn, infatuated by absurd flattery, as has been mentioned, kept his ground at Kara Rebât against fifty thousand

Death of
Zulnûn

Beg.

Uzbeks, with a hundred or a hundred and fifty men. A great body of the enemy coming up, took him in an instant, and swept on. They cut off his head as soon as he was taken.

taken.

The mother, sister, Haram, and treasures of the Mirzas, were in the castle of Ehk- Herát tiâr-êd-din, which commonly goes by the name of Aleh Kûrghân.' The Mirzas reached the city late in the evening: they slept till midnight to refresh their horses. At dawn they abandoned the place, without even having thought of putting the fort in a state of defence. During this interval of leisure, they took no means for carrying off their mother, sister, wives, or children, but ran away, leaving them prisoners in the hands of the Uzbeks.2 Payendeh Sultan Begum, Khadîjeh Begum, with the wives and women of Sultan Hussain Mirza, of Badîa-ez-zemân Mirza, and Mozeffer Mirza, their children, infants, and whatever treasure and effects the Mirzas possessed, were all in Aleh Kûrghân. They had not put the fort in a sufficient posture of defence, and the troops that had been appointed to garrison it were not arrived. Ashik Muhammed Arghûn, the younger brother of Mazîd Beg, having fled on foot from the army, arrived at Heri and entered the castle. Ali Khân the son of Amîr Umer Beg, Sheikh Abdalla Bekâwal, Mirza Beg Ky-Khosravi, and Miraki Kor Diwân, also threw themselves into the castle. On Sheibâk Khan's arrival, after two or three days, the Sheikh-ûl-Islam and the chief men of the city, having made a capitulation, took the keys of the walled town, went out to meet him and surrendered the place. Ashik Muhammed, however, held out the castle for sixteen or seventeen days longer; but a mine being run from without, near the horse-market, and fired, a tower was demolished. On this the people in the castle, thinking that all was over with them, gave up all thoughts of holding out, and surrendered.

harsh con

After the taking of Heri, Sheibâk Khan behaved extremely ill to the children and Sheibak's wives of the kings; nor to them alone, he conducted himself towards everybody in a duct. rude, unseemly, and unworthy manner, forfeiting his good name and glory for a little wretched earthly pelf. The first of Sheibâk Khan's misdeeds in Heri was, that for the sake of some worldly dirt, he ordered Khadîjeh Begum to be given up to Shah Mansûr Bakhshi, the catamite, to be plundered and treated as one of his meanest female slaves. Again, he gave the reverend and respected Saint, Sheikh Purân, to the Moghul Abdul Wahab to be plundered; each of his sons he gave to a different person for the same purpose. He gave the poets and authors to Mulla Binâi to be squeezed. Among the jeux d'esprit on this subject, one tetrastich is often repeated in Khorasan :

Except only Abdalla Kîrkhar,3 to-day,

There is not a poet can show the colour of money;

1 This strong castle lies, as has been mentioned, close to Herât on the north.

2 It may only be necessary to add, that Badîa-ez-zemân Mirza took refuge with Shah Ismael Sufevi, who gave him Tabrîz. When the Turkish Emperor Selîm took that place in A. H. 920 (A. D. 1514), he was taken prisoner and carried to Constantinople, where he died A. H. 923 (A. D. 1517). Muhammed Zemân Mirza, who is often mentioned in the course of Baber's transactions in Hindustân, was his

son.,

3 Kîrkhar (asini nervus) seems to have been the nick-name of some poet who was plundered.

Death of

san and

Kepek.

Binâi is inflamed with hopes of getting hold of the poet's cash,

But he will only get hold of a Kîrkhar.1

There was a Khan's daughter called Khanim, one of Mozeffer Mirza's Haram. Sheibak Khan married her immediately on taking Heri, without being restrained by her being in an impure state. In spite of his supreme ignorance, he had the vanity to deliver lectures in explanation of the Koran to Kâzi Ekhtiâr and Muhammed Mîr Yûsef, who were among the most celebrated Mûllas in Khorasân and Heri. He also took a pen and corrected the writing and drawings of Mûlla Sultan Ali, and Behzâd the painter. When at any time he happened to have composed one of his dull couplets, he read it from the pulpit, hung it up in the Chârsû (or Public Market), and levied a benevolence from the town's-people on the joyful occasion. He did know something of reading the Korân, but he was guilty of a number of stupid, absurd, presumptuous, infidel words and deeds, such as I have mentioned.

Ten or fifteen days after the taking of Heri, he advanced from Kohdestân to the Abul Has bridge of Sâlâr, and sent his whole army, under the command of Taimûr Sultan and Abîd Sultan, against Abul Hussan Mirza and Kepek Mirza, who were lying in Meshhid,3 quite off their guard. At one time they thought of defending Kilât;* at another time, on hearing of the approach of this army, they had thoughts of giving it the slip, and of pushing on by forced marches by another road, and so falling on Sheibani Khan by surprise. This was a wonderfully good idea; they could not, however, come to any resolution, and were still lying in their old quarters, when Taimur Sultan and Abîd Sultan came in sight with their army, after a series of rapid marches. The Mirzas, on their side, put their army in array, and marched out, Abul Hassan Mirza was speedily routed. Kepek Mirza, with a few men, fell on the enemy who had engaged his brother. They routed him also. Both of them were made prisoners. When the two brothers met they embraced, kissed each other, and took a last farewell. Abul Hassan Mirza showed some dejection, but no difference could be marked in Kepek Mirza. The heads of the two Mirzas were sent to Sheibâk Khan while he was at the Bridge of Sâlâr.

Baber

Kandahar.

5

At this time Shah Beg, and his younger brother Muhammed Mokîm, being alarmmarches to ed at the progress of Sheibâk Khan, sent me several ambassadors in succession, with submissive letters, to convey professions of their attachment and fidelity. Mokîm himself, in a letter to me, explicitly called upon me to come to his succour. At a season like this, when the Uzbeks had entirely occupied the country, it did not appear to me becoming to remain idly looking on; and, after so many ambassadors and letters had

1 There is a Persian phrase, when a man is engaged in an unprofitable undertaking, Kir-e-khar khâhed gerift, Asini nervum deprehendet.

2 The Adet, or unlawful times of a woman, according to the Muhammedan law, are chiefly three,-while she is mourning the death of her husband, when menstruous, and for a certain period after her divorce. 3 A celebrated city of Khorasan, west from Herât.

The birth-place of Nâdir Shah, north of Meshhid. It stands on very strong ground.

5 These two noblemen were the sons of Zûlnûn Beg, and, after their father's death, were in possession of Kandahar, Zemîn Dâwer, and part of the hill-country to the south. The former, who was a brave warrior, afterwards founded an independent sovereignty (that of the Arghûns) in Sind.