The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)
eyes with mutual understanding; it simply means _se voyer_
_e.g._ f. 17. The point is thus dwelt upon because the
frequent mention of an embrace gives a different impression of
manners from that made by "interview" or words expressing
mutual gaze.
[276] _dābān._ This word Réclus (vi, 171) quoting from
Fedschenko, explains as a difficult rocky defile; _art_,
again, as a dangerous gap at a high elevation; _bel_, as an
easy low pass; and _kūtal_, as a broad opening between low
hills. The explanation of _kūtal_ does not hold good for
Bābur's application of the word (f. 81b) to the Sara-tāq.
[277] _Cf._ f. 4b and note. From Bābur's special mention of
it, it would seem not to be the usual road.
[278] The spelling of this name is uncertain. Variants are
many. Concerning the tribe _see_ T.R. p. 165 n.
[279] Niẕāmu'd-dīn `Alī _Barlās_: _see_ Gul-badan's H.N.
_s.n._ He served Bābur till the latter's death.
[280] _i.e._ Ẕū'n-nūn or perhaps the garrison.
[281] _i.e._ down to Shaibānī's destruction of Chaghatāī rule
in Tāshkīnt in 1503 AD.
[282] Elph. MS. f. 23; W.-i-B. I.O. 215 f. 26 and 217 f. 21;
Mems. p. 35.
Bābur's own affairs form a small part of this year's record;
the rest is drawn from the Ḥ.S. which in its turn, uses
Bābur's f. 34 and f. 37b. Each author words the shared
material in his own style; one adding magniloquence, the other
retracting to plain statement, indeed summarizing at times to
obscurity. Each passes his own judgment on events, _e.g._ here
Khwānd-amīr's is more favourable to Ḥusain Bāī-qarā's conduct
of the Ḥiṣār campaign than Bābur's. _Cf._ Ḥ.S. ii, 256-60 and
274.
[283] This feint would take him from the Oxus.
[284] Tīrmīẕ to Ḥiṣār, 96m. (Réclus vi, 255).
[285] Ḥ.S. Wazr-āb valley. The usual route is up the Kām Rūd
and over the Mūra pass to Sara-tāq. _Cf._ f. 81b.
[286] _i.e._ the Ḥiṣārī mentioned a few lines lower and on f.
99b. Nothing on f. 99b explains his cognomen.
[287] The road is difficult. _Cf._ f. 81b.
[288] Khwānd-amīr also singles out one man for praise, Sl.
Maḥmūd _Mīr-i-ākhwur_; the two names probably represent one
person. The sobriquet may refer to skill with a matchlock, to
top-spinning (_firnagī-bāz_) or to some lost joke. (Ḥ.S. ii,
257.)
[289] This pregnant phrase has been found difficult. It may
express that Bābur assigned the sulṯāns places in their due
precedence; that he seated them in a row; and that they sat
cross-legged, as men of rank, and were not made, as inferiors,
to kneel and sit back on their heels. Out of this last
meaning, I infer comes the one given by dictionaries, "to sit
at ease," since the cross-legged posture is less irksome than
the genuflection, not to speak of the ease of mind produced by
honour received. _Cf._ f. 18b and note on Aḥmad's posture;
Redhouse _s.nn. bāghīsh_ and _bāghdāsh_; and B.M.
Tawārīkh-i-guzīda naṣrat-nāma, in the illustrations of which
the chief personage, only, sits cross-legged.
[290] _siyāsat._ My translation is conjectural only.
[291] _sar-kob._ The old English noun _strike_, "an instrument
for scraping off what appears above the top," expresses the
purpose of the wall-high erections of wood or earth (_L.
agger_) raised to reach what shewed above ramparts. _Cf._
Webster.
[292] Presumably lower down the Qūndūz Water.
[293] _aūz pādshāhī u mīrzālārīdīn artīb._
[294] _sic._ Ḥai. MS.; Elph. MS. "near Tāliqān"; some W.-i-B.
MSS. "Great Garden." Gul-badan mentions a Tāliqān Garden.
Perhaps the Mīrzā went so far east because, Ẕū'n-nūn being
with him, he had Qandahār in mind. _Cf._ f. 42b.
[295] _i.e._ Sayyid Muḥammad `Alī. _See_ f. 15 n. to Sherīm.
Khwāja Changāl lies 14 m. below Tāliqān on the Tāliqān Water.
(Erskine.)
[296] f. 27b, second.
[297] The first was _circa_ 895 AH.-1490 AD. _Cf._ f. 27b.
[298] Bābur's wording suggests that their common homage was
the cause of Badī`u'z-zamān's displeasure but _see_ f. 41.
[299] The Mīrzā had grown up with Ḥiṣārīs. _Cf._ Ḥ.S. ii, 270.
[300] As the husband of one of the six Badakhshī Begīms, he
was closely connected with local ruling houses. _See_ T.R. p.
107.
[301] _i.e._ Muḥammad `Ubaidu'l-lāh the elder of _Aḥrārī's_
two sons. d. 911 AH. _See Rashaḥāt-i-`ain-alḥayāt_ (I.O. 633)
f. 269-75; and _Khizīnatu'l-aṣfīya_ lith. ed. i, 597.
[302] _Bū yūq tūr_, _i.e._ This is not to be.
[303] d. 908 AH. He was not, it would seem, of the _Aḥrārī_
family. His own had provided Pontiffs (_Shaikhu'l-islām_) for
Samarkand through 400 years. _Cf._ _Shaibānī-nāma_, Vambéry,
p. 106; also, for his character, p. 96.
[304] _i.e._ he claimed sanctuary.
[305] _Cf._ f. 45b and Pétis de la Croix's _Histoire de
Chīngīz Khān_ pp. 171 and 227. What Tīmūr's work on the Gūk
Sarāī was is a question for archæologists.
[306] _i.e._ over the Aītmak Pass. _Cf._ f. 49.
[307] Ḥai. MS. _ārālighīgha_. Elph. MS. _ārāl_, island.
[308] _See_ f. 179b for _Binā'ī_. Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ Mīrzā
_Khwārizmī_ is the author of the _Shaibānī-nāma_.
[309] Elph. MS. f. 27; W.-i-B. I.O. 215 f. 30b and 217 f. 25;
Mems. p. 42.
[310] _i.e._ Circassian. Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ (Sh.N. Vambéry p. 276
l. 58) speaks of other Aūzbegs using Chirkas swords.
[311] _aīrtā yāzīghā._ My translation is conjectural. _Aīrtā_
implies _i.a._ foresight. _Yāzīghā_ allows a pun at the
expense of the sulṯāns; since it can be read both as _to the
open country_ and as _for their_ (_next_, _aīrtā_) _misdeeds_.
My impression is that they took the opportunity of being
outside Samarkand with their men, to leave Bāī-sunghar and
make for Shaibānī, then in Turkistān. Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ also
marking the tottering Gate of Sl. `Alī Mīrzā, left him now,
also for Shaibānī. (Vambéry cap. xv.)
[312] _aūmāq_, to amuse a child in order to keep it from
crying.
[313] _i.e._ with Khwāja Yahya presumably. _See_ f. 38.
[314] This man is mentioned also in the _Tawārikh-i-guzīda
Naṣratnāma_ B.M. Or. 3222 f. 124b.
[315] Ḥ.S., on the last day of Ramẓān (June 28th. 1497 AD.).
[316] Muḥammad _Sīghal_ appears to have been a marked man. I
quote from the T.G.N.N. (_see supra_), f. 123b foot, the
information that he was the grandson of Ya`qūb Beg. Zenker
explains _Sīghalī_ as the name of a Chaghatāī family. An
_Ayūb-i-Ya`qūb Begchīk Mughūl_ may be an uncle. See f. 43 for
another grandson.
[317] _baẓ'ī kīrkān-kīnt-kīsākkā bāsh-sīz-qīlghān Mughūllārnī
tūtūb._ I take the word _kīsāk_ in this highly idiomatic
sentence to be a diminutive of _kīs_, old person, on the
analogy of _mīr_, _mīrāk_, _mard_, _mardak_. [The Ḥ.S. uses
_Kīsāk_ (ii, 261) as a proper noun.] The alliteration in _kāf_
and the mighty adjective here are noticeable.
[318] Qāsim feared to go amongst the Mughūls lest he should
meet retaliatory death. _Cf._ f. 99b.
[319] This appears from the context to be Yām (Jām) -bāī and
not the Djouma (Jām) of the Fr. map of 1904, lying farther
south. The Avenue named seems likely to be Tīmūr's of f. 45b
and to be on the direct road for Khujand. _See_ Schuyler i,
232.
[320] _būghān buyīnī._ W.-i-B. 215, _yān_, thigh, and 217
_gardan_, throat. I am in doubt as to the meaning of _būghān_;
perhaps the two words stand for joint at the nape of the neck.
Khwāja-i-kalān was one of seven brothers, six died in Bābur's
service, he himself served till Bābur's death.
[321] _Cf._ f. 48.
[322] Khorochkine (Radlov's _Réceuil d'Itinéraires_ p. 241)
mentions Pul-i-mougak, a great stone bridge thrown across a
deep ravine, east of Samarkand. _For_ Kūl-i-maghāk, deep pool,
or pool of the fosse, _see_ f. 48b.
[323] From Khwānd-amīr's differing account of this affair, it
may be surmised that those sending the message were not
treacherous; but the message itself was deceiving inasmuch as
it did not lead Bābur to expect opposition. _Cf._ f. 43 and
note.
[324] Of this nick-name several interpretations are allowed by
the dictionaries.
[325] _See_ Schuyler i, 268 for an account of this beautiful
Highland village.
[326] Here Bābur takes up the thread, dropped on f. 36, of the
affairs of the Khurāsānī mīrzās. He draws on other sources
than the Ḥ.S.; perhaps on his own memory, perhaps on
information given by Khurāsānīs with him in Hindūstān _e.g._
Ḥusain's grandson. _See_ f. 167b. _Cf._ Ḥ.S. ii, 261.
[327] _bāghīshlāb tūr._ _Cf._ f. 34 note to _bāghīsh dā_.
[328] _Bū sozlār aūnūlūng._ Some W.-i-B. MSS., _Farāmosh
bakunīd_ for _nakunīd_, thus making the Mīrzā not acute but
rude, and destroying the point of the story _i.e._ that the
Mīrzā pretended so to have forgotten as to have an empty mind.
Khwānd-amīr states that `Alī-sher prevailed at first; his
tears therefore may have been of joy at the success of his
pacifying mission.
[329] _i.e._ B.Z.'s father, Ḥusain, against Mū`min's father,
B.Z. and Ḥusain's son, Muz̤affar Ḥusain against B.Z.'s son
Mū`min;—a veritable conundrum.
[330] Garzawān lies west of Balkh. Concerning Pul-i-chirāgh
Col. Grodekoff's _Ride to Harāt_ (Marvin p. 103 ff.) gives
pertinent information. It has also a map showing the
Pul-i-chirāgh meadow. The place stands at the mouth of a
triply-bridged defile, but the name appears to mean Gate of
the Lamp (_cf._ Gate of Tīmūr), and not Bridge of the Lamp,
because the Ḥ.S. and also modern maps write _bīl_ (_bel_),
pass, where the Turkī text writes _pul_, bridge, narrows,
pass.
The lamp of the name is one at the shrine of a saint, just at
the mouth of the defile. It was alight when Col. Grodekoff
passed in 1879 and to it, he says, the name is due now—as it
presumably was 400 years ago and earlier.
[331] Khwānd-amīr heard from the Mīrzā on the spot, when later
in his service, that he was let down the precipice by help of
turban-sashes tied together.
[332] _yīkīt yīlāng u yāyāq yālīng_; a jingle made by due
phonetic change of vowels; a play too on _yālāng_, which first
means stripped _i.e._ robbed and next unmailed, perhaps
sometimes bare-bodied in fight.
[333] _qūsh-khāna._ As the place was outside the walls, it may
be a good hawking ground and not a falconry.
[334] The Ḥ.S. mentions (ii, 222) a Sl. Aḥmad of Chār-shaṃba,
a town mentioned _e.g._ by Grodekoff p. 123. It also spoils
Bābur's coincidence by fixing Tuesday, Shab`ān 29th. for the
battle. Perhaps the commencement of the Muḥammadan day at
sunset, allows of both statements.
[335] Elph. MS. f. 30b; W.-i-B. I.O. 215 f. 34 and 217 f. 26b;
Mems. p. 46.
The abruptness of this opening is due to the interposition of
Sl. Ḥusain M.'s affairs between Bābur's statement on f. 41
that he returned from Aūrgūt and this first of 903 AH. that on
return he encamped in Qulba.
[336] _See_ f. 48b.
[337] _i.e._ Chūpān-ātā; _see_ f. 45 and note.
[338] _Aūghlāqchī_, the Grey Wolfer of f. 22.
[339] A sobriquet, the _suppliant_ or perhaps something having
connection with musk. Ḥ.S. ii, 278, son of Ḥ.D.
[340] _i.e._ grandson (of Muḥammad Sīghal). _Cf._ f. 39.
[341] This seeming sobriquet may show the man's trade. _Kāl_
is a sort of biscuit; _qāshūq_ may mean a spoon.
[342] The Ḥ.S. does not ascribe treachery to those inviting
Bābur into Samarkand but attributes the murder of his men to
others who fell on them when the plan of his admission became