The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)
haste. Persian _dalama_, tarantula, also suggests itself.
[1252] _chāpqūn_, which is the word translated by gallop
throughout the previous passage. The Turkī verb _chāpmāq_ is
one of those words-of-all-work for which it is difficult to
find a single English equivalent. The verb _qūīmāq_ is
another; in its two occurrences here the first may be a
metaphor from the pouring of molten metal; the second
expresses that permission to gallop off for the raid without
which to raid was forbidden. The root-notion of _qūīmāq_ seems
to be letting-go, that of _chāpmāq_, rapid motion.
[1253] _i.e._ on the raiders' own road for Kābul.
[1254] f. 198_b_.
[1255] The Fifth taken was manifestly at the ruler's
disposition. In at least two places when dependants send gifts
to Bābur the word [_tassaduq_] used might be rendered as
"gifts for the poor". Does this mean that the _pādshāh_ in
receiving this stands in the place of the Imām of the Qorān
injunction which orders one-fifth of spoil to be given to the
Imām for the poor, orphans, and travellers,—four-fifths being
reserved for the troops? (Qorān, Sale's ed. 1825, i, 212 and
Hidāyat, Book ix).
[1256] This may be the sum of the separate items of sheep
entered in account-books by the commissaries.
[1257] Here this comprehensive word will stand for deer, these
being plentiful in the region.
[1258] Three Turkī MSS. write _ṣīghīnīb_, but the Elph. MS.
has had this changed to _yītīb_, having reached.
[1259] _bāsh-sīz_, lit. without head, doubtless a pun on
Aūz-beg (own beg, leaderless). B.M. Or. 3714 shows an artist's
conception of this _tart-part_.
[1260] Bābā Khākī is a fine valley, some 13 _yīghāch_ e. of
Herī (f. 13) where the Herī sulṯāns reside in the heats (_J.
Asiatique_ xvi, 501, de Meynard's article; Ḥ.S. iii, 356).
[1261] f. 172_b_.
[1262] _aūkhshātā almādī._ This is one of many passages which
Ilminsky indicates he has made good by help of the Memoirs (p.
261; _Mémoires_ ii, 6).
[1263] They are given also on f. 172.
[1264] This may be Sirakhs or Sirakhsh (Erskine).
[1265] _Tūshlīq tūshdīn yūrdī bīrūrlār._ At least two meanings
can be given to these words. Circumstances seem to exclude the
one in which the Memoirs (p. 222) and _Mémoires_ (ii, 7) have
taken them here, _viz._ "each man went off to shift for
himself", and "chacun s'en alla de son côté et s'enfuit comme
il put", because Ẕū'n-nūn did not go off, and the Mīrzās broke
up after his defeat. I therefore suggest another reading, one
prompted by the Mīrzās' vague fancies and dreams of what they
might do, but did not.
[1266] The encounter was between "Belāq-i-marāl and
Rabāṯ-i-`alī-sher, near Bādghīs" (Raverty's _Notes_ p. 580).
For particulars of the taking of Herī _see_ Ḥ.S. iii, 353.
[1267] One may be the book-name, the second the name in common
use, and due to the colour of the buildings. But Bābur may be
making an ironical jest, and nickname the fort by a word
referring to the defilement (_ālā_) of Aūzbeg possession. (Cf.
Ḥ.S. iii, 359.)
[1268] Mr. Erskine notes that Badī`u'z-zamān took refuge with
Shāh Ismā`īl _Ṣafawī_ who gave him Tabrīz. When the Turkish
Emperor Sālim took Tabrīz in 920 AH. (1514 AD.), he was taken
prisoner and carried to Constantinople, where he died in 923
AH. (1517 AD.).
[1269] In the fort were his wife Kābulī Begīm, d. of Aūlūgh
Beg M. _Kābulī_ and Ruqaiya Āghā, known as the Nightingale. A
young daughter of the Mīrzā, named the Rose-bud (Chūchak), had
died just before the siege. After the surrender of the fort,
Kābulī Begīm was married by Mīrzā Kūkūldāsh (perhaps
`Āshiq-i-muḥammad _Arghūn_); Ruqaiya by Tīmūr Sl. _Aūzbeg_
(Ḥ.S. iii, 359).
[1270] The _Khuṯba_ was first read for Shaibāq Khān in Herī on
Friday Muḥarram 15th 913 AH. (May 27th 1507 AD.).
[1271] There is a Persian phrase used when a man engages in an
unprofitable undertaking _Kīr-i-khar gerift_, _i.e._ _Asini
nervum deprehendet_ (Erskine). The Ḥ.S. does not mention
Banā'i as fleecing the poets but has much to say about one
Maulānā `Abdu'r-raḥīm a Turkistānī favoured by Shaibānī, whose
victim Khwānd-amīr was, amongst many others. Not infrequently
where Bābur and Khwānd-amīr state the same fact, they
accompany it by varied details, as here (Ḥ.S. iii, 358, 360).
[1272] _`adat._ Muḥammadan Law fixes a term after widowhood or
divorce within which re-marriage is unlawful. Light is thrown
upon this re-marriage by Ḥ.S. iii, 359. The passage, a
somewhat rhetorical one, gives the following details:—"On
coming into Her[i.] on Muḥarram 11th, Shaibānī at once set
about gathering in the property of the Tīmūrids. He had the
wives and daughters of the former rulers brought before him.
The great lady Khān-zāda Begīm (f. 163_b_) who was daughter of
Aḥmad Khān, niece of Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā, and wife of Muz̤affar
Mīrzā, shewed herself pleased in his presence. Desiring to
marry him, she said Muz̤affar M. had divorced her two years
before. Trustworthy persons gave evidence to the same effect,
so she was united to Shaibānī in accordance with the glorious
Law. Mihr-angez Begīm, Muẓaffar M.'s daughter, was married to
`Ubaidu'llāh Sl. (_Aūzbeg_); the rest of the chaste ladies
having been sent back into the city, Shaibānī resumed his
search for property." Manifestly Bābur did not believe in the
divorce Khwānd-amīr thus records.
[1273] A sarcasm this on the acceptance of literary honour
from the illiterate.
[1274] f. 191 and note; Pul-i-sālār may be an irrigation-dam.
[1275] Qalāt-i-nādirī, the birth-place of Nādir Shāh, n. of
Mashhad and standing on very strong ground (Erskine).
[1276] This is likely to be the road passing through the
Carfax of Rabāṯ-i-sangbast, described by Daulat-shāh (Browne,
p. 176).
[1277] This will mean that the Arghūns would acknowledge his
suzerainty; Ḥaidar Mīrzā however says that Shāh Beg had higher
views (T. R. p. 202). There had been earlier negotiations
between Ẕū'n-nūn with Badī`u'z-zamān and Bābur which may have
led to the abandonment of Bābur's expedition in 911 AD. (f.
158; Ḥ.S. iii, 323; Raverty's account (_Notes_ p. 581-2) of
Bābur's dealings with the Arghūn chiefs needs revision).
[1278] They will have gone first to Tūn or Qāīn, thence to
Mashhad, and seem likely to have joined the Begīm after
cross-cutting to avoid Herī.
[1279] _yāghī wilāyatī-ghā kīlādūrghān._ There may have been
an accumulation of caravans on their way to Herāt, checked in
Qalāt by news of the Aūzbeg conquest.
[1280] Jahāngīr's son, thus brought by his mother, will have
been an infant; his father had gone back last year with Bābur
by the mountain road and had been left, sick and travelling in
a litter, with the baggage when Bābur hurried on to Kābul at
the news of the mutiny against him (f. 197); he must have died
shortly afterwards, seemingly between the departure of the two
rebels from Kābul (f. 201_b_-202) and the march out for
Qandahār. Doubtless his widow now brought her child to claim
his uncle Bābur's protection.
[1281] Persians pay great attention in their correspondence
not only to the style but to the kind of paper on which a
letter is written, the place of signature, the place of the
seal, and the situation of the address. Chardin gives some
curious information on the subject (Erskine). Bābur marks the
distinction of rank he drew between the Arghūn chiefs and
himself when he calls their letter to him, _`arẓ-dāsht_, his
to them _khat̤t̤_. His claim to suzerainty over those chiefs
is shewn by Ḥaidar Mīrzā to be based on his accession to
Tīmūrid headship through the downfall of the Bāī-qarās, who
had been the acknowledged suzerains of the Arghūns now
repudiating Bābur's claim. Cf. Erskine's _History of India_ i,
cap. 3.
[1282] on the main road, some 40 miles east of Qandahār.
[1283] var. Kūr or Kawar. If the word mean _ford_, this might
well be the one across the Tarnak carrying the road to Qarā
(maps). Here Bābur seems to have left the main road along the
Tarnak, by which the British approach was made in 1880 AD.,
for one crossing west into the valley of the Argand-āb.
[1284] Bābā Ḥasan _Abdāl_ is the Bābā Walī of maps. The same
saint has given his name here, and also to his shrine east of
Atak where he is known as Bābā Walī of Qandahār. The torrents
mentioned are irrigation off-takes from the Argand-āb, which
river flows between Bābā Walī and Khalishak. Shāh Beg's force
was south of the torrents (cf. Murghān-koh on S.A.W. map).
[1285] The narrative and plans of _Second Afghan War_ (Murray
1908) illustrate Bābur's movements and show most of the places
he names. The end of the 280 mile march, from Kābul to within
sight of Qandahār, will have stirred in the General of 1507
what it stirred in the General of 1880. Lord Roberts speaking
in May 1913 in Glasgow on the rapid progress of the movement
for National Service thus spoke:—"A memory comes over me which
turns misgiving into hope and apprehension into confidence. It
is the memory of the morning when, accompanied by two of
Scotland's most famous regiments, the Seaforths and the
Gordons, at the end of a long and arduous march, _I saw in the
distance the walls and minarets of Qandahar, and knew that the
end of a great resolve and a great task was near._"
[1286] _mīn tāsh `imārat qāzdūrghān tūmshūghī-nīng alīdā_; 215
f. l68_b_, _`imarātī kah az sang yak pāra farmūda būdīm_; 217
f. 143_b_, _jāy kah man `imāratī sākhtam_; Mems. p. 226, where
I have built a palace; _Méms._ ii, 15, _l'endroit même où j'ai
bâti un palais_. All the above translations lose the sense of
_qāzdūrghān_, am causing to dig out, to quarry stone. Perhaps
for coolness' sake the dwelling was cut out in the living
rock. That the place is south-west of the main _ạrīqs_, near
Murghān-koh or on it, Bābur's narrative allows. Cf. Appendix
J.
[1287] _sic_, Ḥai. MS. There are two Lakhshas, Little Lakhsha,
a mile west of Qandahār, and Great Lakhsha, about a mile s.w.
of Old Qandahār, 5 or 6 m. from the modern one (Erskine).
[1288] This will be the main irrigation channel taken off from
the Argand-āb (Maps).
[1289] _tamām aīlīkīdīn—aīsh-kīlūr yīkītlār_, an idiomatic
phrase used of `Alī-dost (f. 14_b_ and n.), not easy to
express by a single English adjective.
[1290] The _tawāchī_ was a sort of adjutant who attended to
the order of the troops and carried orders from the general
(Erskine). The difficult passage following gives the Turkī
terms Bābur selected to represent Arabic military ones.
[1291] Ar. _aḥad_ (_Āyīn-i-akbarī_, Blochmann, index _s.n._).
The word _būī_ recurs in the text on f. 210.
[1292] _i.e._ the _būī tīkīnī_ of f. 209_b_, the _khāṣa
tābīn_, close circle.
[1293] As Mughūls seem unlikely to be descendants of Muḥammad,
perhaps the title Sayyid in some Mughūl names here, may be a
translation of a Mughūl one meaning Chief.
[1294] _Arghūn-nīng qarāsī_, a frequent phrase.
[1295] in sign of submission.
[1296] f. 176. It was in 908 AH. [1502 AD.].
[1297] This word seems to be from _sānjmāq_, to prick or stab;
and here to have the military sense of _prick_, _viz._ riding
forth. The Second Pers. trs. (217 f. 144_b_) translates it by
_ghauta khūrda raft_, went tasting a plunge under water (215