The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)
on foot; Sayyid Maḥmūd _Aūghlāqchī_, one of the best of the
household-braves, left his horses behind and walked. In this state as to
horses we went all the rest of the way to Ghaznī.
Three or four marches further on, Jahāngīr Mīrzā plundered [Sidenote:
Fol. 153.] some Afghāns and brought in a few sheep.
(_l. The Āb-i-istāda._)
When, with a few more marches, we reached the Standing-water
(_Āb-i-istāda_) a wonderfully large sheet of water presented itself to
view; the level lands on its further side could not be seen at all; its
water seemed to join the sky; the higher land and the mountains of that
further side looked to hang between Heaven and Earth, as in a mirage.
The waters there gathered are said to be those of the spring-rain floods
of the Kattawāz-plain, the Zurmut-valley, and the Qarā-bāgh meadow of
the Ghaznī-torrent,—floods of the spring-rains, and the over-plus[918]
of the summer-rise of streams.
When within two miles of the Āb-i-istāda, we saw a wonderful
thing,—something as red as the rose of the dawn kept shewing and
vanishing between the sky and the water. It kept coming and going. When
we got quite close we learned that what seemed the cause were flocks of
geese,[919] not 10,000, not 20,000 in a flock, but geese innumerable
which, when the mass of birds flapped their wings in flight, sometimes
shewed red feathers, sometimes not. Not only was this bird there in
countless numbers, but birds of every sort. Eggs lay in masses on the
shore. When two Afghāns, come there to collect eggs, saw us, [Sidenote:
Fol. 153b.] they went into the water half a _kuroh_ (a mile). Some of
our men following, brought them back. As far as they went the water was
of one depth, up to a horse's belly; it seemed not to lie in a hollow,
the country being flat.
We dismounted at the torrent coming down to the Āb-i-istāda from the
plain of Kattawāz. The several other times we have passed it, we have
found a dry channel with no water whatever,[920] but this time, there
was so much water, from the spring-rains, that no ford could be found.
The water was not very broad but very deep. Horses and camels were made
to swim it; some of the baggage was hauled over with ropes. Having got
across, we went on through Old Nānī and Sar-i-dih to Ghaznī where for a
few days Jahāngīr Mīrzā was our host, setting food before us and
offering his tribute.
(_m. Return to Kābul._)
That year most waters came down in flood. No ford was found through the
water of Dih-i-yaq`ūb.[921] For this reason we went straight on to
Kamarī, through the Sajāwand-pass. At Kamarī I had a boat fashioned in a
pool, brought and set on the Dih-i-yaq`ūb-water in front of Kamarī. In
this all our people were put over.
We reached Kābul in the month of Ẕū'l-ḥijja (May 1505 AD.).[922] A few
days earlier Sayyid Yūsuf _Aūghlāqchī_ had gone to God's [Sidenote: Fol.
154.] mercy through the pains of colic.
(_n. Misconduct of Nāṣīr Mīrzā._)
It has been mentioned that at Qūsh-guṃbaz, Nāṣir Mīrzā asked leave to
stay behind, saying that he would follow in a few days after taking
something from his district for his retainers and followers.[923] But
having left us, he sent a force against the people of Nūr-valley, they
having done something a little refractory. The difficulty of moving in
that valley owing to the strong position of its fort and the
rice-cultivation of its lands, has already been described.[924] The
Mīrzā's commander, Faẓlī, in ground so impracticable and in that
one-road tract, instead of safe-guarding his men, scattered them to
forage. Out came the valesmen, drove the foragers off, made it
impossible to the rest to keep their ground, killed some, captured a
mass of others and of horses,—precisely what would happen to any army
chancing to be under such a person as Faẓlī! Whether because of this
affair, or whether from want of heart, the Mīrzā did not follow us at
all; he stayed behind.
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 [Sidenote: Fol. 154b.] 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.[925] 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.[926]
(_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[927]; 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-ẕafar. 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, [Sidenote: Fol. 155.] whose forefathers also will have been begs
of the Badakhshān Shāhs, uprose in Rāgh.[928] 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.[929]
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.[930]
(_p. Affairs of Khusrau Shāh._)
At the time Khusrau Shāh and Aḥmad-i-qāsim were in flight from Ājar for
Khurāsān,[931] 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 [Sidenote: Fol. 155b.]
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,[932] 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 [Sidenote: Fol. 156.] 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 Sulṯān Aḥmad _Taṃbal_ and
Andijān, made a move on Ḥiṣār, his Honour Khusrau Shāh[933] 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
Sulṯān,[934] went to Qūndūz, gave Qūndūz to his younger brother, Maḥmūd
Sulṯān 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 Sulṯān, he gave that place to
Qaṃbar Bī of Marv.[935]
Qaṃbar Bī was in Qūndūz when Khusrau Shāh went against it; he at once
sent off galloppers to summon Ḥamza Sl. and the [Sidenote: Fol. 156b.]
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 Sulṯān'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.[936]
(_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,[937] most of them marching off to near
Khwāja-i-riwāj.[938] 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.[939] 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.[940]
(_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 [Sidenote: Fol. 157.] 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[941] where Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā had built a house, and
there, with the permission of his heirs,[942] 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.[943] Close upon Khānīm's Fortieth[944] 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_.[945] 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._)