520
Elp. MS. f. 57b; W. – i-B. I.O. 215 f. 63b and I.O. 217 f. 52; Mems. p. 82.
Two contemporary works here supplement the B.N.; (1) the (
521
522
He tried vainly to get the town defended. “Would to God Bābur Mīrzā were here!” he is reported as saying, by Muḥ. Ṣāliḥ.
523
Perhaps it is for the play of words on ‘Alī and ‘Alī’s life (
524
525
Muḥ. Ṣāliḥ, invoking curses on such a mother, mentions that Zuhra was given to a person of her own sort.
526
The Sh. N. and
527
Harāt might be his destination but the Ḥ.S. names Makka. Some dismissals towards Khurāsān may imply pilgrimage to Meshhed.
528
Used also by Bābur’s daughter, Gul-badan (l.c. f. 31).
529
Cut off by alien lands and weary travel.
530
The Pers. annotator of the Elph. Codex has changed Alāī to
531
Amongst Turks and Mughūls, gifts were made by nines.
532
Ḥiṣār was his earlier home.
533
Many of these will have been climbed in order to get over places impassable at the river’s level.
534
Schuyler quotes a legend of the lake. He and Kostenko make it larger.
535
The second occasion was when he crossed from Sūkh for Kābul in 910 AH. (fol. 120).
536
This name appears to indicate a Command of 10,000 (Bretschneider’s
537
It seems likely that the cloth was soiled.
538
As, of the quoted speech, one word only, of three, is Turkī, others may have been dreamed. Shaikh Maṣlaḥat’s tomb is in Khujand where Bābur had found refuge in 903 AH.; it had been circumambulated by Tīmūr in 790 AH. (1390 AD.) and is still honoured.
This account of a dream compares well for naturalness with that in the seemingly-spurious passage, entered with the Ḥai. MS. on f. 118. For examination of the passage
539
He was made a Tarkhān by diploma of Shaibānī (Ḥ.S. ii, 306, l. 2).
540
Here the Ḥai. MS. begins to use the word
541
In 875 AH. (1470 AD.). Ḥusain was then 32 years old. Bābur might have compared his taking of Samarkand with Tīmūr’s capture of Qarshī, also with 240 followers (Z̤.N. i, 127). Firishta (lith. ed. p. 196) ascribes his omission to do so to reluctance to rank himself with his great ancestor.
542
This arrival shews that Shaibānī expected to stay in Samarkand. He had been occupying Turkistān under The Chaghatāī Khān.
543
‘Alī-sher died Jan. 3rd. 1501. It is not clear to what disturbances Bābur refers. He himself was at ease till after April 20th. 1502 and his defeat at Sar-i-pul. Possibly the reference is to the quarrels between Binā’ī and ‘Alī-sher.
544
I surmise a double play-of-words in this verse. One is on two rhyming words,
545
Bābur’s refrain is
546
Shawwāl 906 AH. began April 20th. 1501.
547
From the
548
Sīkīz Yīldūz.
549
In 1791 AD. Muḥ. Effendi shot 482 yards from a Turkish bow, before the R. Tox. S.; not a good shot, he declared. Longer ones are on record.
550
In the margin of the Elph. Codex, here, stands a Persian verse which appears more likely to be Humāyūn’s than Bābur’s. It is as follows:
This verse is written into the text of the First W. – i-B. (I.O. 215 f. 72) and is introduced by a scribe’s statement that it is by
551
This subterranean water-course, issuing in a flowing well (Erskine) gave its name to a bastion (Ḥ.S. ii, 300).
552