(o. A levy on stipendiaries.)
(Oct. 22nd) By this time the treasure of Iskandar and Ibrāhīm in Dihlī and Āgra was at an end. Royal orders were given therefore, on Thursday the 8th of Ṣafar, that each stipendiary (wajhdār) should drop into the Dīwān, 30 in every 100 of his allowance, to be used for war-material and appliances, for equipment, for powder, and for the pay of gunners and matchlockmen.
(p. Royal letters sent into Khurāsān.)
(Oct. 24th) On Saturday the 10th of the month, Pay-master Sl. Muḥammad’s foot-man Shāh Qāsim who once before had taken letters of encouragement to kinsfolk in Khurāsān,[2310] was sent to Herī with other letters to the purport that, through God’s grace, our hearts were at ease in Hindūstān about the rebels andFol. 345b. pagans of east and west; and that, God bringing it aright, we should use every means and assuredly in the coming spring should touch the goal of our desire.[2311] On the margin of a royal letter sent to Ahṃad Afshār (Turk) a summons to Farīdūn the qabūz-player was written with my own hand.
(Here the record of 11 days is wanting.)
In today’s forenoon (Tuesday 20th?) I made a beginning of eating quicksilver.[2312]
(q. News from Kābul and Khurāsān.)[2313]
(Nov. 4th) On Wednesday the 21st of the month (Ṣafar) a Hindūstānī foot-man (pīāda) brought dutiful letters (‘arẓ-dāshtlār) from Kāmrān and Khwāja Dost-i-khāwand. The Khwāja had reached Kābul on the 10th of Ẕū’l-ḥijja[2314] and will have been anxious to go on[2315] to Humāyūn’s presence, but there comes to him a man from Kāmrān, saying, “Let the honoured Khwāja come (to see me); let him deliver whatever royal orders there may be; let him go on to Humāyūn when matters have been talked over.”[2316] Kāmrān will have gone into Kābul on the 17th of Ẕū’l-ḥijja (Sep. 2nd), will have talked with the Khwāja and, on the 28th of the same month, will have let him go on for Fort Victory (Qila‘-i-z̤afar).
There was this excellent news in the dutiful letters received:—that Shāh-zāda T̤ahmāsp, resolute to put down the Aūzbeg,[2317] had overcome and killed Rīnīsh (var. Zīnīsh) Aūzbeg in Dāmghān and made a general massacre of his people; that ‘Ubaid Khān, getting sure news about the Qīzīl-bāsh (Red-head) had risen from round Herī, gone to Merv, called up to him there all the sult̤āns of Samarkand and those parts, and that all the sult̤āns of Mā warā’u’n-nahr had gone to help him.[2318]