[433] aīsh achīlmādī, a phrase recurring on f. 59b foot. It appears to imply, of trust in Providence, what the English “The way was not opened,” does. Cf. f. 60b for another example of trust, there clinching discussion whether to go or not to go to Marghīnān.
[434] i.e. Aḥrārī. He had been dead some 10 years. The despoilment of his family is mentioned on f. 23b.
[435] fatratlār, here those due to the deaths of Aḥmad and Maḥmūd with their sequel of unstable government in Samarkand.
[436] Aūghlāqchī, the player of the kid-game, the gray-wolfer. Yār-yīlāq will have gone with the rest of Samarkand into ‘Alī’s hands in Rajab 903 AH. (March 1498). Contingent terms between him and Bābur will have been made; Yūsuf may have recognized some show of right under them, for allowing Bābur to occupy Yār-yīlāq.
[437] i.e. after 933 AH. Cf. f. 46b and note concerning the Bikramāditya era. See index s.n. Aḥmad-i-yūsuf and Ḥ.S. ii, 293.
[438] This plural, unless ironical, cannot be read as honouring ‘Alī; Bābur uses the honorific plural most rarely and specially, e.g. for saintly persons, for The Khān and for elder women-kinsfolk.
[439] bīr yārīm yīl. Dates shew this to mean six months. It appears a parallel expression to Pers. hasht-yak, one-eighth.
[440] Ḥ.S. ii, 293, in place of these two quotations, has a misra‘,—Na rāy ṣafar kardan u na rūy iqāmat, (Nor resolve to march, nor face to stay).
[441] i.e. in Samarkand.
[442] Point to point, some 145 m. but much further by the road. Tang-āb seems likely to be one of the head-waters of Khwāja Bikargān-water. Thence the route would be by unfrequented hill-tracks, each man leading his second horse.