[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. 201b-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. l68b, ‘imarātī kah az sang yak pāra farmūda būdīm; 217 f. 143b, 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).