[1424] night-guard. He is the old servant to whom Bābur sent a giant ashrafī of the spoils of India (Gul-badan’s H.N. s.n.).
[1425] The kīping or kīpik is a kind of mantle covered with wool (Erskine); the root of the word is kīp, dry.
[1426] aūlūgh chāsht, a term suggesting that Bābur knew the chota ḥāẓirī, little breakfast, of Anglo-India. It may be inferred, from several passages, that the big breakfast was taken after 9 a.m. and before 12 p.m. Just below men are said to put on their mail at chāsht in the same way as, passim, things other than prayer are said to be done at this or that Prayer; this, I think, always implies that they are done after the Prayer mentioned; a thing done shortly before a Prayer is done “close to” or “near” or when done over half-way to the following Prayer, the act is said to be done “nearer” to the second (as was noted on f. 221).
[1427] Juldū Dost Beg-nīng ātī-gha būldī.
[1428] The disarray of these names in the MSS. reveals confusion in their source. Similar verbal disarray occurs in the latter part of f. 229.
[1429] Manifestly a pun is made on the guide’s name and on the cap-à-pié robe of honour the offenders did not receive.
[1430] aūrdū-nīng aldī-gha, a novel phrase.
[1431] I understand that the servants had come to do their equivalent for “kissing hands” on an appointment viz. to kneel.
[1432] spikenard. Speede’s Indian Handbook on Gardening identifies saṃbhal with Valeriana jatmansi (Sir W. Jones & Roxburgh); “it is the real spikenard of the ancients, highly esteemed alike as a perfume and as a stimulant medicine; native practitioners esteeming it valuable in hysteria and epilepsy.” Bābur’s word dirakht is somewhat large for the plant.
[1433] It is not given, however.