[1561] Erskine calculated that ‘Ālam Khān was now well over 70 years of age (H. of I. i, 421 n.).
[1562] A. N. trs. H. Beveridge, i, 239.
[1563] The following old English reference to Isma‘il’s appearance may be quoted as found in a corner somewhat out-of-the-way from Oriental matters. In his essay on beauty Lord Bacon writes when arguing against the theory that beauty is usually not associated with highmindedness, “But this holds not always; for Augustus Cæsar, Titus Vespasianus, Philip le Bel of France, Edward the Fourth of England, Alcibiades of Athens, Isma‘il the Sophy (Ṣafawī) of Persia, were all high and great spirits, and yet the most beautiful men of their times.”
[1564] Cf. s.a. 928 AH. for discussion of the year of death.
[1565] Elph. MS. f. 205b; W.-i-B. I.O. 215 f. 199b omits the year’s events on the ground that Shaikh Zain has translated them; I.O. 217 f. 174; Mems. p. 290; Kehr’s Codex p. 1084.
A considerable amount of reliable textual material for revising the Hindūstān section of the English translation of the Bābur-nāma is wanting through loss of pages from the Elphinstone Codex; in one instance no less than an equivalent of 36 folios of the Ḥaidarābād Codex are missing (f. 356 et seq.), but to set against this loss there is the valuable per contra that Kehr’s manuscript throughout the section becomes of substantial value, losing its Persified character and approximating closely to the true text of the Elphinstone and Ḥaidarābād Codices. Collateral help in revision is given by the works specified (in loco p. 428) as serving to fill the gap existing in Bābur’s narrative previous to 932 AH. and this notably by those described by Elliot and Dowson. Of these last, special help in supplementary details is given for 932 AH. and part of 933 AH. by Shaikh Zain [Khawāfi]’s T̤abaqāt-i-bāburī, which is a highly rhetorical paraphrase of Bābur’s narrative, requiring familiarity with ornate Persian to understand. For all my references to it, I am indebted to my husband. It may be mentioned as an interesting circumstance that the B.M. possesses in Or. 1999 a copy of this work which was transcribed in 998 AH. by one of Khwānd-amīr’s grandsons and, judging from its date, presumably for Abū’l-faẓl’s use in the Akbar-nāma.
Like part of the Kābul section, the Hindūstān one is in diary-form, but it is still more heavily surcharged with matter entered at a date later than the diary. It departs from the style of the preceding diary by an occasional lapse into courtly phrase and by exchange of some Turkī words for Arabic and Persian ones, doubtless found current in Hind, e.g. fauj, dīra, manzil, khail-khāna.
[1566] This is the Logar affluent of the Bārān-water (Kābul-river). Masson describes this haltingplace (iii, 174).
[1567] muḥaqqar saughāt u bīlāk or tīlāk. A small verbal point arises about bīlāk (or tīlāk). Bīlāk is said by Quatremère to mean a gift (N. et E. xiv, 119 n.) but here muḥaqqar saughāt expresses gift. Another meaning can be assigned to bīlāk here, [one had also by tīlāk,] viz. that of word-of-mouth news or communication, sometimes supplementing written communication, possibly secret instructions, possibly small domestic details. In bīlāk, a gift, the root may be bīl, the act of knowing, in tīlāk it is tīl, the act of speaking [whence tīl, the tongue, and tīl tūtmāk, to get news]. In the sentence noted, either word would suit for a verbal communication. Returning to bīlāk as a gift, it may express the nuance of English token, the maker-known of friendship, affection and so-on. This differentiates bīlāk from saughāt, used in its frequent sense of ceremonial and diplomatic presents of value and importance.
[1568] With Sa‘īd at this time were two Khānīms Sult̤ān-nigār and Daulat-sult̤ān who were Bābur’s maternal-aunts. Erskine suggested Khūb-nigār, but she had died in 907 AH. (f. 96).