[1569] Humāyūn’s non-arrival would be the main cause of delay. Apparently he should have joined before the Kābul force left that town.
[1570] The halt would be at Būt-khāk, the last station before the Adīnapūr road takes to the hills.
[1571] Discussing the value of coins mentioned by Bābur, Erskine says in his History of India (vol. i, Appendix E.) which was published in 1854 AD. that he had come to think his estimates of the value of the coins was set too low in the Memoirs (published in 1826 AD.). This sum of 20,000 shāhrukhīs he put at £1000. Cf. E. Thomas’ Pathan Kings of Dihli and Resources of the Mughal Empire.
[1572] One of Masson’s interesting details seems to fit the next stage of Bābur’s march (iii, 179). It is that after leaving Būt-khāk, the road passes what in the thirties of the 19th Century, was locally known as Bābur Pādshāh’s Stone-heap (cairn) and believed piled in obedience to Bābur’s order that each man in his army should drop a stone on it in passing. No time for raising such a monument could be fitter than that of the fifth expedition into Hindūstān when a climax of opportunity allowed hope of success.
[1573] rezāndalīk. This Erskine translates, both here and on ff. 253, 254, by defluxion, but de Courteille by rhume de cerveau. Shaikh Zain supports de Courteille by writing, not rezāndalīk, but nuzla, catarrh. De Courteille, in illustration of his reading of the word, quotes Burnes’ account of an affection common in the Panj-āb and there called nuzla, which is a running at the nostrils, that wastes the brain and stamina of the body and ends fatally (Travels in Bukhara ed. 1839, ii, 41).
[1574] Tramontana, north of Hindū-kush.
[1575] Shaikh Zain says that the drinking days were Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
[1576] The Elph. Codex (f. 208b) contains the following note of Humāyūn’s about his delay; it has been expunged from the text but is still fairly legible:—“The time fixed was after ‘Āshūrā (10th Muḥarram, a voluntary fast); although we arrived after the next-following 10th (‘āshūr, i.e. of Ṣafar), the delay had been necessary. The purpose of the letters (Bābur’s) was to get information; (in reply) it was represented that the equipment of the army of Badakhshān caused delay. If this slave (Humāyūn), trusting to his [father’s] kindness, caused further delay, he has been sorry.”
Bābur’s march from the Bāgh-i-wafā was delayed about a month; Humāyūn started late from Badakhshān; his force may have needed some stay in Kābul for completion of equipment; his personal share of blame for which he counted on his father’s forgiveness, is likely to have been connected with his mother’s presence in Kābul.
Humāyūn’s note is quoted in Turkī by one MS. of the Persian text (B.M. W.-i-B. 16,623 f. 128); and from certain indications in Muḥammad Shīrāzī’s lithograph (p. 163), appears to be in his archetype the Udaipūr Codex; but it is not with all MSS. of the Persian text e.g. not with I.O. 217 and 218. A portion of it is in Kehr’s MS. (p. 1086).