[2421] This “Bengalī” is territorial only; Naṣrat Shāh was a Sayyid’s son (f.271).
[2422] Ismā‘īl Mītā (f. 357) who will have come with Mullā Maẕhab.
[2423] mī‘ād, cf. f. 350b and f. 354b. Ghīāṣu’d-dīn may have been a body-guard.
[2424] Lūdī Afghāns and their friends, including Bīban and Bāyazīd.
[2425] yūllūq tūrālīk; Memoirs, p. 398, “should act in every respect in perfect conformity to his commands”; Mémoires ii, 379, “chacun suivant son rang et sa dignité.”
[2426] tawāchī. Bābur’s uses of this word support Erskine in saying that “the tawāchī is an officer who corresponds very nearly to the Turkish chāwush, or special messenger” (Zenker, p. 346, col. iii) “but he was also often employed to act as a commissary for providing men and stores, as a commissioner in superintending important affairs, as an aide-de-camp in carrying orders, etc.”
[2427] Here the Ḥai. MS. has the full-vowelled form, būljār. Judging from what that Codex writes, būljār may be used for a rendezvous of troops, m:ljār or b:ljār for any other kind of tryst (f. 350, p. 628 n. 1; Index s.nn.), also for a shelter.
[2428] yāwūshūb aīdī, which I translate in accordance with other uses of the verb, as meaning approach, but is taken by some other workers to mean “near its end”.
[2429] Though it is not explicitly said, Chīn-tīmūr may have been met with on the road; as the “also” (ham) suggests.
[2430] To the above news the Akbar-nāma adds the important item reported by Humāyūn, that there was talk of peace. Bābur replied that, if the time for negotiation were not past, Humāyūn was to make peace until such time as the affairs of Hindūstān were cleared off. This is followed in the A. N. by a seeming quotation from Bābur’s letter, saying in effect that he was about to leave Hindūstān, and that his followers in Kābul and Tramontana must prepare for the expedition against Samarkand which would be made on his own arrival. None of the above matter is now with the Bābur-nāma; either it was there once, was used by Abū’l-faz̤l and lost before the Persian trss. were made; or Abū’l-faẓl used Bābur’s original, or copied, letter itself. That desire for peace prevailed is shewn by several matters:—T̤ahmāsp, the victor, asked and obtained the hand of an Aūzbeg in marriage; Aūzbeg envoys came to Āgra, and with them Turk Khwājas having a mission likely to have been towards peace (f. 357b); Bābur’s wish for peace is shewn above and on f. 359 in a summarized letter to Humāyūn. (Cf. Abū’l-ghāzī’s Shajarat-i-Turk [Histoire des Mongols, Désmaisons’ trs. p. 216]; Akbar-nāma, H. B.’s trs. i, 270.)