[2490] var. Qabāq, Qatāk, Qanāk, to each of which a meaning might be attached. Bābur had written to Humāyūn about the frontier affair, as one touching the desired peace (f. 359).
[2491] This will refer to the late arrival in Āgra of the envoy named, who was not with his younger brother at the feast of f. 351b (f. 357, p. 641, n. 2).—As to T̤ahmāsp’s style, see f. 354, f. 358.
[2492] Shāh-qulī may be the ill-informed narrator of f. 354.
[2493] Both are marked on the southward road from Jumoheen (Jumandnā?) for Auraiya.
[2494] The old Kālpī pargana having been sub-divided, Dīrapūr is now in the district of Cawnpore (Kānhpūr).
[2495] That this operation was not hair-cutting but head-shaving is shewn by the verbs T. qīrmāq and its Pers. trs. tarāsh kardan. To shave the head frequently is common in Central Asia.
[2496] This will be Chaparghatta on the Dīrapūr-Bhognīpūr-Chaparghatta-Mūsanagar road, the affixes kada and ghatta both meaning house, temple, etc.
[2497] Māhīm, and with her the child Gul-badan, came in advance of the main body of women. Bābur seems to refer again to her assumption of royal style by calling her Walī, Governor (f. 369 and n.). It is unusual that no march or halt is recorded on this day.
[2498] or, Ārampūr. We have not succeeded in finding this place; it seems to have been on the west bank of the Jumna, since twice Bābur when on the east bank, writes of coming opposite to it (supra and f. 379). If no move was made on Tuesday, Jumāda II. 6th (cf. last note), the distance entered as done on Wednesday would locate the halting-place somewhere near the Akbarpūr of later name, which stands on a road and at a ferry. But if the army did a stage on Tuesday, of which Bābur omits mention, Wednesday’s march might well bring him opposite to Hamirpūr and to the “Rampur”-ferry. The verbal approximation of Ārampūr and “Rampur” arrests attention.—Local encroachment by the river, which is recorded in the District Gazetteers, may have something to do with the disappearance from these most useful books and from maps, of pargana Ādampūr (or, Ārampūr).
[2499] tūshlāb. It suits best here, since solitude is the speciality of the excursion, to read tūshmāk as meaning to take the road, Fr. cheminer.