[2580] Bābur’s opinion of Naṣrat Shāh’s hostility is more clearly shewn here than in the verbal message of f. 369.
[2581] This will be an unceremonious summary of a word-of-mouth message.
[2582] Cf. f. 366b, p. 661 n. 2.
[2583] This shews that Bābur did not recognize the Sāran riverain down to the Ganges as belonging to Kharīd. His offered escort of Turks would safe-guard the Kharīdīs if they returned to the right bank of the Ghogrā which was in Turk possession.
[2584] The Ḥai. MS. has wālī, clearly written; which, as a word representing Māhīm would suit the sentence best, may make playful reference to her royal commands (f. 361b), by styling her the Governor (wālī). Erskine read the word as a place-name Dipālī, which I have not found; De Courteille omits Ilminsky’s w:ras (p. 478). The MSS. vary and are uncertain.
[2585] This is the “Kadjar” of Réclus’ L’Asie antérieure and is the name of the Turkmān tribe to which the present ruling house of Persia belongs. “Turkmān” might be taken as applied to Shāh T̤aḥmāsp by Dīv Sult̤ān’s servant on f. 354.
[2586] Nelumbium speciosum, a water-bean of great beauty.
[2587] Shaikh Yaḥyā had been the head of the Chishtī Order. His son (d. 782 AH.-1380-1 AD.) was the author of works named by Abū’l-faẓl as read aloud to Akbar, a discursive detail which pleads in my excuse that those who know Bābur well cannot but see in his grandson’s character and success the fruition of his mental characteristics and of his labours in Hindūstān. (For Sharafu’d-dīn Munīrī, cf. Khazīnatu’l-asfiyā ii, 390-92; and Āyīn-i-akbarī s.n.)
[2588] Kostenko’s Turkistān Region describes a regimen for horses which Bābur will have seen in practice in his native land, one which prevented the defect that hindered his at Munīr from accomplishing more than some 30 miles before mid-day.
[2589] The distance from Munīr to the bank of the Ganges will have been considerably longer in Bābur’s day than now because of the change of the river’s course through its desertion of the Burh-gangā channel (cf. next note).