On Wednesday the 16th Shawwāl I returned safe from my hunting, and when one watch and six gharis of day had passed I entered Lahore on the day named. During this hunting a strange affair was witnessed. At Chandwālah, where a minaret had been erected, I had wounded in the belly a black antelope. When wounded, a sound proceeded from him such as I have never heard from any antelope, except in the rutting season. Old hunters and those with me were astonished, and said they never remembered nor had they heard from their fathers that such a voice issued from an antelope except at rutting time. This has been written down because it is not void of strangeness. I found the flesh of the mountain goat more delicious than that of all wild animals, although its skin is exceedingly ill-odoured, so much so that even when tanned the scent is not destroyed. I ordered one of the largest of the he-goats to be weighed; it was 2 maunds and 24 seers, equal to 21 foreign maunds (Persian). I ordered a large ram to be weighed, and it came to 2 maunds and 3 seers Akbarī, equal to 17 Persian (wilāyatī) maunds. The largest and strongest of the wild asses weighed 9 maunds and 16 seers, equal to 76 Persian (wilāyatī) maunds. I have frequently heard from hunters and those fond of the chase that at a certain regular time a worm develops in the horns of the mountain ram, and that this worm causes an irritation which induces the ram to fight with his hind, and that if he finds no rival he strikes his head against a tree or a rock to allay the irritation. After enquiry it seems that the same worm appears in the horn of the female sheep, and since the female does not fight the statement is clearly untrue. Though the flesh of the wild ass is lawful food and most men like to eat it, it was in no way suited to my taste.
Inasmuch as before this time the punishment of Dulīp and of his father, Rāy Rāy Singh, had been ordered, there now came news that Zāhid K͟hān, the son of Ṣādiq K͟hān, and ʿAbdu-r-Raḥīm, son of S͟haik͟h Abū-l-faẓl, and Rānā S͟hankar and Muʿizzu-l-mulk, with another force of mansabdars and followers of the Court, had heard news of Dulīp in the neighbourhood of Nāgor, which is in the subah of Ajmir, and having moved against him had found him. As he could find no way of escape, of necessity he planted a firm foot and came to blows with the royal army. After a short encounter he was badly beaten and gave over many to slaughter, and himself, taking with him his own effects, fled into the vale of ruin.
“With broken arms and loosened belt,
No power to fight and no care for head.”
In spite of his old age, I continued Qilīj K͟hān in his mansab because of his service under my father, and I ordered that he should get a jagir in the sarkar of Kālpī.
In the month Ẕī-l-qaʿda the mother of Qut̤bu-d-dīn K͟hān Koka, who had given me her milk and was as a mother to me or even kinder than my own kind mother, and in whose lap I had been brought up from infancy, was committed to the mercy of God. I placed the feet of her corpse on my shoulders and carried her a part of the way (to her grave). Through extreme grief and sorrow I had no inclination for some days to eat, and I did not change my clothes.
[1] That is, he was 37 years 3 months by the lunar calendar, and 36 years 1 month by solar reckoning (Pāds͟hāhnāma, i, 69). Elliot and all the MSS. have 8th Jumādā-s̤-s̤ānī as the date of the accession, but this is clearly wrong, as Akbar did not die till 13th Jumādā-s̤-s̤ānī. Evidently the copyists have, as is so often the case, misread bistam as has͟htam. See Blochmann’s remark, p. 454, note 3. That Jahāngīr was not at this time 38 is shown by his stating at p. 37 that he celebrated his 38th birthday at Lahore after the capture of K͟husrau. [↑]
[3] The couplet appears in Masʿūd’s divan, B.M. MS. Egerton, 701, p. 142a, line 4. The preceding lines show that the dust (gard) referred to in the first line means the dust caused by the invading army. I take the words barū bārhāī to mean the battlements or pinnacles of the fortress, the ī at the end of bārhā being intensive. [↑]