next day till at the Mid-day Prayer, halt was made at Tang-ab (Narrow-water), one of the villages of Khujand. There we cooled down our horses and gave them corn. We rode out again at beat of (twilight-) drum1 and on through that night till shoot of dawn, and through the next day till sunset, and on through that night till, just before dawn, we were one ylghach from Marghinan. Here Wais Beg and others represented to me with some anxiety what sort of an evil-doer 'Ali-dost was. ' No-one,' they said, ' has come and gone, time and again, between him and us; no terms and compact have been made; trusting to what are we going ?' In truth their fears were just! After waiting awhile to consult, we at last agreed that reasonable as anxiety was, it, dught to have been earlier; that there we were after coming three nights and two days without rest or halt; in what horse or in what man was any strength left ? from where we were, how could return be made ? and, if made, where were we to go ? that, having come so far, on we must, and that nothing happens without God's will. At this we left the matter and moved on, our trust set on Him.
At the Sunnat Prayer2 we reached Fort Marghinan. 'Alldost Taghai kept himself behind {arqa) the closed gate and asked for terms; these granted, he opened it. He did me obeisance between the (two) gates.3 After seeing him, we dismounted at a suitable house in the walled-town. With me, great and small, were 240 men.
As Auziin Hasan and Tambal had been tyrannical and oppressive, all the clans of the country were asking for me. We therefore, after two or three days spent in Marghinan, joined to Qasim Beg over a hundred men of the Pashagharis, the new retainers of Marghinan and of 'Ali-dost's following, and sent them to bring ove(r to me, by force or fair words, such
1 tun yarlml naqara waqtida. Tun ydrlmi seems to mean half-dark, twilight. Here it cannot mean mid-night since this would imply a halt of twelve hours and Babur says no halt was made. The drum next following mid-day is the one beaten at sunset.
2 The voluntary prayer, offered when the sun has well risen, fits the context.
3 I- understand that the obeisance was made in the Gate-house, between the inner and outer doors.
