ere shooting arrows (auq). Our attack from above kept the enemy from advancing beyond the Mosque; from there he
retired.
During the siege, the round of the ramparts was made each night; sometimes I went, sometimes Qasim Beg, sometimes one of the household Begs. Though from the Turquoise to the Shaikh-zada's Gate may be ridden, the rest of the way must be walked. When some men went the whole round on foot, it was dawn before they had finished.1
One day Shaibaq Khan attacked_between the Iron Gate and the Shaikh-zada's. I, as the reserve, went to the spot, without anxiety about the Bleaching-ground and Needle-makers' Gates. That day, (?) in a shooting wager (auq auchldd), I made a good shot with a slur-bow, at a Centurion's horse.2 It died at once (auq bardt) with the arrow (auq blla). They made such a vigorous attack this time that they got close under the ramparts. Busy with the fighting and the stress near the Iron Gate, we were entirely off our guard about the other side of the town. There, opposite the space between the Needlemakers' and Bleaching-ground Gates, the enemy had posted / or 8oo good men in ambush, having with them 24 or 25 ladders so wide that two or three could mount abreast. These men came from their ambush when the attack near the Iron Gate, by occupying all our men, had left those other posts empty, and quickly set up their ladders between the two Gates, just where a road leads from the ramparts to Muh. Mazld Tarkhan's houses. That post was Quch Beg's and Muhammadquli Quchln's, with their detachment of braves, and they had their quarters in Muh. Mazid's houses. In the Needle-makers' Gate was posted Qara (Black) Barlds, in the Bleaching-ground Gate, Qutluq Khwaja Kukiildash with Sherim Taghai and his brethren, older and younger. As attack was being made on the other side of the town, the men attached to these posts "were not on guard but had scattered to their quarters or to the
1 Kostenko, i, 344, would make the rounds 9 m. bir yuz dtliqning Stint nawah auqi bila yakhshl atlm. This has been read °y Erskine as though buz at, pale horse, and not yuz atliq, Centurion, were ^ntten. De. C. translates by Centurion and a marginal note of the Elph. c°dex explains yuz atliq by fad aspagi.
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