906 AH. JULY 28th. 1500 TO JULY 17th. 1501 AD. 145
or loss; on what score would any-one help me now ? No hope jn any-one whatever recommended us to prolong the siege. The old saying was that to hold a fort there must be a head, two hands and two legs, that is to say, the Commandant is the head; help and reinforcement coming from two quarters are the two arms and the food and water in the fort are the two legs. While we looked for help from those round about, their thoughts were elsewhere. That brave and experienced ruler, Si. Ilusain Mlrza, gave us not even the help of an encouraging message, but none-the-less he sent Kamalu'd-din Husain Gazurgahi1 as an envoy to Shaibaq Khan.
(i. Taiiibal's proceedings in Farghdna.)2
(This year) Tambal marched from Andijan to near Bishkint.3 Ahmad Beg and his party, thereupon, made The Khan move out against him. The two armies came face to face near Lak-Iakan and the Tiirak Four-gardens but separated without engaging. SI. Mahmud was not a fighting man; now when opposed to Tambal, he shewed want of courage in word and deed. Ahmad Beg was unpolished4 but brave and well-meaning. In his very rough way, he said, ' What's the measure of this person, Tambal ? that you are so tormented with fear and fright about him. If you are afraid to look at him, bandage your eyes before you go out to face him.'
1 He may have been attached to the tomb of Khwaja 'Abdu'1-lab Ansarl in Harat.
3 The brusque entry here and elsewhere of e.g. Tambal's affairs, allows the inference that Babur was quoting from perhaps a news-writer's, contemporary records. For a different view of Tambal, the Sh. N. cap. xxxiii should be read.
3 Five-villages, on the main Khujand-Tashkint road.
* turk, as on f. 28 of Khusrau Shah.
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