At the top (bash) of the morning, just when men are in sweet sleep, Qambar-'all Beg hurried past, shouting, ' Up with you! the enemy is here!' So much he said and went off without a moment's stay. It was my habit to lie down, even in times of peace, in my tunic; up I got instanter, put on sword and quiver and mounted. My standard-bearer had no time to adjust my standard,1 he just mounted with it in his hand. There were ten or fifteen men with me when we started toward the enemy; after riding .n arrow's flight, when we came up with his scouts, there may have been ten. Going rapidly forward, we overtook him, poured in arrows on him,, over-mastered his foremost men and hurried them off. We followed them for another arrow's flight and came up with his centre where SI. Ahmad Tambal himself was, with as many as ioo men. He and another were standing in front of his array, as if keeping a Gate,2 and were shouting, ' Strike, strike!' but his men, mostly, were sidling, as if asking themselves, ' Shall we run away ? Shall we not ?' By this time three were left with me; one was Nasir's Dost, another, Mirza Qui! Kukiildash, the third, Khudal-blrdi Turkman's Karim-dad.3 I shot off the arrow on my thumb,4 aiming at Tambal's helm. When I put my hand into my quiver, there came out a quite new gosha-gtr5
1 I understand that time failed to set the standard in its usual rest. E. and de C. have understood that the yak-tail (quids tiighi f. ioo) was apart from the staff and that time iailed to adjust the two parts. The tugh however is the whole standard ; moreover if the tail were ever taken off at night from the staff, it would hardly be so treated in a mere bivouac.
2 aishiklih turluq, as on f. 113. I understand this to mean that the two men were as far from their followers as sentries at a. Gate are posted outside the Gate.
3 So too ' Hero of Cosimo * and ' Lorenzo of Piero of the Medici.' Cf. the names of five men on f. 114.
* shashtlm. The shasht (thumb) in archery is the thumb-shield used on the left hand, as the lih-glr (string-grip), the archer's ring, is on the right-hand thumb.
It is useful to remember, when reading accounts of shooting with the Turk! (Turkish) bow, that the arrows- (auq) had notches so gripping the string that they kept in place until released with the string.
5 sar-i-sabz gosha gir. The gosha-gir is an implement for remedying the warp of a bow-tip and string-notch. For further particulars see Appendix C.
The term sar-i-sabz, lit. green-head, occurs in the sense of ' quite young ' or ' new,' in the proverb, ' The red tongue loses the green head,' quoted in the Tabaqdt-i-akbari account of Babur's death. Applied here, it points to the gosha-gir as part of the recent gift made by Ahmad to Babur.
