910 AH. JUNE 14th 1504 to JUNE 4th 1505 AD. 193
Shah's life should be safe, and that whatever amount of his goods he selected, should not be refused him. After giving Yaq'ub leave to go, we marched down the Qizll-su and dismounted near to where it joins the water of Andar-ab.
Next day, one in the middle of the First RabI' (end of August, 1504 AD.), riding light, I crossed the Andar-ab water and took my seat under a large plane-tree near DQshi, and thither came Khusrau Shah, in pomp and splendour, with a great company of men. According to rule and custom, he dismounted some way off and then made his approach. Three times he knelt when we saw one another, three times also on taking leave; he knelt once when asking after my welfare, once again when he offered his tribute, and he did the same with Jahanglr Mlrza and with Mirza Khan (Wais). That sluggish old mannikin who through so many years had just pleased himself, lacking of sovereignly one thing only, namely, to read the Khutba in his own name, now knelt 25 or 26 times in succession, and came and went till he was so wearied out that he tottered forward. His many years of begship and authority vanished from his view. When we had seen one another and he had offered his gift, I desired him to be seated. We stayed in that place for one or two garis,1 exchanging tale and talk. His conversation was vapid and empty, presumably because he was a coward and false to his salt. Two things he said were extraordinary for the time when, under his eyes, his trusty and trusted retainers were becoming mine, and when his affairs had, reached the point that he, the sovereign-aping mannikin, had had to come, willy-nilly, abased and unhonoured, to what sort of an interview ! One of the things he said was this : When condoled with for the desertion of his men, he replied, " Those very servants have four times left me and returned." The other was said when I had asked him where his brother Wall would cross the Amu and when he would arrive. " If he find a ford, he will soon be here, but when waters rise, fords change ; the (Persian) proverb has it, 'The waters have carried down the fords.'" These words God brought to his tongue in that hour of the flowing away of his own authority and following ! ' A gari is twenty-four minutes.
