till AH. JUNE 4th 1506 TO MAY 24th 1506 AD. 259
killed a man, and had him taken to the Judgment-gate {Ddru'lqaza). He was abstinent for six or seven years after he took the throne ; later on he degraded himself to drink. During the almost 40 years of his rule' in Khurasan, there may not have been one single day on which he did not drink after the Mid-day prayer; earlier than that however he did not drink. What happened with his sons, the soldiers and the town was that every-one pursued vice and pleasure to excess. Bold and daring he was! Time and again he got to work with his own sword, getting his own hand in wherever he arrayed to fight; no man of Tlmur Beg's line has been known to match him in the slashing of swords. He had a leaning to poetry and even put a diwan together, writing in TurkI with HusainI for his pen-name.2 Many couplets in his diwan are not bad ; it is however in oneand the same metre throughout. Great ruler though he was, both by the length of his reign (yask) and the breadth of his dominions, he yet, like little people kept fighting-rams, flew pigeons and fought cocks.
(<:.) His wars and encounters.3
He swam the Gurgan-water4 in his guerilla days and gave a party of Auzbegs a good beating.
Again, with 60 men he fell on 3000 under Pay-master Muhammad 'All, sent ahead by SI. Abu-sa'id Mirza, and gave them a downright good beating (868 AH.). This was his one fine, out-standing feat-of-arms.5
Again, he fought and beat SI. Mahmud Mirza near Astarabad (865 ah.).6
' If Babur's 40 include rule in Heri only, it over-states, since Yadgar died in 875 AH. and Husain in 911 ah. while the intervening 36 years include the 5 or 6 temperate ones. If the 40 count from 861 ah. when Husain began to rule in Merv, it understates. It is a round number, apparently.
- Relying on the Uminsky text, Dr. Rieu was led into the mistake of writing that liabur gave Husain the wrong pen-name, i.e. Husain, and not HusainI (Turk. Cat. p. 256).
3 Daulat-shah says that as he is not able to enumerate all Husain's feats-of-arms, he, Turkman fashion, offers a gift of Nine. The Nine differ from those of Babur's list in some dates ; they are also records of victory only (Browne, p. 521 ; Not. et Extr. iv, 262, de Sacy's article).
4 Wolves'-water, a river and its town at the s.e. corner of the Caspian, the ancient boundary between Russia and Persia. The name varies a good deal in MSS.
5 The battle was at Tarshiz; Abu-sa'id was ruling in Heri; Daulat-shah (1. c. p. 523) gives 90 and 10,000 as the numbers of the opposed forces !
6 f. 266 and note ; H- S. iii, 209 ; Daulat-shah p. 523.
