912 AH. MAY 24th 1506 to MAY 13th 1507 AD. 297
not come now, even at this crisis when all his brethren, older and younger, were assembling in concord, resolute against such a foe as Shaibaq Khan. Kupuk M. laid his own absence to rivalry, but everybody else laid it to his cowardice. One word ! In this world acts such as his outlive the man ; if a man have any share of intelligence, why try to be ill-spoken of after death ? if he be ambitious, why not try so to act that, he gone, men will praise him ? In the honourable mention of their names, wise men find a second life'
Envoys from the Mlrzas came to me also, Muh. Baranduq Bar/as himself following them. As for me, what was to hinder my going ? It was for that very purpose I had travelled one or two hundredyighdch (500-600 miles)! I at once started with Muh. Baranduq Beg for Murgh-ab J where the Mlrzas were lying.
(e. Babur meets the Mlrzas?)
The meeting with the Mlrzas was on Monday the 8th of the latter Jumada (Oct. 26th 1506 ah.). Abu'l-muhsin Mlrza came out a mile to meet me ; we approached one another ; on my side, I dismounted, on his side, he ; we advanced, saw one another and remounted. Near the camp Muzaffar Mlrza and Ibn-i-husain Mlrza met us; they, being younger than Abu'l-muhsin Mlrza ought to have come out further than he to meet me.2 Their dilatoriness may not have been due to pride, but to heaviness after wine ; their negligence may have been no slight on me, but due to their own social pleasures. On this Muzaffar Mlrza laid stress;3 we two saw one another without dismounting, so did Ibn-i-husain Mlrza and I. We rode on together and, in an amazing crowd and press; dismounted at Badl'u'z-zaman Mlrza's Gate. Such was the throng that some were lifted off the ground for three or four steps together, while others, wishing for some reason to get out, were carried, willy-nilly, four or five steps the other way.
1 I take Murgh-ab here to be the fortified place at the crossing of the river by the main n.e. road ; Babur when in Dara-i-bam was on a tributary of the Murgh-ab. Khwand-amir records that the information of his approach was hailed in the Mlrzas' camp as good news (H.S. iii, 354).
_ 2 Babur gives the Mirzas precedence by age, ignoring MuzafTar's position as joint-ruler.
3 mubslgha qildl; perhaps he laid stress on IDeir excuse : pernaps did more tlian Was ceremonially incumbent on him. .
