The cave seeming to be rather small, I took a shovel and shovelled out a place near its mouth, the size of a sitting-mat {takiya-namad'), digging it out breast-high but even then not reaching the ground. This made me a little shelter from the wind when I sat right down in it. I did not go into the cave though people kept saying, " Come inside," because this was in my mind, " Some of my men in snow and storm, I in the comfort of a warm house! the whole horde {auliis) outside in misery and pain, I inside sleeping at ease ! That would be far from a man's act, quite another matter than comradeship ! Whatever hardship and wretchedness there is, I will face ; what strong men stand, I will stand ; for, as the Persian proverb says, to die with friends is a nuptial." Till the Bed-time Prayer I sat through that blizzard of snow and wind in the dug-out, the snow-fall being such that my head, back, and ears were overlaid four hands thick. The cold of that night affected my ears. At the Bed-time Prayer some-one, looking more carefully at the cave, shouted out, "It is a very roomy cave with place for every-body." On hearing this I shook off my roofing of snow and, asking the braves near to come also, went inside. There was room for 50 or 60 ! People brought out their rations, cold meat, parched grain, whatever they had. From such cold and tumult to a place so warm, cosy and quiet!*
Next day the snow and wind having ceased, we made an early start and we got to the pass by again stamping down a road in the snow. The proper road seems to make a detour up the flank of the mountain and to go over higher up, by what is understood to be called the Zirrln-pass. Instead of taking that road, we went straight up the valley-bottom [gfU).* It was night before we reached the further side of the (Bakkak-)pass ; we spent the night there in the mouth of the valley, a night of
1 This escape ought to have been included in the list of Babur's transportations from risk to safety given in my note to f. <)(>.
2 The right and wrong roads are shewn by the Indian Survey and French Military maps. The right road turns off from the wrong one, at Daulat-yar, to the right, and mounts diagonally along the south rampart of the Hen-rud valley, to the Zirrln-pass, which lies above the Bakkak-pass and carries the regular road for Yaka-aulang. It must be said, however, that we are not told whether Yaka-aulang was Qasim Beg^s objective; the direct road for Kabulfrom the Heri-rud valley is not over the Zirrinpass but goes from Daulat-yar by " Aq-zarat", and the southern flank of Koh-i-baba (babar) to the Unai-pass (Holdich's Gates of India p. 262).
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