and lay there a month awaiting reinforcement. The Auzbeg sultans faced him on the other side of the river, they too, presumably, awaiting reinforcement. They moved when they felt themselves strong enough to attack, whether by addition to their own numbers, whether by learning that Babur had not largely increased his own. Concerning the second alternative it is open to surmise that he hoped for larger reinforcement than he obtained ; he appears to have left Qunduz before the return of Mirza Khan from his embassy to Isma'll, to have expected Persian reinforcement with the Mirza, and at Pul-isangln, where the Mirza joined him in time to fight, to have been strengthened by the Mlrza's own following, and few, if any, foreign auxiliaries. These surmises are supported by what Khwand-amir relates of the conditions [specified later] on which the Shah's main contingent was despatched and by his shewing that it did not start until after the Shah had had news of the battle at Pul-i-sangln.
At the end of the month of waiting, the Auzbegs one morning swam the Surkh-ab below the bridge; in the afternoon of the same day, Babur retired to better ground amongst the mountain fastnesses of a local Ab-dara. In the desperate encounter which followed the Auzbegs were utterly routed with great loss in men; they were pursued to Darband-i-ahanln (Iron-gate) on the Hisar border, on their way to join a great force assembled at QarshI under Kuchum Khan, Shaibanl's successor as Auzbeg Khaqan. The battle is admirably described by Haidar, who was then a boy of 12 with keen eye watching his own first fight, and that fight with foes who had made him the last male survivor of his line. In the evening of the victory Mahdl, Hamza and Hamza's son Mamak were brought before Babur who, says Haidar, did to them what they had done to the Mughul Khaqans and Chaghatal Sultans, that is, he retaliated in blood for the blood of many kinsmen.
b. Persian reinforcement.
After the battle Babur went to near Hisar, was there joined by many local tribesmen, and, some time later, by a large body of Ismail's troops under Ahmad Beg Safawi, 'All Khan Istiljii
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