sultan ' and people to take up a position of service (qiilluq) and surrender the fort. Not accepting this counsel, that stupid and ill-fated band sent back a wild answer, where-upon the army was ordered to make ready mantelets, ladders and other appliances for taking a fort. For this purpose a day's {Jan. 5th) halt was made on that same ground.
{Jan. 6tli) On Thursday the 4th ot Muharram, orders were given that the army should put on mail, arm and get to horse ;2 that the left wing should move swiftly to the upper side of the fort, cross the water at the water-entry,3 and dismount on the north side of the fort ; that the centre, not taking the way across the water, should dismount in the rough, up-and-down land to the north-west of the fort; and that the right should dismount to the west of the lower gate. While the begs of the left under Dost Beg were dismounting, after crossing the water, a hundred to a hundred and fifty men on foot came out of the fort, shooting arrows. The begs, shooting in their turn, advanced till they had forced those men back to the foot of the ramparts, Mulla 'Abdu'l-maluk of Khwast, like a madman,4 going up right under them on his horse. There and then the fort. would have been taken if the ladders and mantelets had been ready, and if it had not been so late in the day. Mulla Tiriki-'ali 5 and a servant of Tlngrl-blrdi crossed swords with the enemy ; each overcame his man, cut off and brought in his head ; for this each was promised a reward.
As the Rajaurls had never before seen matchlocks (tufang) they at first took no care about them, indeed they made fun when they heard the report and answered it by unseemly
1 Either Haidar-i-'ali himself or his nephew, the latter more probably, since no name is mentioned.
' Looking at the position assigned by maps to Khahr, in lhedii-ai of the Charmangawater and the Rud of Bajaur, it may be that Babur's left moved along the east bank of the first-named stream and crossed it into the dil-ab, while his centre went direct to its post, along the west side of the fort.
3 sft-kirishi ; to interpret which needs local knowledge ; it might mean where water entered the fort, or where water disembogued from narrows, or, perhaps, where water is entered for a ford. (The verb klrmtik occurs on f. 154^ and f. 227 to describe water coming down in spate.)
4 diwanawdr, perhaps a jest on a sobriquet earned before this exploit, perhaps the cause of the man's later sobriquet diwdna (f. 245A).
5 Text, t:r:k, read by Erskine and de Courteille as Turk ; it might however be a Turk! component in Jan-i-'ali or Muhibb-i-'ali. (Cf. Zenker s.n. tirik.)
