925 AH. JAN. 3rd to DEC. 23rd 1519 AD. 395
After crossing the Surkh-ab, we dismounted at Kark and took a sleep.
{March joth) Riding before shoot of day from Kark, I went with S or 6 others by the road taking off for Qara-tu in order to enjoy the sight of a garden there made. Khalifa and Shah Hasan Beg and the rest went by the other road to await me at Quruq-sal.
When we reached Qara-tu, Shah Beg Arghuris commissary itawacht) Qizll (Rufus) brought word that Shah Beg had taken Kahan, plundered it and retired.
An order had been given that no-one soever should take news of us ahead. We reached Kabul at the Mid-day Prayer, no person in it knowing about us till we got to Qutluq-qadam's bridge. As Humayun and Kamran heard about us only after that, there was not time to put them on horseback ; they made their pages carry them, came, and did obeisance between the gates of the town and the citadel.1 At the Other Prayer there waited on me Qasim Beg, the town Qazi, the retainers left in Kabul and the notables of the place.
{April 2nd) At the Other Prayer of Friday the 1st of the second Rabi' there was a wine-party at which a special head-tofoot ibash-ayaq) was bestowed on Shah Hasan.
{April 3rd) At dawn on Saturday we went on board a boat and took our morning.2 Nur Beg, then not obedient {td'ib), played the lute at this gathering. At the Mid-day Prayer we left the boat to visit the garden made between Kul-klna3 and the mountain (Shah-i-kabul). At the Evening Prayer we went to the Violet-garden where there was drinking again. From Kul-klna I got in by the rampart and went into the citadel.
{u. Dost Begs death.)
t
{April 6th) On the night of Tuesday the 5th of the month,'* Dost Beg, who on the road had had fever, went to God's mercy.
1 Humayun was 12, Kamran younger ; one surmises that Babur would have walked under the same circumstances.
* sabuhi, the morning-draught. In 1623 ad. Pietro della Valle took a sabuhl with Mr. Thomas Rastel, the head of the merchants of Surat, which was of hot spiced wine and sipped in the mornings to comfort the stomach (Hakluyt ed. p. 20).
3 f. 128 and note.
* Anglice, in the night preceding Tuesday.
