925 AH. JAN. 3RD to DEC. 23rd 1519 AD. 405
As I had never been along the Rustam-maidan road,1 I went with a few men to see it. Rustam-plain {maiddn) lies amongst mountains and towards their head is not a very charming place. The dale spreads rather broad between its two ranges. To the south, on the skirt of the rising-ground is a smallish spring, having very large poplars near it. There are many trees also, but not so large, at the source on the way out of Rustam-maidan for Glrdlz. This is a narrower dale, but still there is a plot of green meadow below the smaller trees mentioned, and the little dale is charming. From the summit of the range, looking south, the Karmash and Bangash mountains are seen at one's feet; and beyond the Karmash show pile upon pile of the rain-clouds of Hindustan. Towards those other lands where no rain falls, not a cloud is seen.
We reached Hunl at the Mid-day Prayer and there dismounted.
{July 30th) Dismounting next day at Muhammad Agha's village,2 we perpetrated {irtqdb) a ma'Jun. There we had a drug thrown into water for the fish; a few were taken.3
{July jist) On Sunday the 3rd of Sha'ban, we reached Kabul.
{August 2nd) On Tuesday the 5th of the month, Danvlsh-imuhammad Fazll and Khusrau's servants were summoned and, after enquiry made into what short-comings of theirs there may have been when Husain was overcome, they were deprived of place and rank. At the Mid-day Prayer there was a wine-party under a plane-tree, at which an honorary dress was given to Baba Qashqa Mughul.
{August 5th) On Friday the 8th Kipa returned from the presence of Mirza Khan.
{aa. Excursion to the Koh-ddman.)
{August nth) On Thursday at the Other Prayer, I mounted for an excursion to the Koh-daman, Baran and Khwaja Sih-yaran.4 At the Bed-time Prayer, we dismounted at Mama Khatun.s
* Raverty's Notes (p. 457) give a full account of this valley; in it are the head-waters of the Tochi and the Zurmut stream ; and in it R. locates Rustam's ancient Zabul. ' It is on the Kabul side of the Girdiz-pass and stands on the Luhugur-water (Logar).
3 f-143 ■ :,>
4 At this point of the text there occurs in the Elph. MS. (f. 195*)a note> manifestly copied from one marginal in an archetype, which states that what follows is copied from Babur's own MS. The note (and others) can be seen in JRAS 1905 p. 7541:/' stq.
5 Masson, iii, 145.
