925 AH. JAN. 3rd TO DEC. 23rd 1519 AD. 411
seen one ; said I, " It is a melon of Hindustan," sliced it and gave him a piece. He bit into it at once ; it was night before the bitter taste went out of his mouth. At Garm-chashma we dismounted on rising-ground where cold meat was being set out for us when Langar Khan arrived to wait on me after being for a time at his own place (Koh-i-jud). He brought an offering of a horse and a few confections. Passing on, we dismounted at Yada-blr, at the Other Prayer got on a raft there, went for as much as two miles on it, then left it.
{Sep, 2jtli) Riding on next morning, we dismounted below the Khaibar-pass. Today arrived SI. Bayazid, come up by the Bara-road after hearing of us ; he set forth that the Afridl Afghans were seated in Bara with their goods and families and that they had grown a mass of corn which was still standing (lit. on foot). Our plan being for the Yusuf-zal Afghans of Hash-naghar, we paid him no attention. At the Mid-day Prayer there was a wine-party in Khwaja Muhammad 'All's tent. During the party details about our coming in this direction were written and sent off by the hand of a sultan of Tirah to Khwaja Kalan in Bajaur. I wrote this couplet on the margin of the letter {farman):
Say sweetly o breeze, to that beautiful fawn,
Thou hast given my head to the hills and the wild.'
{Sep. 28th) Marching on at dawn across the pass, we got through the Khaibar-narfows and dismounted at 'All-masjid. At the Mid-day Prayer we rode on, leaving the baggage behind, reached the Kabul-water at the second watch (midnight) and there slept awhile.
{Sep. 29th) A ford 2 was found at daylight; we had forded the water {su-din ktchildt), when news came from our scout that the Afghans had heard of us and were in flight. We went on, passed through the Sawad-water and dismounted amongst the Afghan corn-fields. Not a half, not a fourth indeed of the promised corn was had. The plan of fitting-up Hash-naghar, made under the hope of getting corn here, came to nothing.
* Dlwan of Hafiz lith. ed. p. 22. The couplet seems to be another message to a woman (f. 238); here it might be to Bibi Mubaraka, still under Khwaja Kalan's charge in Bajaur (f. 221).
* Here and under date Sep. 30th the wording allows a ford.
28
