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448
HINDUSTAN
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{Dec. Jtli) Starting off the camp at dawn, we ourselves went on a raft, and there ate confection (ma'jftn). Our encamping-ground was alwaysQiriq-arlq, but not a.sign or trace of the camp could be seen when we got opposite it, nor any appearance of our horses. Thought I, " Garm-chashma (Hot-spring) is close by; they may have dismounted there." So saying, we went on from Qlrlq-arlq. By the time we reached Garm-chashma, the very day was late*1 \ve did not stop there, but going on in its lateness {kichist), had the raft tied up somewhere, and slept awhile.
{Dec. 8th) At day-break we landed at Yada-blr where, as the day wore on, the army-folks began to come in. The camp must have been at Qlrlq-arlq, but out of our sight.
There were several verse-makers on the raft, such as Shaikh Abu'1-wajd,2 Shaikh Zain, Mulla All-jan, Tardl Beg Khdksar and others. In this company was quoted the following couplet of Muhammad S»lih : 3
(Persian) With thee, arch coquette, for a sweetheart, what can man do ? With another than thou where thou art, what can man do ?
Said I, " Compose on these lines " ;4 whereupon those given to versifying, did so. As jokes were always being made at the expense of Mulla 'All-jan, this couplet came off-hand into my head :
(Persian) With one all bewildered as thou, what can man do?
, what can man do ?s
1 gun khiid klch bulub aldi; a little joke perhaps at the lateness both of the day and the army.
2 Shaikh Zain's maternal-uncle.
3 Shaikh Zain's useful detail that this man's pen-name was Sharaf distinguishes him from Muhammad Salih the author of the Shaibani-ntima.
4 gosha, angle (cf. goska-i-kar, limits of work). Parodies were to be made, having the same metre, rhyme, and refrain as the model couplet.
5 I am unable to attach sense to Babur's second line; what is wanted is an illustration of two incompatible things. Babur's reflections [infra] condemned his /verse. Shaikh Zain describes the whole episode of the verse-making on the raft, anid goes on with, " He (Babur) excised this choice couplet from the pages of his Acts ( Waqi 'a/) with the knife of censure, and scratched it out from the tablets of his noble heart with the finger-nails of repentance.' I shall now give an account of this spiritual matter" {i.e. the repentance), "by presenting the recantations of his Solomon-like Majesty in his very own words, which are weightier than any from the lips of Aesop." Shaikh Zain next quotes the TurkI passage here translated in b. Mention of the Mubin.
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