As Buhlulpur was khalsa,1 we left the road to visit it. Its fort is situated above a deep ravine, on the bank of the Chln-ab. It pleased us much. We thought of bringing Slalkot to it. Please God ! the chance coming, it shall be done straightway! From Buhlulpur we went to camp by boat.
(/. Jats mid Gujiirs.2)
(Dec. 29th) On Friday the 14th of the first Rabi' we dismounted at Sialkot. If one go into Hindustan the Jats and Gujurs always pour down in countless hordes from hill and plain for loot in bullock and buffalo. These ill-omened peoples are just senseless oppressors ! Formerly their doings did not concern us much because the country was an enemy's, but they began the same senseless work after we had taken it. When we reached Slalkot, they fell in tumult on poor and needy folks who were coming out of the town to dur camp, and stripped them bare. I had the silly thieves sought for, and ordered two or three of them cut to pieces.
From Slalkot Nur Beg's brother Shaham also was made to gallop off to the begs in Lahor to say, " Make sure where the enemy is ; find out from some well-informed person where he may be met, and send us word.
A trader, coming into this camp, represented that 'Alam Khan had let SI. Ibrahim defeat him.
1 According to Shaikh Zain it was in this year that Babur made Buhlulpur a royal domain (B. M. Add. 26,202 f. 16), but this does not agree with Babur's explanation that he visited the place because it was khalba. Its name suggests that it'had belonged to Buhlul I.ndi; Babur may have taken it in 930 ah. when he captured Sialkot. It never received the population of Sialkot, as Babur had planned it should do because pond-water was drunk in the latter town and was a source of disease. The wcjrds in which Babur describes its situation are those he uses of Akhsl (f. 4b); not improbably a resemblance inclined his liking towards Buhlulpur. (It may be noted thit this Buhlulpur is mentioned in the Ayin-i-akbarl and marked on large maps, but Is not found in the G. of I. 1907.)
2 Both names are thus spelled in the Babur-nama. In view of the inclination of Turki to long vowels, Babur's short one in Jat may be worth consideration since modern usage of Jat and Jat varies. Mr. Crooke writes the full vowel, and mentions that Jats are Hindus, Sikhs, and Muhammadans (Tribes and Castes of the Northwestern Provinces and Oude, iii, 38). On this point and on the orthography of the name, Erskine's note (3/emdirs p. 294) is as follows: "The Jets or Jats are the Muhammadan peasantry of ihe Panj-ab, the bank of the Indus, Siwlstan etc. and must not be confounded with the Jats, a powerful Hindu tribe to the west of the Jamna, about Agra etc. and which occupies a subordinate position in the country of the Rajputs."
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