Baburnama: Memoirs of Babur Prince Emperor Page 514



	456	HINDUSTAN

	whom apargana in the Lahor district had been given. They seem to have left matters at this : Daulat Khan with GhazI Khan was to take all the begs posted in Hindustan to himself, indeed he was to take everything on that side; " while Alam Khan was to take Dilawar Khan and Hajl Khan and, reinforced by them, was to capture Dihll and Agra. Isma'll Jilwani and other amirs came and saw 'Alam Khan; all then betook themselves, march by march, straight for Dihll. Near Indrl came also Sulaiman Shaikh-zada.' Their total touched 30 to 40,000 men. They laid siege to Dihll but could neither take it by assault nor do hurt to the garrison.³ When SI. Ibrahim heard of their assembly, he got an army to horse against them ; when they heard of his approach, they rose from before the place and moved to meet him. They had left matters at this : " If we attack by day-light, the Afghans will not desert (to us), for the sake of their reputations with one another ; but if we attack at night when one man cannot see another, each man will obey his own orders." Twice over they started at fall of day from a distance of 12 miles (6 kurohs), and, unable to bring matters to a point, neither advanced nor retired, but just sat on horseback for two or three watches. On a third occasion they delivered an attack when one watch of night remained their purpose seeming to be the burning of tents and huts ! They went; they set fire from every end ; they made a disturbance. Jalal Khan Jig-hat⁴ came with other amirs and saw 'Alam Khan. SI. Ibrahim did not bestir himself till shoot of dawn from where he was with a few of his own family⁵ within his own enclosure {sardcha). Meantime 'Alam Khan's people were busy with plunder and booty. Seeing the smallness of their number, SI. Ibrahim's people moved out against them in rather small ¹ i.e. west of Dihli territory, the Panj-ab. * He was of the Farmul family of which Babur says (f. 139^) that it was in high favour in Hindustan under the Afghans and of which the author of the Waqi'at-imushtaqi says that it held half the lands of Dihll injagir (E. and D. iv, 547)- 3 Presumably he could not cut off supplies. ⁴ The only word similar to this that I have found is one '' Jaghat " said to mean serpent and to be the name of a Hindu sub-caste of Nats (Crooke, iv, 72 & 73)- The word here might be a nick-name. Babur writes it as two words. 5 khasa'khail, presumably members of the Sahu-khail (family) of the Ludi tribe of the Afghan race.