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478
HINDUSTAN
matter was arranged. We then shewed to them (all?) kindness and favour in agreement with the petition made for them, and we restored them all their goods.1 A pargana worth 7 laks2 was bestowed on Ibrahim's mother ; parganas were given also to these begs of his.3 She was sent out of the fort with her old servants and given encamping-ground (yuri) two miles below Agra.
(May 10th) I entered Agra at the Afternoon Prayer of Thursday (Rajab 28th) and dismounted at the mansion (manzit) of SI. Ibrahim.
EXPEDITIONS OF TRAMONTANE MUHAMMADANS
INTO HIND.
(a. Babuls five attempts on Hindustani)
From the date 910 at which the country of Kabul was conquered, down to now (932 AH.) (my) desire for Hindustan had been constant, but owing sometimes to the feeble counsels of begs, sometimes to the non-accompaniment of elder and younger brethren,4 a move on Hindustan had not been practicable and its territories had remained unsubdued. At length no such obstacles were left; no beg, great or small {beg begat) of lower birth.s could speak an opposing word. In 925 ah. (i 519 AD.) we led an army out and,after taking Bajaur by storm in z-^gari(44-66 minutes), and making a general massacre of its people, went on into Bhlra. Bhlra we neither over-ran nor plundered ; we imposed a ransom on its people, taking from them in money and goods to the value
1 Babur's plurals allow the supposition that the three men's lives were spared. Malik Dad served him thenceforth.
2 Erskine estimated these as dams and worth about ^1750, but this may be an underestimate (H. of I. i, App. E.).
3 '' These begs of his " (or hers) may be the three written of above.
4 These will include cousins and his half-brothers Jahangir and Nasir as opposing before he took action in 925 AH. (1519 AD.). The time between 910 ah. and 925 AH. at which he would most desire Hindustan is after 920 ah. in which year he returned defeated from Transoxiana.
5 kichik Itarlm, which here seems to make contrast between the ruling birth of members of his own family and the lower birth of even great begs still with him. Where the phrase occurs on f. 295, Erskine renders it by "down to the dregs", and de Courteille (ii, 235) by "de toutes les bouches" but neither translation appears to me to suit Babur's uses of the term, inasmuch as both seem to go too low (cf. f. 270*$).
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