934 AH. SEP. 27th 1527 TO SEP. 15th 1528 AD. 595
{Jan. 29th) At dawn on Wednesday the 7th of the first Tumada, we ordered our men to arm, go to their posts, provoke to fight, and attack each from his place when I rode out with drum and standard.
I myself, dismissing drum and standard till the fighting should grow hot, went to amuse myself by watching Ustad 'All-quli's stone-discharge.1 Nothing was effected by it because his ground had no fall {yaghda) and because the fort-walls, being entirely ; of stone, were extremely strong.
-
That the citadel of ChandTrl stands on a hill'has been said already. Down one side of this hill runs a double-walled road (du-tahi) to water.2 This is the one place for attack ; it had been assigned as the post of the right and left hands and royal corps of the centre.3 Hurled though assault was from every side, the greatest force was here brought to bear. Our braves did not turn back, however much the pagans threw down stones and flung flaming fire upon them. At length Shahim the centurion 4 got up where the du-tahi wall touches the wall of the outer fort; braves swarmed up in other places ; the du-tahi was taken.
Not even as much as this did the pagans fight in the citadel; when a number of our men swarmed up, they fled in haste.5 In a little while they came out again, quite naked, and renewed the fight; they put many of our men to flight; they made them fly (auchurdilar) over the ramparts ; some they cut down and killed. Why they had gone so suddenly off the walls seems to have been that they had taken the resolve of those who give up a place as lost; they put all their ladies and beauties (suratilar) to death, then, looking themselves to die, came naked out to fight. Our men attacking, each one from his post, drove them from the walls whereupon 2 or 3oo of them entered MedinI Rao's house and there almost all killed one another in this way : one having taken stand with a sword, the rest
' The Illustrated London News of July 10th, 1915 (on which day this note is written), has an apropos picture of an ancient fortress-gun, with its stone-ammunition. taken by the Allies in a Dardanelles fort.
3 The du-tahi is the ai-duzd, water-thief, of f.67. Its position can be surmised from Cunningham's Plan [Appendix R].
3 For Babur's use of hand (qui) as a military term see f. 209.
* His full designation would be Shah Muhammad yiiz-begi.
5 This will be flight from the ramparts to other places in the fort.
