sultans who were in Hisar abandoned it. Ibrahim Jani's son Clialma, whose real name is Isma'Il, must be in the fort.1
{x. Letters written by Babur.)
{Nov. 2jth and 28th) This same Bian Shaikh was sent quite quickly back with letters for Humayun and Kamran. These and other writings being ready by Friday the 14th of the month {Nov. 2jt1i) were entrusted to him, his leave was given, and on Saturday the 15th he got well out of Agra.
Copy of a Letter to Humayun.2
"The first matter, after saying, 'Salutation' to Humayun whom I am longing to see, is this :
Exact particulars of the state of affairs on that side and on this 3 have been made known by the letters and dutiful representations brought on Monday the 10th of the first Rabl' by Beg-glna and Blan Shaikh.
(Tttrki) Thank God ! a son is born to thee !
A son to thee, to me a heart-enslaver {dil-bandi).
May the Most High ever allot to thee and to me tidings as joyful! So may it be, O Lord of the two worlds ! "
" Thou sayest thou hast called him Al-aman ; God bless and prosper this ! Thou writest it so thyself {i.e. Al-aman), but hast
■ Here the istPers.trs. (I.O. 215 f. 2i4)mentions that it was Chalma who wrote and despatched the exact particulars of the defeat of the Aiizbegs. This information explains the presumption Babur expresses. It shows that Chalma was in Hisar where he may have written his letter to give news to Humayun. At the time Blan Shaikh left, the Mirza was near Kishm ; if he had been the enterprising man he was not, one would surmise that he had moved to seize the chance of the sultans' abandonment of Hisar, without waiting for his father's urgency (f. 348^). Whether he had done so and was the cause of the sultans' flight, is not known from any chronicle yet come to our hands. Chalma's father Ibrahim Jani died fighting for Babur against Shaibaq Khan in 906 ah. (f. 903).
As the sense of the name-of-office Chalma is still in doubt, I suggest that it may be an equivalent of aftabachi, bearer of the water-bottle on journeys. T. chalma can mean a water-vessel carried on the saddle-lx>w; one Chalma on record was a safarchi; if, in this word, sa/ar be read to mean journey, an approach is made to aftabachi (fol. 15^ and note ; Blochmann's A.-i-A. p. 378 and n.3).
2 The copies of Babur's TurkI letter to Humayun and the later one to Khwaja Kalan (f-359) are in some MSS. of the Persian text translated only (I.O. 215 f. 214) ; in others appear in Turk! only (I.O. 217 f. 240) ; in others appear in Turk! and Persian (B. M. Add. 26,000 and I.O. 2989) ; while in Muh. Shirazi's lith. ed. they are omitted altogether (p. 228).
3 Trans- and Cis-Hindukush. Payanda-hasan (in one of his useful glosses to the 1st Pers. trs.)amplifies here by " Khurasan, Mawara'u'n-nahr and Kabul".
