935 AH. SEP. 15th 1528 to SEP. 5th 1529 AD. 647
Hasan 'All, let Ustad SI. Muhammad finish the building precisely according to it; if not, let him do so, after making a gracious and harmonious design, and in such a way that its floor shall be level with that of the Audience-hall; again : the Khwurd-Kabul dam which is to hold up the But-khak-water at its exit from the Khwurd-Kabul narrows ; again : the repair of the Ghaznl dam r ; again : the Avenue-garden in which water is short and for which a one-mill stream must be'diverted 2 ; again: I had water brought from Tutum-dara to rising ground south-west of Khwaja Basta, there made a reservoir and planted young trees. The place got the name of Belvedere,3 because it faces the ford and gives a first-rate view". The best of young trees must be planted there, lawns arranged, and borders set with sweet-herbs and with flowers of beautiful colour and scent ; again : Sayyid Qasim has been named to reinforce thee; again: do not neglect the condition of matchlockmen and of Ustad Muhammad Amiri the armourer4; again : directly this letter arrives, thou must get my elder sister (Khan-zada Beglm) and my wives right out of Kabul, and escort them to Nll-ab. However averse they may still be, they most certainly must start within a week of the arrival of this letter. For why ? Both because the armies which have gone from Hindustan to escort them are suffering hardship in a cramped place (tar yirda), and also because they 5 are ruining the country." "Again: I made it clear in a letter written to 'Abdu'1-lah ('asas), that there had been very great confusion in my mind idi'tghdugha), to counterbalance being in the oasis (zcddi) of penitence. This quatrain was somewhat dissuading (viani1) : 6
1 f; 139. Khwaja Kalan himself had taken irom Hindustan the money for repairing this dam.
* sapqiin Slip the 2nd Pers. trs. as if from satqun clip, kharida, purchasing.
3 nazar-gah, perhaps, theatre, as showing the play enacted at the ford. Cf. ff. 137, 236, 248*. Tiitun-dara will be Masson's Tutam-dara. Erskine locates Tutun-dara some Shos (16m.) n.w. of Hupian (UpTan). Masson shews that it was a charming place (Jounieysin Biluchistan, Afghanistan and the Panj-ab, vol. iii, cap. viandvii).
* jibachi. Babur's injunction seems to refer to the maintaining of the corpsand the manufacture of armour rather than to care for the individual men involved.
5 Either the armies in Nil-ab, or the women in the Kabul-country (f. 375).
6 Perhaps what Babur means is, that both what he had said to 'Abdu'1-lah and what the quatrain expresses, are dissuasive from repentance. Erskine writes (Mtms. p. 403) but without textual warrant, "I had resolution enough to persevere" ; de Courteille (Mems. ii, 390), " Void tin quatrain qui exprime au juste Us difficultis de ">a position."
