river (Ganges?), and had joined them to themselves.1 This news making fighting probable, we detained Muhammad-i-zaman Mlrza, and sent Shah Iskandar to Bihar with 3 or 400 men.
{yy. Incidents of the eastward march resumed.)
{April 16th) On Saturday {8th) a person came in from Dudu and her son Jalal Khan (son) of Bihar Khan 2 whom the Bengali (Nasrat Shah) must have held as if eye-bewitched.3 After letting me know they were coming,* they had done some straight fighting to get away from the Bengalis, had crossed the river, 5 reached Bihar, and were said now to be on their way to me.
This command was given today for the Bengal envoy Isma'll Mita : Concerning those three articles, about which letters have already been written and despatched, let him write that an answer is long in coming, and that if the honoured (Nasrat Shah) be loyal and of single-mind towards us, it ought to come soon.
{April 17th) In the night of Sunday {gth)6 a man came in from Tardi-muhammad Jang-jang to say that when, on Wednesday' the 5th of the month Sha'ban, his scouts reached Bihar from this side, the Shiqdar of the place went off by a gate on the other side.
On Sunday morning we marched on and dismounted in the pargana of Art (Arrah)7
{zz. News and negociations.)
To this ground came the news that the Khartd 8 army, with 100-150 boats, was said to be on the far side of the Saru near the
1 This might imply that the Afghans had been prevented from joining Mali mud Khan Zarff near the Son.
2 SI. Muhammad Shah Nuhdnl Afghan, the former ruler of Bihar, dead within a year. He had trained Farld Khan Sur in the management of government affairs ; had given him, for gallant encounter with a tiger, the title Sher Khan by which, or its higher form Sher Shah, history knows him, and had made him his young son's "deputy", an office Sher Khan held after the father's death in conjunction with the boy's mother Dudu Bibi (Tarikh-i-sher-shahi, E. & D.'s History of India iv, 325 et sea.).
3 guz baghi yusunluq ; by which I understand they were held fast from departure, as e.g. a mouse by the fascination of a snake.
* f. 365 mentions a letter which may have announced their intention.
s Ganges ; they thus evaded the restriction made good on other Afghans.
6 Anglice, Saturday 8th after 6 p.m.
'The D.G. of Shahabad (pp. 20 and 127) mentions that "it is said Babur marched to Arrah after his victory over Mahmud Liidi", and that "local tradition still points to a place near the Judge's Court as that on which he pitched his camp ".
8 Kharid which is now a. pargana of the Ballia district, lay formerly on both sides of the Ghogra. When the army of Kharid opposed Babur's progress, it acted for Nasrat Shah, but this Babur diplomatically ignored in assuming that there was peace between
