On the other hand, it is not with the Elphinstone Codex (f. 8gb); that it was not with the archetype of that codex the scribe's note shews (f. go); it is with neither of the Wdqi'dt-ibdburl (Pers. translations) nor with Leyden and Erskine's Memoirs (p. 122)/
Before giving our grounds tor rejecting what has been offered to fill the gap of 908 ah. a few words must be said about the lacuna itself. Nothing indicates that Babur left it and, since both in the Elphinstone Codex and its archetype, the sentence preceding it lacks the terminal verb, it seems due merely to loss of pages. That the loss, if any, was of early date is clear, the Elph. MS. itself being copied not later than 1567 ad. (JRAS. 1907, p. 137).
Two known circumstances, both of earlier date than that of the Elphinstone Codex, might have led to the loss, the first is the storm which in 935 ah. scattered Babur's papers (f. 3766), the second, the vicissitudes to which Humayun's library was exposed in his exile.2 Of the two the first seems the more probable cause.
The rupture of a story at a point so critical as that of Babur's danger in Karnan would tempt to its completion; so too would wish to make good the composed part of the Babur-nama. Humayun annotated the archetype of the Elphinstone Codex a good deal but he cannot have written the Rescue passage if only because he was in a position to avoid some of its inaccuracies.
