Vol. VI, No. 4.] A Passage in the Bahama mah. 225 



[N.S.] 



ning of the next one. Bat it is contrary to fact, arid seems to 

 indicate that the interpolator was ignorant or careless of the 

 fact of the decisive battle between the Khans and Shaibam. 



Fifthly. — In the Persian translation Babar's account of his 

 flight from Akhsl and his being in the garden at Kannan (or 

 Karnan) ends in a very startling way with an unfinished verse. 

 The last word is akhir, *' at last". It is judiciously pointed 

 out by Erskine, p. 123, that the narrative breaks off in a similar 

 abrupt fashion in the account of the year 914 (see Erskine, 

 235), and he inclines to think that in both instances the break- 

 ing ] off was intentional. They are dramatic endings such as 

 Shahrzada made every morning to her stories. Erskine also 

 says, *' All the three copies which I have had an opportunity 

 of comparing break off precisely at the same part, in both 

 instances. This holds in the original TurkI (the Elphinstone 

 MS.) as well as in the translation, and it is hardly conceiv- 

 able that the translator would have deserted his hero in the 

 most memorable passages of his life." 



Now, it seems to me that if Babar had written anything 

 in the chapter in 908 after the verse, he would not have 

 left the latter incomplete. And this seems to have struck the 

 TurkI adapter, for in the TurkI the verse though in Persian 

 is not the same as in the Persian MSS., and is a complete 

 distich. The break off in the verse in the Persian MSS. is 

 much more dramatic than the conventional second line in the 

 TurkI text, and is like the Quos ego of Virgil, and Babar's own 

 ending in the record for 914. It is noteworthy that the first 

 line in the TurkI text is also different from that in the Persian 

 MSS., and that it is not the same in the two TurkI texts. It 

 appears from a manuscript now in the Rylands' Library that 

 another interpolator attempted to complete the chapter, for it 

 says that Babar's friends came up and rescued him and 

 arranged for the care of his ladies. See A. S.B.J, for 1905. 



For these reasons I am of opinion that the Turk! passage 

 is not genuine, and that it may be one of Jahangir's additions. 

 Perhaps some TurkI scholar will examine the passage, and say 

 if the style is that of Babar, or resembles the fragments in 

 Ilminsky and P#vet de Courtlille, which must have been written 

 not earlier than the end of Akbar's reign. 



The " five miles " mentioned in his history are five Ighar h, that is^five 

 leagues and more. The battle took place at Arkhia ( ?) between A\&bi and 

 Andljan. Babar was there and had the command of a thousand men 

 Shaibam, when in pursuit of the Khans, crossed the river at Ajihsi 

 and apparently took the Khans by surprise (p. 207 of the Shaibanmama). 

 The battle soon ended in a victory for Shaibanl. 



1 It is also contrary to Babar's statement in the opening chapter 

 of his Memoirs. There he says that after ShaibSni had taken Ifeh 

 kend and Shahmkhia, he went to the Sukh and H^ishTSr hi 1 covintr 

 (in the south of Farghana) and was there nearly a year, and left from 

 there for his expedition to Kabul (Erskine, p. 4). 



