7 



Vol. ere 0. 3.] . Translation of a Letter by Abu ’l-Fazl. 147 
exalted Court a oe mes Our most noble satin various 
: love 
various strains of the hig Begi pigeon and likewise fe of 
the Sultan Husayn Mirza breed. In erg the sight of these fairy- 
fliers, and the arrival of the young pigeon-fancier sent by him, was 
ness to Our most noble Mind. Es specially so was 
the arrival “ this Habib, who is the chief leader of all the oo 
a-wara ’n-Nahr, nay, rather the prince of artists of Our 
for such a noe -lover is he, that, even rao the yolk of the ae 
merges into ' the white, he can discover how m any summersaults the 
future pigeon will turn in its flight ; while, before even the Great 
Educator of Nature has, without making any aperture in the shell, 
cast cnn life into the mould of the young bird imprisoned within, 
h to what height the bird to be will soar. He is a very 
Galen i in anny anatomy, a very Plato in his own art. He knows 
more about the ramifications of the breeds and crosses of pigeons 
than Naqib Khan # does of the various races and tribes of man. 
Can one compare him to Qul ’Ali? P—why, Habib is an Avicenna in 
his own art! 
Abd® ‘lah Khan has collected all the Diwan-Begi pigeons 
from Anjan and its neighbourhood, and sent them by Mir Sse 4 
We wonder if there are any see left in those parts! All t 
birds arrived safely. The pigeon of Our Pen is usable to Far a a 
feather in the air of the seer a of their beauty, neither can 
the oe peacock of Our Tongue show off in the park of their 
descriptio 
Each pet rig in beauty bys ed and er grace, 
Resembles the Bird of tele it flie 
Hot-tempered are they like do bikin of you uth, 
Far-soaring are they Ee the thoughts of the wise; 
They traverse exrth and sky ; 
They sore p the o genin i even the Clustered § Pleiades. 
ut in soaring high 
All, in twisting and euridan, bear the polo-ball of victory from the sky. 
Since that time when the bird-winged Angels left the nest 
of the Throne’ of God, no pigeons like them have been produced 

Khan ; vide A%in-i Akbarv?, Blochmann’s translation, Vol. i., page 320 
oath conga Dictionary. The aie: in the letter is apparently 
identical bole the one mentioned by Bea 
a popalar as that the ides a yolk of an egg mix gradually as 
the ae develops. 
& 
tyas® "d-Din eae ae title of Nagib Khan in the twenty-sixth 
year 0 oe reign (AD.1 He died at Ajmere in A.D. 1614, in the 
reign of Jehangir; ‘vide’ ciel Akbari, Biochain’s translation, Vol. i., 
448, 
3 Qul ‘All; unknown. 
ara sh; unknown. 
5 One would have “Ses here Virgo, in Persian and Arabic Sumbalah, 
which literally means 7 7 of Corn ”; but the writer probably had in his 
mind the phrase ee) ‘il cen com 
8 That is, since gk beginning of ae world. 
> 
= 
BA! 
