BABER. 
211 
bad, yet not quite correct. You have written ‘iltafat’ 
with a toe instead of a te, and f kuling’ with a be 
instead of a kaf. Your letter may indeed be read ; 
but, in consequence of the far-fetched words you 
have employed, the meaning is by no means intelli- 
gible. You certainly do not excel in letter- writing, 
and fail chiefly because you have too great a desire to 
show your acquirements. For the future you should 
write unaffectedly, with clearness, using plain words, 
which would cost less trouble both to the writer and 
reader/'* There is a vast fund of good sense in these 
strictures. 
About this time a royal proclamation was issued 
at Agra, that at the distance of every eighteen miles 
betwixt that capital and Cabul a minar should be 
erected, twenty-four feet high, having the regular 
distances marked upon each ; and that at every 
twenty miles post-houses should be built for the ac- 
commodation of travellers. Many of those minars 
exist in the north of India to this day. 
On the twenty-ninth of December, the emperor re- 
ceived the gratifying intelligence that his ancient foes 
the Uzbecks had sustained a signal defeat in Kho- 
rassan. Their army was said to have amounted to 
three hundred thousand men, while the Turkomans 
by whom they were defeated mustered no more than 
from forty to fifty thousand. There is probably an 
exaggeration of numbers on one side and a diminution 
on the other. It is, however, certain that the Uz- 
becks sustained a complete overthrow, and were 
* Memoirs, p. 392. 
