298 
H. Beveridge — Memoirs of Bayazid ( Bajazet) Biydt. [No. 4, 
with his father when Humayun arrived on the first Shawwal 951, (16th 
December, 1544). It was the day of the ‘Idu l-fitr or the breaking 
of the fast of the Ramazan, but the weather had been so bad from rain 
and snow that the people of Mashhad had not been able to see the 
moon. Humayun, however, was able to satisfy the Qazi that he had 
seen the moon when crossing the Zaqi 1 Pass on the previous evening and 
so after 9 a.m. all the inhabitants proceeded to the Tdgah. Humayun 
stayed several days in Mashhad, putting up in an upper room 
(balakhana) behind Imam Riza’s dome. One night he circumambu¬ 
lated the shrine and visited the tombs of the poet Mir ‘All Sher and 
others, and in his zeal insisted upon acting as a servant of the shrine 
and on snuffing the lamps. This incident is also mentioned by Jauhar, 
(Stewart’s translation, p. 60), but is referred by him to Humayun’s first 
visit to Mashhad. Perhaps Humayun performed the ceremony twice. 
Prom Mashhad Humayun proceeded towards Af gh anistan, and joined 
tiie Persian army on the banks of the Hilmand. He sent a force to 
take the castle of Bast, on the Hilmand near the junction of the 
Arghandab, and Bayazid went with it, though apparently not in any 
official capacity. Prom Bast, Humayun went to Qandahar and besieged 
it for some months. Bayazid was here also, and accompanied Bairam 
Khan on his embassy to Kabul. On the way they were attacked by the 
Hazaras, and Bayazid records the feat of Muhammadi Mirza, a grandson 
of Jahan Shah, the last king of the Turkmans of the Black Sheep. 
Muhammadi was on a horse which had been sent by Tahmasp as a 
present to Sulaiman, the ruler of Badakhshan, and he leapt with it a 
ditch which was eighteen cubits wide, in order to attack a Hazara 
archer who had wounded several of the king’s troopers. He killed him, 
but not before the archer had discharged his arrow and wounded the 
horse on the chest. Notwithstanding the wound, the horse carried 
Muhammadi for ten miles further and then dropped. Here Bayazid 
incidentally mentions that the famous Bairam Khan, whom he styles 
Baharlu, claimed to be descended from the same family as Muhammadi. 
At Kabul, Bayazid saw the child Akbar, who was then living with his 
grand-aunt Khanzada Begam, and heard Maham Begha say, that he was 
born in 949 (the 946 of text must be a mistake), that he was then 
years old, and that this date had also been written up in Kabul by his 
Majesty Humayun. 
The embassy returned to Qandahar after about two months, and 
apparently Bayazid did not return with it, but joined his brother 
1 I cannot find this name on the map, though there is a place Zarki marked N. 
of Mashhad. Probably the pass was to the west of Mashhad on the way from 
Nishapfir. 
