304 
H. Beveridge — Memoirs of Bayazid ( Bajazet ) Biyat. [No. 4, 
It is strange what a fascination Central Asia seems to have possessed 
for Babar and his descendants. We find Babar spending the best years 
of his life in fruitless attempts to regain possession of Farghana and to 
establish himself in Samarqand, and now we find bis sons engaged in 
the same bootless warfare, and neglecting the far more promising field 
of India. A war against the Uzbaks seems to have been to this 
family what a campaign against the Persians was to the Greeks, or 
a crusade to the European nations in the Middle Ages. Humayiin 
made his attack in company with his brother Hindal and his cousin 
Sulaiman. Kamran and ‘Askar! sent word that they would come, but 
they failed to put in an appearance. Kamran indeed took advantage of 
Humayun’s absence on this expedition to capture Kabul for the second 
time. 
We are told by Bayazid, (p. 94??), that Sulaiman of Badakhshan 
fought 72 battles with the Uzbaks, and was always successful, but if 
so he was the only Timuride w r ho ever got the better of them. And 
he too eventually found that the Uzbaks were too strong for him, for 
he lost his son Mirza Ibrahim, wbo was made prisoner by the Uzbaks 
in one of his father’s expeditions and was taken to Balkh and put to 
death there. And Sulaiman himself was eventually driven out of 
Badakhshan in his old age and forced to take refuge with Akbar. 
Where Babar had failed, even with the powerful help of the king of 
Persia, it was not likelv that his unstable son Humavun should sue- 
ceed. Bis campaign against Balkh ended in disastrous failure, and his 
sufferings during the retreat remind us of those experienced by his 
father when he fled from Samarqand after having been driven out by 
Shaiban! Khan. Bayazid was present in the campaign and was now 
a direct servant of Humavun, having begun his career as a servant of 
Jalalu-d-din Mahmud of Aubah, the king’s butler, and having after¬ 
wards served Husain Quli, the keeper of the seal. 
As Humayun was marching towards Aibak, one of his followers 
shot a. leopard. The seal-bearer remarked that this was a bad omen, and 
cited the instance of the Uzbaks who on account of a similar occurrence 
had once put off an expedition to Khurasan. But Humayun got over 
the argument by observing that the Uzbaks were his enemies and that so 
what was a bad sign for them was a good one for him. Aibnk was taken 
after a short resistance and Khwaja Bagh, the guardian of Pir Muham¬ 
mad, the ruler of Balkh, was made prisoner. Humayun took the singular 
step of asking the Khwaja how he should proceed in order to be success¬ 
ful in his expedition against Balkh. The Khwaja naturally replied 
that he was an enemy and so his opinion should not be taken, but 
Humayun persisted, saying, that the Uzbaks were honest men and 
