54 FARGHANA
Opportunity offered, a move against it also was now made. Mir Mughul's father, *Abdu'l-wahhab Shao^hdwaP- was in it ; he surrendered without making any difficulty at once on our arrival.
Just then SI. Mahmud Khan was in Shahrukhiya. It has been said already that when SI. Ahmad Mirza came into Andijan (899 ah.), he also came and that he laid siege to Akhsi. It occurred to me that if since I was so close, I went and waited on him, he being, as it were, my father and my elder brother, and if bye-gone resentments were laid aside, it would be good hearing and seeing for far and near. So said, I went.
I waited on The Khan in the garden Haidar Kukulddsh had made outside Shahrukhiya. He was seated in a large four- Foi. 32. doored tent set up in the middle of it. Having entered the tent, I knelt three times,^ he for his part, rising to do me honour. We looked one another in the eyes;^ and he re- turned to his seat. After I had kneeled, he called me to his side and shewed me much affection and friendliness. Two or three days later, I set off for Akhsi and Andijan by the Kindirlik Pass.^ At Akhsi I made the circuit of my Father's
1 Cf. i. 13. The H.S. (ii, 274) places his son, Mir Mughiil, in charge, but otherwise agrees with the B.N.
2 Cf. Clavijo, Markham p. 132. Sir Charles Grandison bent the knee on occasions but illustrated MSS. e.g. the B.M. Tawavlkh-i-guzlda Nasrat-ndma show that Babur would kneel down on both knees. Cf. f. 1236 for the fatigue of the genuflection.
3 I have translated kurushuh thus because it appears to me that here and in other places, stress is laid by Babur upon the mutual gaze as an episode of a ceremonious interview. The verb kurushmak is often rendered by the Persian translators as darydftan and by the L. and E. Memoirs as to embrace. I have not found in the B.N. warrant for translating it as to embrace ; quchushmcSq is Babur's word for this (f. 103). Darydftan, taken as to grasp or see with the mind, to understand, well expresses mutual gaze and its sequel of mutual understanding. Sometimes of course, kurush, the interview does not imply kurush, the silent looking in the eyes with mutual understanding ; it simply means se voyer e.g. f. 17. The point is thus dwelt upon because the frequent mention of an embrace gives a different impression of manners from that made by " interview " or words expressing mutual gaze.
- daban. This word Reclus (vi, 171) quoting from Fedschenko, explains
as a difficult rocky defile ; art, again, as a dangerous gap at a high elevation ; bel, as an easy low pass ; and kutal, as a broad opening between low hills. The explanation of kiital does not hold good for Babur's appUcation of the word (f. 8Ib) to the Sara-taq.
