Muntakhab al-tawarikh 78.10.4

78.10.4

At this time the Emperor held a Qamurghahunt at about five cosses from Lahor. For a space of 40 cosses in every direction they drove the wild game together in a circle, and day by day they contracted the circle, till it became as narrow as the mouth of the lair:— “The compass drew so narrow the figure of that mouth, That the circumference of the circle coincided with the centre.” About 15,000 wild animals of various kinds were counted in that arena. The nobles, and afterwards the people generally, were permitted to join in the sport. Afterwards the whole party gave rein to their horses, and dashed into the river Ravvi to swim across, and all the courtiers, with the exception of one or two, of which number was Khushkhabar Khan (as has been already mentioned), got safely across. Now, while the Qamurgha-hunt was going on, Muzaffar Khan arrived with Vazir Khan from Agra, and the Emperor wrote a farmān entrusting to A'çaf Khan and Majnūn Khan the joint guardianship of the districts of Karrah and Mānikpūr — on which subject many a poem was composed. Meanwhile news arrived that the Khan Zamān, Bahādur Khan, and Sikandar Khan had broken faith and were in open rebellion; and that they had sent persons to fetch Mirzā Muhammad Hakim, and had had the audacity to read the khutbah, and to strike coin in his name in the district of Jounpūr. And Mulla Ghazāli, a poet of Mashhad, composed this verse: — “In the name of the gracious and merciful God, Muhammad Hakim is the heir of a kingdom.”