The Memoirs of Bābur 900.3

900.3

Khujand for a considerable time had been dependent on `Umar Shaikh Mīrzā's Court (_dīwān_) but of late had looked towards Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā on account of the disturbance in the Farghāna government during the interregnum.[272] As the opportunity offered, a move against it also was now made. Mīr Mughūl's father, `Abdu'l-wahhāb _Shaghāwal_[273] was in it; he surrendered without making any difficulty at once on our arrival.
Just then Sl. Maḥmūd Khān was in Shāhrukhiya. It has been said already that when Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā came into Andijān (899 AH.), he also came and that he laid siege to Akhsī. 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 Khān in the garden Ḥaidar _Kūkūldāsh_ had made outside Shāhrukhiya. He was seated in a large four-doored [Sidenote: Fol. 32.] tent set up in the middle of it. Having entered the tent, I knelt three times,[274] he for his part, rising to do me honour. We looked one another in the eyes;[275] and he returned 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 Akhsī and Andijān by the Kīndīrlīk Pass.[276] At Akhsī I made the circuit of my Father's tomb. I left at the hour of the Friday Prayer (_i.e._, about midday) and reached Andijān, by the Band-i-sālār Road between the Evening and Bedtime Prayers. This road _i.e._ the Band-i-sālār, people call a nine _yīghāch_ road.[277]
One of the tribes of the wilds of Andijān is the Jīgrāk[278] a numerous people of five or six thousand households, dwelling in the mountains between Kāshghar and Farghāna. They have many horses and sheep and also numbers of yāks (_qūtās_), these hill-people keeping yāks instead of common cattle. As their mountains are border-fastnesses, they have a fashion of not paying tribute. An army was now sent against them under (Sayyid) Qāsim Beg in order that out of the tribute taken from them something might reach the soldiers. He took about 20,000 of their sheep and between 1000 and 1500 of their horses and shared all out to the men.
After its return from the Jīgrāk, the army set out for Aūrā-tīpā. [Sidenote: Fol. 34.] Formerly this was held by `Umar Shaikh Mīrzā but it had gone out of hand in the year of his death and Sl. `Alī Mīrzā was now in it on behalf of his elder brother, Bāīsunghar Mīrzā. When Sl. `Alī Mīrzā heard of our coming, he went off himself to the Macha hill-country, leaving his guardian, Shaikh Ẕū'n-nūn _Arghūn_ behind. From half-way between Khujand and Aūrā-tīpā, Khalīfa[279] was sent as envoy to Shaikh Ẕū'n-nūn but that senseless mannikin, instead of giving him a plain answer, laid hands on him and ordered him to death. For Khalīfa to die cannot have been the Divine will; he escaped and came to me two or three days later, stripped bare and having suffered a hundred _tūmāns_ (1,000,000) of hardships and fatigues. We went almost to Aūrā-tīpā but as, winter being near, people had carried away their corn and forage, after a few days we turned back for Andijān. After our retirement, The Khān's men moved on the place when the Aūrā-tīpā person[280] unable to make a stand, surrendered and came out. The Khān then gave it to Muḥammad Ḥusain _Kūrkān Dūghlāt_ and in his hands it remained till 908 AH. (1503).[281]