The Memoirs of Bābur 902.4

902.4

While we were at Yām, people, dealers and other, came out in crowds so that the camp became a bazar for buying and selling. One day, at the Other Prayer, suddenly, a general hubbub arose and all those Musalmān (traders) were plundered. Such however was the discipline of our army that an order to restore everything having been given, the first watch (_pahār_) of the next day had not passed before nothing, not a tag of cotton, not a broken needle's point, remained in the possession of any man of the force, all was back with its owners. Marching from Yām, it was dismounted in Khān Yūrtī (The Khān's Camping Ground),[321] some 6 m. (3 _kuroh_) east of Samarkand. We lay there for 40 or 50 days. During the time, men from their side and from ours chopped at one another (_chāpqū-lāshtīlār_) several times in the Avenue. One day when Ibrāhīm _Begchīk_ was chopping away there, he was cut on the face; thereafter people called him _Chāpūk_ (_Balafré_). Another time, this also in the Avenue, at the Maghāk (Fosse) Bridge[322] Abū'l-qāsim (_Kohbur Chaghatāī_) got in with his mace. Once, again [Sidenote: Fol. 40b.] in the Avenue, near the Mill-sluice, when Mīr Shāh _Qūchīn_ also got in with his mace, they cut his neck almost half-through; most fortunately the great artery was not severed.