The Memoirs of Bābur 907.2.2

907.2.2

99.] ten days. The chronogram of his death was found in _Nuyān is dead_.[593] With the heats came the news that Shaibāq Khān was coming up into Aūrā-tīpā. Hereupon, as the land is level about Dikh-kat, we crossed the Āb-burdan pass into the Macha hill-country.[594] Āb-burdan is the last village of Macha; just below it a spring sends its water down (to the Zar-afshān); above the stream is included in Macha, below it depends on Palghar. There is a tomb at the spring-head. I had a rock at the side of the spring-head shaped (_qātīrīb_) and these three couplets inscribed on it;— I have heard that Jamshīd, the magnificent, Inscribed on a rock at a fountain-head[595] 'Many men like us have taken breath at this fountain, And have passed away in the twinkling of an eye; We took the world by courage and might, But we took it not with us to the tomb.' There is a custom in that hill-country of cutting verses and things[596] on the rocks. While we were in Macha, Mullā Hijrī,[597] the poet, came from Ḥiṣār and waited on me. At that time I composed the following opening lines;— Let your portrait flatter you never so much, than it you are more (_āndīn artūqsīn_); Men call you their Life (_Jān_), than Life, without doubt, you are more (_jāndīn artūqsīn_).[598]