The Memoirs of Bābur 911.3.4

911.3.4

he once surrendered to the Avengers of blood a son of his own who had killed a man, and had him taken to the Judgment-gate (_Dāru'l-qaẓā_). He was abstinent for six or seven years after he took the throne; later on he degraded himself to drink. During the almost 40 years of his rule[998] in Khurāsān, there may not have been one single day on which he did not drink after the Mid-day prayer; earlier than that however he did not drink. What happened with his sons, the soldiers and the town was that every-one pursued vice and pleasure to excess. Bold and daring he was! Time and again he got to work with his own sword, getting his own hand in wherever he arrayed to fight; no man of Tīmūr Beg's line has been known to match him in the slashing of swords. He had a leaning to poetry and even put a _dīwān_ together, writing in Turkī with Ḥusainī for his pen-name.[999] Many couplets in his _dīwān_ are not bad; it is however in one and the same metre throughout. Great ruler though he was, [Sidenote: Fol. 165.] both by the length of his reign (_yāsh_) and the breadth of his dominions, he yet, like little people kept fighting-rams, flew pigeons and fought cocks. (_c._) _His wars and encounters._[1000] He swam the Gurgān-water[1001] in his guerilla days and gave a party of Aūzbegs a good beating.