The Memoirs of Bābur 925.10.1

925.10.1

(_Sep. 26th_) On Monday we marched with the dawn of the Feast-day,[1499] eating a confection on the road to dispel crop-sickness. While under its composing influence (_nāklīk_), we were brought a colocynth-apple (_khunṯul_). Darwīsh-i-muḥammad had never seen one; said I, "It is a melon of Hindūstān," sliced it and gave him a piece. He bit into it at once; it was night before the bitter taste went out of his mouth. At Garm-chashma we dismounted on rising-ground where cold meat was being set out for us when Langar Khān arrived to wait on me after being for a time at his own place (Koh-i-jūd). He brought an offering of a horse and a few confections. Passing on, we dismounted at Yada-bīr, at the Other Prayer got on a raft there, went for as much as two miles on it, then left it. (_Sep. 27th_) Riding on next morning, we dismounted below the Khaibar-pass. Today arrived Sl. Bāyazīd, come up by the [Sidenote: Fol. 243b.] Bāra-road after hearing of us; he set forth that the Afrīdī Afghāns were seated in Bāra with their goods and families and that they had grown a mass of corn which was still standing (lit. on foot). Our plan being for the Yūsuf-zāī Afghāns of Hash-naghar, we paid him no attention. At the Mid-day Prayer there was a wine-party in Khwāja Muḥammad `Alī's tent. During the party details about our coming in this direction were written and sent off by the hand of a sulṯān of Tīrah to Khwāja Kalān in Bajaur. I wrote this couplet on the margin of the letter (_farmān_):—