The Memoirs of Bābur 933.2.1

933.2.1

(_f. Attempt to poison Bābur._) (_Dec. 21st_) On Friday the 16th of the first Rabī` a strange event occurred which was detailed in a letter written to Kābul. That letter is inserted here just as it was written, without addition or taking-away, and is as follows:—[1980] "The details of the momentous event of Friday the 16th of the first Rabī` in the date 933 [Dec. 21st 1526 AD.] are as follows:—The ill-omened old woman[1981] Ibrāhim's mother heard [Sidenote: Fol. 305b.] that I ate things from the hands of Hindūstānīs—the thing being that three or four months earlier, as I had not seen Hindūstānī dishes, I had ordered Ibrāhīm's cooks to be brought and out of 50 or 60 had kept four. Of this she heard, sent to Atāwa (Etāwa) for Aḥmad the _chāshnīgīr_—in Hindūstān they call a taster (_bakāwal_) a _chāshnīgīr_—and, having got him,[1982] gave a _tūla_ of poison, wrapped in a square of paper,—as has been mentioned a _tūla_ is rather more than 2 _mis̤qāls_[1983]—into the hand of a slave-woman who was to give it to him. That poison Aḥmad gave to the Hindūstānī cooks in our kitchen, promising them four _parganas_ if they would get it somehow into the food. Following the first slave-woman that ill-omened old woman sent a second to see if the first did or did not give the poison she had received to Aḥmad. Well was it that Aḥmad put the poison not into the cooking-pot but on a dish!