Note 1225 — SECTION II. KĀBUL666 (continued 3)

Although the verses following here in the text are with the Turkī Codices, doubt cannot but be felt as to their authenticity. They do not fit verbally to the sentence they follow; they are a unique departure from Bābur’s plain prose narrative and nothing in the small Hazāra affair shews cause for such departure; they differ from his usual topics in their bombast and comment on his men (cf. f. 194 for comment on shirking begs). They appear in the 2nd Persian translation (217 f. 134) in Turkī followed by a prose Persian rendering (khalāṣa). They are not with the 1st Pers. trs. (215 f. 159), the text of which runs on with a plain prose account suiting the size of the affair, as follows:—“The braves, seeing their (the Hazāras) good soldiering, had stopped surprised; wishing to hurry them i went swiftly past them, shouting ‘Move on! move on!’ They paid me no attention. When, in order to help, I myself attacked, dismounting and going up the hill, they shewed courage and emulation in following. Getting to the top of the pass, we drove that band off, killing many, capturing others, making their families prisoner and plundering their goods.” This is followed by “I myself collected” etc. as in the Turkī text after the verse. It will be seen that the above extract is not a translation of the verse; no translator or even summariser would be likely to omit so much of his original. It is just a suitably plain account of a trivial matter.