Note 68 — Feast of the Second New Year.

On Thursday, the 22nd, having gone to the Bālā Ḥiṣār, I inspected the buildings in that place. As the place was not fit for me I ordered them to destroy these buildings and to prepare a palace and a royal hall of audience. On the same day they brought a peach from Istālif, barābar sar-i-buh bakalānī, “as big as an owl’s head” (?).68 I had not seen a peach of such a size, and ordered it to be weighed, and it came to 63 Akbarī rupees, or 60 tolas. When I cut it in half its stone also came into two pieces, and its substance was sweet. I had in Kabul never eaten better fruit from any tree. On the 25th news came from Malwa that Mīrzā S͟hāhruk͟h had bid farewell to this transitory world, and God Almighty had submerged him in His mercy. From the day on which he entered the service of my revered father till the time of his departure, from no act of his could dust be brought into the royal mind. He always did his duty with sincerity. The aforesaid Mīrzā apparently had four sons: Ḥasan and Ḥusain were born of the same womb (i.e. they were twins). Ḥusain fled from Burhanpur and went by sea to Iraq, and thence to Badakhshan, where they say he now is, as has been written about his message and his sending some one to me. No one knows for certain whether it is the same Mīrzā Ḥusain, or the people of Badakhshan have raised up this one like other false Mīrzās and given him the name of Mīrzā Ḥusain. From the time when Mīrzā S͟hāhruk͟h came from Badakhshan and had the good fortune to wait on my father until now, nearly 25 years have passed. For some time the people of Badakhshan, on account of the oppression and injury they have to undergo from the Ūzbegs, have given notoriety to a Badakhshan boy, who had on his face the marks of nobility, as really the son of Mīrzā S͟hāhruk͟h and of the race of Mīrzā Sulaimān. A large number of the scattered Ūymāqs, and the hill-people of Badakhshan, whom they call G͟harchal (Georgians?), collected round him, and showing enmity and disputing with the Ūzbegs, took some of the districts of Badakhshan out of their possession. The Ūzbegs attacked that false Mīrzā and captured him, and placing his head on a spear sent it round to the whole country of Badakhshan. Again the seditious people of Badakhshan quickly produced another Mīrzā. Up to now several Mīrzās have been killed. It appears to me that as long as there is any trace of the people of Badakhshan they will keep up this disturbance. The third son of the Mīrzā is Mīrzā Sult̤ān, who excels in appearance and disposition all the other sons of the Mīrzā. I begged him from his revered father, and have kept him in my own service, and having taken great pains with him reckon him as my own child. In disposition and manners he has no likeness to his brothers. After my accession I gave him the rank of 2,000 personal and 1,000 horse, and sent him to the Subah of Malwa, which was his father’s place. The fourth son is Badīʿu-z-zamān, whom he always had in attendance on himself; he obtained the rank of 1,000 personal and 500 horse.