Note 7 — The Fifteenth New Year’s Feast after the Auspicious Accession

On this day, the news came that Suhrāb K., s. Rustam Mīrzā, had been drowned in the Jhelam. The details are as follows: He, according to orders, was coming up one stage in the rear, and on the road it came into his mind that he would have a bathe in the river, though warm water was ready. The people forbade him, and said that when the air was so cold, unnecessarily to get into a river so agitated and bloodthirsty that it would roll over a war-elephant, was contrary to the dictates of caution. He was not restrained by their words, and as the unavoidable destined time had arrived, got in. From excessive self-will and pride and carelessness, in reliance on his powers of swimming, in which art he was unequalled, he was more determined than ever, and with a k͟hidmatīyya (Blochmann 252) and another servant, both of whom could swim, mounted a rock on the river bank and threw himself in. Immediately he fell, from the violent movement of the waves, he could not pull himself together or try to swim; to fall in and go were the same thing, and Suhrāb K.7 and the k͟hidmatīyya thus gave away the goods of their lives to the flood of destruction. The boatman,8 with a hundred difficulties, brought the boat of his being (himself) in safety to the shore. Mīrzā Rustam was much attached to this son. On hearing of this fatal news on the Pūnch road, he rent the robe of patience, and showed great agitation. With all his dependants, clothed in mourning garments, with head and feet bare, he came to wait on me. What shall I write of the grief of the mother? Although the Mīrzā has other sons, his heart was bound up in this one. His age was twenty-six years. In shooting with a gun he was an excellent pupil of his father, and knew well how to drive elephants and carriages. On the expedition to Gujarat he was often ordered to ride on the front part of my private elephant, and he was an active soldier.9