Note 10 — The Fourteenth New Year’s Feast from the Auspicious Accession

On Wednesday, the 21st, I went to Amānābād for the purpose of sport. Some days before this, in accordance with orders, K͟hwāja Jahān, and Qiyām K., the head huntsman, had chosen a wide plain for a qamarg͟ha hunt, and drawn an enclosure round it, and driven within it many antelope from the neighbouring plains. As I had vowed that I would hereafter not kill any living thing with my own hand, it occurred to me to take them all alive, and place them within the Chaugān (polo-ground) of Fatḥpūr, so that I might both enjoy the pleasure of sport and that at the same time no harm should happen to them. I accordingly took 700 head and sent them to Fatḥpūr. As the hour for entering the capital was near, I ordered Rāy Mān, k͟hidmatiyya,10 to put up a screen on two sides, like a lane, from the hunting-place to the plain of Fatḥpūr, and to drive the antelope there. About 800 antelope were sent in this way, or altogether 1,500. On the night of Wednesday, the 28th, marching from Amānābād, I halted in Būstān Sarāy, and on the eve of Thursday, the 29th, I halted at the Nūr-manzil garden.