uncle, a weak easy-going toper, managed by his Begs or nobles. He represented the central power of Tímúr's empire, but he represented a shadow. Further east, from his citadel of Hisár, Ahmad's brother Mahmúd ruled the country of the Upper Oxus, Kunduz, and Badakhshán, up to the icy barrier of the Hindú Kúsh. A third brother, Ulugh Beg, held Kábul and Ghazní; and a fourth, Bábar's father, 'Omar Shaikh, was King of Farghána, or as it was afterwards called Khókand. His capital was Andiján, but he was staying at the second city, Akhsi, when happening to visit his pigeons in their house overhanging the cliff, on June 9, 1494, by a singular accident the whole building slid down the precipice, and he fell ingloriously to the bottom 'with his pigeons and dovecote, and winged his flight to the other world.' Besides these four brothers, Sultán Husain Baikará, a cousin four times removed, ruled at Herát, with much state and magnificence, what was left of the Tímúrid empire in Khurásán, from Balkh near the Oxus to Astarábád beside the Caspian sea.
These were the leading princes of Tímúr's race at the time of Bábar's accession; but they do not exhaust the chief sources of political disturbance. Further east and north the Mongol tribes, still led by descendants of Chingiz Kaán, mustered in multitudes in their
Osmánli Sultán. Mirzá after a name connotes royal blood. In general the full style, such as Sultán Mahmúd Mirzá, &c., will here be curtailed to the essential name Mahmúd, &c., or Mahmúd Mirzá when a distinction is needed from Mahmúd Khán.
