noon we had the luck to find a sheep; we dismounted and settled ourselves comfortably to roast it. After satisfying my ravenous hunger, we set off again, and quickening our pace reached Andiján, doing a distance of five days in two nights and a day. There I embraced the two Kháns, my uncles, and related all that had passed since our separation.'
It all reads like a tale of the Thousand and One Nights, and ends exactly in the orthodox manner; but the graphic narrative is plainly true from start to finish. What happened after this wonderful ride we cannot tell. The Memoirs break off suddenly, and are not resumed until June, 1504, nearly a year and a half later. It may be imagined that Bábar's position as a dependant upon his uncles in his own city of Andiján was even less tolerable than his former penury at Táshkend. But his personal losses may well have been forgotten in presence of the disasters which befel his uncle Mahmúd, to whom 'he almost stood in the place of a son.' The two Kháns were utterly unable to withstand the assaults of Shaibáni. About the middle of 1503 the Uzbeg chief advanced with 30,000 men from Samarkand, sacked Táshkend and Uratipa, and finding the Kháns with an army of 15,000 men near Akhsi, where they were treating for the submission of Báyazíd, threw himself upon then almost before they had time to form in order of battle, and utterly routed them.
Both Kháns were taken prisoners, but Shaibáni, who owed his original success to Mahmúd, said with
