army marched to Panjkend, where Bábar assisted in the ceremony of trooping the colours according to Mongol traditions. First the Khán dismounted, and nine ox-tail standards[1] were set before him. A Mongol stood by, holding in his hand an ox's shank-bone, to which he tied a long white cotton cloth. Another fastened three long slips of white cloth below the horse-tail of the standard.
'One corner of one of the cloths the Khán took, and putting it beneath his feet, stood upon it. I stood on a corner of another of the long slips, which was in like manner tied under one of the ox-tails; and Sultán Muhammed Khanikeh [the Khán's son] took the third, and placing the cloth under his feet, likewise stood upon a corner of it. Then the Mongol who had tied the cloths, holding the ox-shank in his hand, made a speech in the Mongol tongue, looking often to the standards, and pointing and making signs towards them. The Khán and all the men formed in line, took kúmis in their hands, and sprinkled it towards the standards. All the trumpets and drums struck up at once, and all the soldiers who were drawn up shouted the war-cry. These ceremonies they repeated thrice.'
All this was minutely regulated by precedent, for 'among the Mongols, the rules of Chingiz Kaán are still strictly observed. Each man has his appointed post; those appointed to the right or left wing or centre have their established posts handed down from
- ↑ The tug or standard of the Mongols was made of the tail of a mountain ox. There is an admirable painting of this ceremony in the sixteenth-century Persian MS. of Bábar's Memoirs preserved in the British Museum (Or. 3,714).
