Page:History of India Vol 5.djvu/269

CHAPTER X THE MEMOIRS OF THE EMPEROR BABAR IT is generally agreed that the Memoirs of the Em- peror Babar form one of the best and most faithful pieces of autobiography that exist. They are consid- ered to be decidedly superior to those of Timur and Jahangir, and may compare favourably with Xeno- phon's Anabasis or Caesar's Commentaries, as they are fully equal to the latter in the matter of simplicity and are much more straightforward. These autobiographical records were written by Babar in remarkably pure Chagatai Turkish, and are extant in a very few copies, one of which may be found reproduced in facsimile in the Gibb Memorial series of publications. A Persian translation of the famous journal was made in Akbar's time and presented to that monarch. The Memoirs have since been turned into German, Russian, and French, as well as into Eng- lish by Leyden and Erskine. The extracts from the latter 's version as given below, with slight alterations and omissions, give a detailed account of some of Ba- bar 's operations in India in 1519 A. D. and the following years. ' When we left Bajaur, on the fourteenth of Safar, 223