Page:History of India Vol 5.djvu/274

228 THE MEMOIES OF THE EMPEROR BABAR directions, and afterwards rode round Bahrah. On Wednesday, the 22d (Feb. 23), I sent *f or the head men and chief craftsmen of Bahrah and agreed with them for the sum of four hundred thousand Shdh-rukhls (nearly 20,000 sterling) as the ransom of their prop- erty, whereupon collectors were appointed to receive the amount. Having learned that the troops had exer- cised some severity toward the inhabitants of Bahrah and were misusing them, I sent out a party, which seized a few of the soldiers who had been guilty of excesses. I then put some of them to death and slit the noses of others, and commanded them to be led about the camp in that condition; for I considered the countries that had belonged to the Turks as my own territories, and therefore allowed no plundering or pillage. People were always saying that if ambassadors were to be sent in a friendly and peaceable way into the countries that had been occupied by the Turks, it could do no harm. I therefore despatched Mulla Murshid to Sultan Ibrahim, whose father, Sultan Iskandar, had died five or six months before, and who had succeeded his parent in the empire of Hindustan; and giving my envoy the name and style of ambassador, I sent him to demand that the countries which had belonged to the Turks from days of old should be given up to me. Besides these letters for Sultan Ibrahim, I gave Mulla Murshid letters to Daulat Khan, and having also deliv- ered verbal instructions to him, I dismissed him on his mission. The people of Hindustan, and particularly the Afghans, are a strangely foolish and senseless race,