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From Balkh he was sold to Khiva, and from Khiva to Bokhara, whence he escaped with a fellow captive. I asked if he was compelled to labor during his captivity, and received a negative reply. Soldiers and all others except officers are forced to all kinds of drudgery when captured by these barbarians. Officers are held for ransom, and their duties are comparatively light.
Balkh, and all its spoils, Are mine, and so reduced the enemy, That I have gained a hundred hostages, To guarantee the peace which I have made; And what my recompense! a father's anger, Which takes me from my glory. Thus deprived Of thy affection, whither can I fly? Be it to friend or foe, the will of fate Must be my only guide condemned by thee."
Bahram is said to have contented himself with a small force of picked men, veterans between forty and fifty years of age, to have marched with them upon Balkh, contended with the Great Khan in several partial engagements, and at last entirely defeated him in a great battle, wherein the Khan lost his life.
At that time the Turks were in great strength and he went down to Balkh to fight them, and he was a favourite with his people and strong in overpowering his vigourous enemies, kind to his well-wishers, and of great intrepidity. He raised great buildings and cut a number of canals, built cities.
III. From the Tashkend-Bokhara base a route exists via Charjui, the Oxus, direct to Merv; and there is IV. Also the well-known road by Balkh and Mamiana, direct to Herat. Routes III. and IV. having just been discussed, let us look at Routes I. and II.
He had taken up his position in the plain near Balkh, and had there established his camp, resolved to await the coming of the enemy. During the interval he proceeded to dig a deep and broad trench in front of his whole position, leaving only a space of some twenty or thirty yards, midway in the work, untouched.
"Huge heaps of assafoetida, in bags, from the mountains beyond Cabool tons of raisins of various sorts almonds, pistachio nuts, sheep with four or five horns Balkh cats, with long silken hair; of singular beauty faqueers begging, and abusing the uncharitable with the grossest and most filthy language long strings of elderly ladies, proceeding in a chant to the priests of the Lingam, to bargain for bodily issue Ghât priests presenting their books for the presents and signatures of the European visitors groups of Hindoos surrounding a Bramin, who gives each of them a certificate of his having performed the pilgrimage" such are a few of the component parts of the scene; but the colonel's attention seems to have been principally fixed upon the horses, and the tricks of the dulals or brokers, to whom the purchase is generally confided, it being almost hopeless for an European to make a personal bargain with a native dealer.
'I maintain, he said, 'that man to be an enemy to his country who recommends a soldier to be stationed west of the Indus; 'while at the same moment he advocated the advance of our troops over the Hindoo Koosh into Balkh, so as to be ready to meet the Russians in the following May.
Káús thus found himself in an embarrassed condition, and deemed it prudent to recall both Tús and the army from Balkh, and relinquish further hostile measures against Afrásiyáb.
During the spring of that year, 1507, Shaibání Khán, the Uzbek chief, who had formerly driven Bábar from Samarkand, had attacked and taken Balkh; then invaded Khorásán and occupied Herát.
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