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voted himself. Among these was the Moulana Abdal Rahman Jâmi, * to whom there was no person of that period who could be compared, whether in respect to profane or sacred science. His poems are well known. The merits of the Mûlla are of too exalted a nature to admit of being described by me; but I have been anxious to bring the mention of his name, and an allusion to his excellencies, into these humble pages, for a good omen and a blessing."

He then proceeds to enumerate the names of between thirty and forty distinguished persons; ranking first the sages and theologians, to the number of eight or nine; next the poets, about fifteen; then two or three painters; and five or six performers and composers of music;-of one of these he gives the following instructive anecdote:

"Another was Hussain Udi (the lutanist), who played with great taste on the lute, and composed elegantly. He could play, using only one string of his lute at a time. He had the fault of giving himself many airs when desired to play. On one occasion Sheibani Khan desired him to play. After giving much trouble he played very ill, and besides, did not bring his own instrument, but one that was good for nothing. Sheibâni Khan, on learning how matters stood, directed that, at that very party, he should receive a certain number of blows on the neck. This was one good deed that Sheibâni Khan did in his day; and indeed the affectation of such people deserves even more severe animadversion."

In the seductions of this luxurious court, Baber's orthodox abhorrence to wine was first assailed with temptation :-and there is something very naïve, we think, in his account of his reasonings and feelings on the occasion.

"As we were guests at Mozeffer Mirza's house, Mozeffer Mirza placed me above himself, and having filled up a glass of welcome, the cupbearers in waiting began to supply all who were of the party with pure wine, which they quaffed as if it had been the water of life. The party waxed warm, and the spirit mounted up to their heads. They took a fancy to make me drink too, and bring me into the same circle with themselves. Although, till that time, I had never been guilty of drinking wine, and from never having fallen into the practice, was ignorant of the sensations it produced, yet I had a strong lurking inclination to wander in this desert, and my heart was much disposed to pass the stream. In my boyhood I had no wish for it, and did not know its pleasures or pains. When my father at any time asked me to drink wine, I excused myself, and abstained. After my father's death, by the guardian care of Khwâjeh

"No moral poet ever had a higher reputation than Jâmi. His poems are written with great beauty of language and versification, in a captivating strain of religious and philosophic mysticism. He is not merely admired for his sublimity as a poet, but venerated as a saint."

Kazi, I remained pure and undefiled. I abstained even from forbidden foods; how then was I likely to indulge in wine? Afterwards when, from the force of youthful imagination and constitutional impulse, I got a desire for wine, I had nobody about my person to invite me to gratify my wishes; nay, there was not one who even suspected my secret longing for it. Though I had the appetite, therefore, it was difficult for me, unsolicited as I was, to indulge such unlawful desires. It now came into my head, that, as they urged me so much, and as, besides, I had come into a refined city like Heri, in which every means of heightening pleasure and gaiety was possessed in perfection; in which all the incentives and apparatus of enjoyment were combined with an invitation to indulgence, if I did not seize the present moment, I never could expect such another. I therefore resolved to drink wine! But it struck me, that as Badîaez-zemân Mirza was the eldest brother, and as I had declined receiving it from his hand, and in his house, he might now take offence. I therefore mentioned this difficulty which had occurred to me. My excuse was approved of, and I was not pressed any more, at this party, to drink. It was settled, however, that the next time we met at Badia-ez-zemân Mirza's, I should drink when pressed by the two Mirzas."

By some providential accident, however, the conscientious prince escaped from this meditated lapse; and it was not till some years after, that he gave way to the long-cherished and resisted propensity. At what particular occasion he first fell into the snare, unfortunately is not recorded-as there is a blank of several years in the Memoirs previous to 1519. In that year, however, we find him a confirmed toper; and nothing, indeed, can be more ludicrous than the accuracy and apparent truth with which he continues to chronicle all his subsequent and very frequent excesses. The Eastern votary of intoxication has a pleasant way of varying his enjoyments, which was never taken in the West. When the fluid elements of drunkenness begin to fail, he betakes him to what is learnedly called a maajûn, being a sort of electuary or confection, made up with pleasant spices, and rendered potent by a large admixture of opium, bang, and other narcotic ingredients, producing a solid intoxication of a very delightful and desirable description. One of the first drinking matches that is described makes honourable mention of this variety:

"The maajun-takers and spirit-drinkers, as they have different tastes, are very apt to take offence with each other. I said, Don't spoil the cordiality of the party; whoever wishes to drink spirits, let him drink spirits; and let him that prefers maajûn, take maajûn; and let not the one party give any idle or provoking language to the other.' Some sat down to spirits, some to maajûn. The party went on for some time tolerably well. Bâba Jân Kabûzi had not been

in the boat; we had sent for him when we reached the royal tents. He chose to drink spirits. Terdi Muhammed Kipchâk, too, was sent for, and joined the spirit-drinkers. As the spirit-drinkers and maajûntakers never can agree in one party, the spirit-bibing party began to indulge in foolish and idle conversation, and to make provoking remarks on maajûn and maajûn-takers. Bâba Jân, too, getting drunk, talked very absurdly. The tipplers, filling up glass after glass for Terdi Muhammed, made him drink them off, so that in a very short time he was mad drunk. Whatever exertions I could make to preserve peace, were all unavailing; there was much uproar and wrangling. The party became quite burdensome and unpleasant, and soon broke up." The second day after, we find the royal bacchanal still more grievously overtaken :

"We continued drinking spirits in the boat till bed-time prayers, when, being completely drunk, we mounted, and taking torches in our hands came at full gallop back to the camp from the river-side, falling sometimes on one side of the horse, and sometimes on the other. I was miserably drunk, and next morning, when they told me of our having galloped into the camp with lighted torches in our hands, I had not the slightest recollection of the circumstance. After coming home, I vomited plentifully."

Even in the middle of a harassing and desultory campaign, there is no intermission of this excessive jollity, though it sometimes puts the parties into jeopardy,-for example :—

"We continued at this place drinking till the sun was on the decline, when we set out. Those who had been of the party were completely drunk. Syed Kâsim was so drunk, that two of his servants were obliged to put him on horseback, and brought him to the camp with great difficulty. Dost Muhammid Bâkir was so far gone, that Amin Muhammed Terkhân, Masti Chehreh, and those who were along with him, were unable, with all their exertions, to get him on horseback. They poured a great quantity of water over him, but all to no purpose. At this moment a body of Afghans appeared in sight. Amin Muhammed Terkhân, being very drunk, gravely gave it as his opinion, that rather than leave him, in the condition in which he was, to fall into the hands of the enemy, it was better at once to cut off his head, and carry it away. Making another exertion, however, with much difficulty, they contrived to throw him upon a horse, which they led along, and so brought him off."

On some occasions they contrive to be drunk four times in twenty-four hours. The gallant prince contents himself with a strong maajûn one day; but

"Next morning we had a drinking party in the same tent. We continued drinking till night. On the following morning we again had an early cup, and, getting intoxicated, went to sleep. About noon-day prayers, we left Istâlif, and I took a maajûn on the road. It was about afternoon prayers before I reached Behzadi. The crops were extremely good. While I was riding round the harvest-fields,

such of my companions as were fond of wine began to contrive another drinking-bout. Although I had taken a maajûn, yet, as the crops were uncommonly fine, we sat down under some trees that had yielded a plentiful load of fruit, and began to drink. We kept up the party in the same place till bed-time prayers. Mûll Mahmud Khalifeh having arrived, we invited him to join us. Abdalla, who had got very drunk, made an observation which affected Khalifeh. Without recollecting that Mûlla Mahmud was present, he repeated the verse,

(Persian.) Examine whom you will, you will find him suffering from the same wound.

Mûlla Mahmud, who did not drink, reproved Abdalla for repeating this verse with levity.* Abdalla, recovering his judgment, was in terrible perturbation, and conversed in a wonderfully smooth and sweet strain all the rest of the evening."

In a year or two after this, when he seems to be in a course of unusual indulgence, we meet with the following edifying remark: "As I intend, when forty years old, to abstain from wine; and as I now want somewhat less than one year of being forty, I drink wine most copiously!" When forty comes, however, we hear nothing of this sage resolution-but have a regular record of the wine and maajûn parties as before, up to the year 1527. In that year, however, he is seized with rather a sudden fit of penitence, and has the resolution to begin a course of rigorous reform. There is something rather picturesque in his very solemn and remarkable account of this great revolution in his habits:

"On Monday the 23d of the first Jemâdi, I had mounted to survey my posts, and, in the course of my ride, was seriously struck with the reflection that I had always resolved, one time or another, to make an effectual repentance, and that some traces of a hankering after the renunciation of forbidden works had ever remained in my heart. Having sent for the gold and silver goblets and cups, with all the other utensils used for drinking parties, I directed them to be broken, and renounced the use of wine, purifying my mind. The fragments of the goblets, and other utensils of gold and silver, I directed to be divided among Derwishes and the poor. The first person who followed me in my repentance was Asas, who also accompanied me in my resolution of ceasing to cut the beard, and of allowing it to grow. That night and the following, numbers of Amîrs and courtiers, soldiers

* "This verse, I presume, is from a religious poem, and has a mystical meaning. The profane application of it is the ground of offence."

"This vow was sometimes made by persons who set out on a war against the Infidels. They did not trim the beard till they returned victorious. Some vows of a similar nature may be found in Scripture."

and persons not in the service, to the number of nearly three hundred men, made vows of reformation. The wine which we had with us we poured on the ground! I ordered that the wine brought by Bâba Dost should have salt thrown into it, that it might be made into vinegar. On the spot where the wine had been poured out, I directed a wain to be sunk and built of stone, and close by the wâîn an alms-house to be erected.”

He then issued a magnificent Firman, announcing his reformation, and recommending its example to all his subjects. But he still persists, we find, in the use of a mild maajûn. We are sorry to be obliged to add, that though he had the firmness to persevere to the last in his abstinence from wine, the sacrifice seems to have cost him very dear; and he continued to the very end of his life to hanker after his broken wine-cups, and to look back with fond regret to the delights he had abjured for ever. There is something absolutely pathetic, as well as amiable, in the following candid avowal in a letter written the very year before his death, to one of his old drinking companions :

"In a letter which I wrote to Abdalla, I mentioned that I had much difficulty in reconciling myself to the desert of penitence; but that I had resolution enough to persevere,—

(Turki verse.) I am distressed since I renounced wine;

I am confounded and unfit for business,—
Regret leads me to penitence,
Penitence leads me to regret.

Indeed, last year, my desire and longing for wine and social parties were beyond measure excessive. It even came to such a length that I have found myself shedding tears from vexation and disappointment. In the present year, praise be to God, these troubles are over, and I ascribe them chiefly to the occupation afforded to my mind by a poetical translation, on which I have employed myself. Let me advise you too, to adopt a life of abstinence. Social parties and wine are pleasant, in company with our jolly friends and old boon companions. But with whom can you enjoy the social cup? With whom can you indulge in the pleasures of wine? If you have only Shîr Ahmed, and Haider Kûlli, for the companions of your gay hours and jovial goblet, you can surely find no great difficulty in consenting to the sacrifice. I conclude with every good wish."

We have mentioned already that Baber appears to have been of a frank and generous character-and there are throughout the memoirs, various traits of singular clemency and tenderness of heart, for an Eastern monarch and professional warrior. He weeps ten whole days for the loss of a friend who fell over a precipice after one of their drinking parties, and spares the lives, and even restores the domains of various chieftains, who had betrayed his confidence, and afterwards fallen into his power. Yet there are traces of Asiatic ferocity, and of a hard

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