the force had begun to ascend the passes leading to the valley of Kashmir, dissensions arose among the commanders. Khwája Kalán, with his men, first separated himself from the expedition, and the Tupchi shortly afterwards followed him, leaving Mirza Haidar to prosecute the undertaking with no more than a handful of retainers in his own pay, and a few more who had joined him on the personal authority of the Emperor. With this following he determined to advance, and on the 21st November, 1540, crossed the Punch pass and descended into the valley. His calculations proved correct: he met with no resistance from the chiefs or people, but obtained possession of the country without striking a blow.
It is curious how little our author relates about his invasion and administration of Kashmir, or of the affairs of that country during the eleven years that his regency lasted. He was to all intents and purposes king of the State; while the value of the territory and the importance of its position, from a military point of view, at the juncture when he found himself its ruler, were well known to him, for he had impressed them urgently on Humayun only a short time before. Yet all he has to say of the period is summed up in two short chapters at the end of his history; though he devotes much more space to the events that were happening at the time across the passes. It was in Kashghar and Yarkand that his nearest relatives and his friends were living—most of them in suffering and danger—and that his political enemies were ruling, on lines that he regarded as dangerous, and subversive of the power and prosperity that he had himself helped to build up. It seems evident, indeed, that to the end of his life, his mind was chiefly occupied with the affairs of what may be called his own country, and communications between his friends and himself seem to have been kept up to the last, while he felt himself to be more or less an exile in Kashmir. So meagre is his story of this period of his life, and so abruptly broken off, that from the year 1540 on-wards, I have had to follow chiefly the accounts of Abul Fazl, the historian of Akbar, and of Firishta. Both of these authors wrote within an interval not very remote from that which they chronicle, so that the events they deal with must have been fresh in the memories of their informants.[1]
