Page:The Tarikh-i-Rashidi - Mirza Muhammad Haidar, Dughlát - tr. Edward D. Ross (1895).djvu/41

 14 with, some easy victories were won, but treachery and discontent having appeared in the Moghul camp, Mirza Haidar had, after a few months' occupation, to fall back on Ladak, leaving Kashmir, to all intents and purposes, independent.

Sultan Said Khan, hoping to share in the glories of the "holy war," had followed his lieutenant into Ladak, but his constitution, undermined by excessive drinking, proved less vigorous than his religious zeal, and the attenuated air of the Ladak passes had nearly proved fatal to him on the journey across. He recovered, however, sufficiently to lead a portion of his force into Baltistan, while Mirza Haidar was engaged in Kashmir, but after passing a winter there, distracted by cold and hunger, he too had to retreat into Ladak, and very shortly afterwards, set out on his return to Kashghar with a portion of the army. This second journey across the heights, achieved for him what the first had so nearly accomplished. He died on the Suget Pass, from the malady known as "damgiri," or mountain sickness, and was at once succeeded by his eldest son, Abdur Rashid.

The death of the Khan in no way checked the course of the "holy war," for his second son, Iskandar Sultan, and many other Amirs, remained with Mirza Haidar, who now (July, 1533) started on an expedition to "earn merit" by destroying the great temple at Lassa—an exploit, he tells his readers, that had never been achieved by any King of Islám. He appears to have marched for about a month's journey towards the southeast, over some of the highest table-lands in Asia, to the region which gives rise to most of the great rivers of India, and to within a few days' journey of the Tibetan border of Nipal. His total force is nowhere stated in figures, and apparently it was divided into at least two, or perhaps three, columns. One of these was attacked by a force of "men armed with short swords," sent by "a Rai of Hind" to the assistance of the Tibetans—a statement that appears to point to a body of Nipali tribesmen, armed with their national weapon, the kukri. The inference is that the Moghuls were beaten in at least one fight with these people. Yet Mirza Haidar continued his march towards the capital, until he arrived at, and plundered, a place he calls Astábrak (or Astákbark), which was represented as being within eight days' journey of Lassa. No map or book of any date, now available, seems to contain this name or any variant of it, but if the estimate of eight marches from