Khujand is a poor place; one beg would have a hard time in it; there we and our families and following had been for half a year[439] and during the time the Musalmāns of the place had not been backward in bearing our charges and serving us to the best of their power. With what face could we go there again? and what, for his own part, could a man do there? 'To what home to go? For what gain to stay?'[440] In the end and with the same anxieties and uncertainty, we went to the summer-pastures in the south of Aūrā-tīpā. There we spent some days in amazement at our position, not knowing where to go or where to stay, our heads in a whirl. On one of those days, Khwāja Abū'l-makāram came to see me, he like me, a wanderer, driven from his home.[441] He questioned us about our goings and stayings, about what had or had not been done and about our whole position. He was touched with compassion for our state and recited the _fātiḥa_ for me before he left. I also was much touched; I pitied him. (_b. Bābur recovers Marghīnān._) Near the Afternoon Prayer of that same day, a horseman appeared at the foot of the valley. He was a man named Yūl-chūq, presumably `Ali-dost T̤aghāī's own servant, and had been sent with this written message, 'Although many great misdeeds have had their rise in me, yet, if you will do me the [Sidenote: Fol. 60b.] favour and kindness of coming to me, I hope to purge my offences and remove my reproach, by giving you Marghīnān and by my future submission and single-minded service.'