Few who are at home in Baburiana but will take Timur as Babur's great exemplar not only as a soldier but as a chronicler. Timur cannot have seemed remote from that group of people so well-informed about him and his civilian doings; his Shahrukhi grandchildren in Samarkand had carried on his author-tradition; the 74 years of Yunas Khan's life had bridged the gap between Timur's death in 807-1405 and Babur's birth in 888-1483. To Babur Timur will have been exemplary through his grandson Aulugh Beg who has two productions to his credit, the _Char-ulus_ (Four Hordes) and the Kurkani Astronomical Tables. His sons, again, Babur (_qalandar_) and Ibrahim carried on the family torch of letters, the first in verse and the second by initiating and fostering Yazdi's labours on the _Zafar-nama_. Wide-radiating and potent influence for the Arts of Peace came forth from Herat during the reign of that Sultan Husain Mirza whose Court Babur describes in one of the best supplements to his autobiography. Husain was a Timurid of the elder branch of Bai-qara, an author himself but far more effective as a Macænas; one man of the shining galaxy of competence that gave him fame, set pertinent example for Babur the author, namely, the Andijani of noble Chaghatai family, 'Ali-sher _Nawa'i_ who, in classic Turki verse was the master Babur was to become in its prose. That the standard of effort was high in Herat is clear from Babur's dictum (p. 233) that whatever work a man took up, he aspired to bring it to perfection. Elphinstone varies the same theme to the tune of equality of excellence apart from social status, writing to Erskine (August, 1826), that "it gives a high notion of the time to find" (in Babur's account of Husain's Court) "artists, musicians and others, described along with the learned and great of the Age". My meagre summary of Babur's exemplars would be noticeably incomplete if it omitted mention of two of his life-long helpers in the gentler Arts, his love of Nature and his admiration for great architectural creations. The first makes joyous accompaniment throughout his book; the second is specially called forth by Timur's ennoblement of Samarkand. Timur had built magnificently and laid out stately gardens; Babur made many a fruitful pleasaunce and gladdened many an arid halting-place; he built a little, but had small chance to test his capacity for building greatly; never rich, he was poor in Kabul and several times destitute in his home-lands. But his sword won what gave wealth to his Indian Dynasty, and he passed on to it the builder's unused dower, so that Samarkand was surpassed in Hindustan and the spiritual conception Timur's creations embodied took perfect form at Sikandra where Akbar lies entombed. CHAPTER II. PROBLEMS OF THE MUTILATED BABUR-NAMA.