and little Khan.... Three days have we been marching, and thanks be
to God for bringing about this meeting.'" [1]

After this exciting adventure Babar rejoined his time-serving uncles,
but was forced into exile again in 1503, when, at the battle of Akshi,
the Khans were completely defeated by Shaibani. Then he resolved
to depart out of Farghana and to give up the attempt to recover
his kingdom. Characteristically, when foiled in one enterprise he
entered upon another yet more ambitious. Joined by his two brothers,
Jahangir and Nasir, and by a motley array of various wandering tribes,
he swooped down upon Kabul and captured it.

The description of the new kingdom thus easily won, which fills many
pages of the Memoirs, reveals another side of Babar's character--his
intense love of nature. He gives minute accounts of the climate,
physical characteristics, the fruits, flowers, birds, and beasts,
as well as of the human inhabitants. In the intervals between his
battles, or between his rollicking drinking parties, which for some
years of his life degenerated into drunken orgies, we often find Babar
lost in admiration of some beautiful landscape, or collecting flowers
and planting fruit trees. Wherever he came, Babar's first care was
to dig wells and plant fruit and flower gardens. India owes much to
the Great Moguls' love of horticulture.

When Babar had drilled his unruly Afghan subjects into something
like order, he made, in 1506, one more unsuccessful attempt to crush
Shaibani. However, in 1510, when that doughty warrior was defeated and
slain by Ismail, Shah of Persia, Samarkand fell once more into Babar's
hands, as a vassal of the Shah. Eight months afterwards he was driven
out again. From that time Babar gave up all hopes of re-establishing