ossing the Karamnasa, encamped beyond Chausa, at the
confluence of that river and the Ganges, and Baksar. Marching thence,
he drove his enemy before him until he reached Arrah. There he
assumed the sovereignty of Behar, and there he learned that Mahmud
Lodi, attended by but a few followers, had taken refuge with the King
of Bengal.

Nasrat Shah, King of Bengal, had married a niece of Mahmud Lodi. He
had entered into a kind of convention with Babar that neither prince
was to invade the territories of the other, but, despite this
convention, he had occupied the province of Saran or Chapra, and had
taken up with his army a position near the junction of the Gogra with
the Ganges, very strong for defensive purposes. Babar resolved to
compel the Bengal army to abandon that position. There was, he soon
found, but one way to accomplish that end, and that was by the use of
force. Ranging then his army in six divisions, he directed that four,
under his son Askari, then on the left bank of the Ganges, should
cross the Gogra, march upon the enemy, and attempt to draw them from
their camp, and follow them up the Gogra; whilst the two others,
under his own personal direction, should cross the Ganges, then {45}
the Gogra, and attack the enemy's camp, cutting him off from his
base. The combination, carried out on the 6th of May, entirely
succeeded. The Bengal army was completely defeated, and the victory
was, in every sense of the word, decisive. Peace was concluded with
Bengal on the conditions that the province, now known as Western
Behar, should be ceded to Babar; that neither prince should support
the enemies of the other, and that neither should molest the
dominions of the other.

Thus far I have been guided mainly by the memoirs of the illustrious
man whose achievements I have briefly recorded. There is but little
more to tell. Shortly after his return from his victorious campaign
in Behar his health began to decline. The fact could not be
concealed, and an account of it reached his eldest son, Humayun, then
Governor of Badakshan. That prince, making over his government to his
brother, Hindal, hastened to Agra. He arrived there early in 1530,
was most affectionately received, and by his sprightly wit and genial
manners, made many friends. He had been there but six months when he
was attacked by a serious illness. When the illness was at its
height, and the life of the young prince was despaired of, an
incident occurred which s