Chapter XL: Section III: Hindūstān (14)

[550] `Alī-sher died Jan. 3rd. 1501. It is not clear to what
disturbances Bābur refers. He himself was at ease till after
April 20th. 1502 and his defeat at Sar-i-pul. Possibly the
reference is to the quarrels between Binā'ī and `Alī-sher.
_Cf._ Sām Mīrzā's Anthology, trs. S. de Saçy, _Notices et
Extraits_ iv, 287 _et seq._

[551] I surmise a double play-of-words in this verse. One is
on two rhyming words, _ghala_ and _mallah_ and is illustrated
by rendering them as _oat_ and _coat_. The other is on pointed
and unpointed letters, _i.e._ _ghala_ and _`ala_. We cannot
find however a Persian word _`ala_, meaning garment.

[552] Bābur's refrain is _ghūsīdūr_, his rhymes _būl_,
_(buyur)ūl_ and _tūl_. Binā'ī makes _būlghūsīdūr_ his refrain
but his rhymes are not true _viz._ _yīr_, _(sa)mar_ and _lār_.

[553] Shawwāl 906 AH. began April 20th. 1501.

[554] From the _Bū-stān_, Graf ed. p. 55, l. 246.

[555] Sīkīz Yīldūz. _See_ Chardin's _Voyages_, v, 136 and
Table; also Stanley Lane Poole's _Bābur_, p. 56.

[556] In 1791 AD. Muḥ. Effendi shot 482 yards from a Turkish
bow, before the R. Tox. S.; not a good shot, he declared.
Longer ones are on record. _See_ Payne-Gallwey's _Cross-bow_
and AQR. 1911, H. Beveridge's _Oriental Cross-bows_.

[557] In the margin of the Elph. Codex, here, stands a Persian
verse which appears more likely to be Humāyūn's than Bābur's.
It is as follows:

Were the Mughūl race angels, they would be bad;
Written in gold, the name Mughūl would be bad;
Pluck not an ear from the Mughūl's corn-land,
What is sown with Mughūl seed will be bad.

This verse is written into the text of the First W.-i-B. (I.O.
215 f. 72) and is introduced by a scribe's statement that it
is by _ān Ḥaẓrat_, much as notes known to be Humāyūn's are
elsewhere attested in the Elph. Codex. It is not in the Ḥai.
and Kehr's MSS. nor with, at least many, good copies of the
Second W.-i-B.

[558] This subterranean water-course, issuing in a flowing
well (Erskine) gave its name to a bastion (Ḥ.S. ii, 300).

[559] _nāwak_, a diminutive of _nāo_, a tube. It is described,
in a MS. of Bābur's time, by Muḥ. Budhā'ī, and, in a second of
later date, by Amīnu'd-dīn (AQR 1911, H.B.'s _Oriental
Cross-bows_).

[560] Kostenko, i, 344, would make the rounds 9 m.

[561] _bīr yūz ātliqnīng ātinī nāwak aūqī bila yakhshī atīm._
This has been read by Erskine as though _būz āt_, pale horse,
and not _yūz ātlīq_, Centurion, were written. De. C.
translates by Centurion and a marginal note of the Elph. Codex
explains _yūz ātlīq_ by _ṣad aspagī_.

[562] The Sh. N. gives the reverse side of the picture, the
plenty enjoyed by the besiegers.

[563] He may have been attached to the tomb of Khwāja
`Abdu'l-lāh _Anṣārī_ in Harāt.

[564] The brusque entry here and elsewhere of _e.g._ Taṃbal's
affairs, allows the inference that Bābur was quoting from
perhaps a news-writer's, contemporary records. For a different
view of Taṃbal, the Sh. N. cap. xxxiii should be read.

[565] Five-villages, on the main Khujand-Tāshkīnt road.

[566] _turk_, as on f. 28 of Khusrau Shāh.

[567] Elph. MS. f. 68b; W.-i-B. I.O. 215 f. 78 and 217 f. 61b;
Mems. p. 97.

The Kehr-Ilminsky text shews, in this year, a good example of
its Persification and of Dr. Ilminsky's dealings with his
difficult archetype by the help of the Memoirs.

[568] _tāshlāb._ The Sh. N. places these desertions as after
four months of siege.

[569] It strikes one as strange to find Long Ḥasan described,
as here, in terms of his younger brother. The singularity may
be due to the fact that Ḥusain was with Bābur and may have
invited Ḥasan. It may be noted here that Ḥusain seems likely
to be that father-in-law of `Umar Shaikh mentioned on f. 12b
and 13b.

[570] This laudatory comment I find nowhere but in the Ḥai.
Codex.

[571] There is some uncertainty about the names of those who
left.

[572] The Sh. N. is interesting here as giving an eye-witness'
account of the surrender of the town and of the part played in
the surrender by Khān-zāda's marriage (cap. xxxix).

[573] The first seems likely to be a relation of Niẕāmu'd-dīn
`Alī Khalīfa; the second was Mole-marked, a foster-sister. The
party numbered some 100 persons of whom Abū'l-makāram was one
(Ḥ.S. ii, 310).

[574] Bābur's brevity is misleading; his sister was not
captured but married with her own and her mother's consent
before attempt to leave the town was made. _Cf._ Gul-badan's
H.N. f. 3b and Sh. N. Vambéry, p. 145.

[575] The route taken avoided the main road for Dīzak; it can
be traced by the physical features, mentioned by Bābur, on the
Fr. map of 1904. The Sh. N. says the night was extraordinarily
dark. Departure in blinding darkness and by unusual ways shews
distrust of Shaibāq's safe-conduct suggesting that Yaḥyā's
fate was in the minds of the fugitives.

[576] The texts differ as to whether the last two lines are
prose or verse. All four are in Turkī, but I surmise a
clerical error in the refrain of the third, where _būlūb_ is
written for _būldī_.

[577] The second was in 908 AH. (f. 18_b_); the third in 914
AH. (f. 216 _b_); the fourth is not described in the B.N.; it
followed Bābur's defeat at Ghaj-diwān in 918 AH. (Erskine's
_History of India_, i, 325). He had a fifth, but of a
different kind, when he survived poison in 933 AH. (f. 305).

[578] Ḥai. MS. _qāqāsrāq_; Elph. MS. _yānasrāq_.

[579] _ātūn_, one who instructs in reading, writing and
embroidery. _Cf._ Gulbadan's H.N. f. 26. The distance walked
may have been 70 or 80 m.

[580] She was the wife of the then Governor of Aūrā-tīpā, Muḥ.
Ḥusain _Dūghlāt_.

[581] It may be noted here that in speaking of these elder
women Bābur uses the honorific plural, a form of rare
occurrence except for such women, for saintly persons and
exceptionally for The supreme Khān. For his father he has
never used it.

[582] This name has several variants. The village lies, in a
valley-bottom, on the Aq-sū and on a road. _See_ Kostenko, i,
119.

[583] She had been divorced from Shaibānī in order to allow
him to make legal marriage with her niece, Khān-zāda.

[584] Amongst the variants of this name, I select the modern
one. Macha is the upper valley of the Zar-afshān.

[585] Tīmūr took Dihlī in 801 AH. (Dec. 1398), _i.e._ 103
solar and 106 lunar years earlier. The ancient dame would then
have been under 5 years old. It is not surprising therefore
that in repeating her story Bābur should use a tense
betokening hear-say matter (_bārib īkān dūr_).

[586] The anecdote here following, has been analysed in JRAS
1908, p. 87, in order to show warrant for the opinion that
parts of the Kehr-Ilminsky text are retranslations from the
Persian W.-i-B.

[587] Amongst those thus leaving seem to have been Qaṃbar-`alī
(f. 99b).

[588] _Cf._ f. 107 foot.

[589] The Sh. N. speaks of the cold in that winter (Vambéry,
p. 160). It was unusual for the Sīr to freeze in this part of
its course (Sh. N. p. 172) where it is extremely rapid
(Kostenko, i, 213).

[590] _Cf._ f. 4b.

[591] Point to point, some 50 miles.

[592] _Āhangarān-julgasī_, a name narrowed on maps to Angren
(valley).

[593] _Faut shūd Nuyān._ The numerical value of these words is
907. Bābur when writing, looks back 26 years to the death of
this friend.

[594] Āb-burdan village is on the Zar-afshān; the pass is
11,200 ft. above the sea. Bābur's boundaries still hold good
and the spring still flows. _See_ Ujfalvy _l.c._ i. 14;
Kostenko, i, 119 and 193; Rickmers, JRGS 1907, p. 358.

[595] From the _Bū-stān_ (Graf's ed. Vienna 1858, p. 561). The
last couplet is also in the _Gulistān_ (Platts' ed. p. 72).
The Bombay lith. ed. of the _Bū-stān_ explains (p. 39) that
the "We" of the third couplet means Jamshīd and his
predecessors who have rested by his fountain.

[596] _nīma._ The First W.-i-B. (I.O. 215 f. 81 l. 8) writes
_tawārīkh_, annals.

[597] This may be the Khwāja Hijrī of the A.N. (index _s.n._);
and Badāyūnī's Ḥasan _Hijrī_, Bib. Ind. iii, 385; and Ethé's
Pers. Cat. No. 793; and Bod. Cat. No. 189.

[598] The Ḥai. MS. points in the last line as though punning
on Khān and Jān, but appears to be wrong.

[599] For an account of the waste of crops, the Sh. N. should
be seen (p. 162 and 180).

[600] I think this refers to last year's move (f. 94 foot).

[601] In other words, the T. preposition, meaning E. in, at,
_etc._ may be written with t or d, as _ta(tā)_ or as _da(dā)_.
Also the one meaning E. towards, may be _gha_, _qa_, or _ka_
(with long or short vowel).

[602] _dīm_, a word found difficult. It may be a derivative of
root _de_, tell, and a noun with the meaning of English tale
(number). The First W.-i-B. renders it by _san_, and by _san_,
Abū'l-ghāzī expresses what Bābur's _dīm_ expresses, the
numbering of troops. It occurs thrice in the B.N. (here, on f.
183b and on f. 264b). In the Elphinstone Codex it has been
written-over into _Ivīm_, once resembles _vīm_ more than _dīm_
and once is omitted. The L. and E. _Memoirs_ (p. 303) inserts
what seems a gloss, saying that a whip or bow is used in the
count, presumably held by the teller to 'keep his place' in
the march past. The _Siyāsat-nāma_ (Schefer, trs. p. 22) names
the whip as used in numbering an army.

[603] The acclamation of the standards is depicted in B.M.
W.-i-B. Or. 3714 f. 128b. One cloth is shewn tied to the off
fore-leg of a live cow, above the knee, Bābur's word being
_aūrtā aīlīk_ (middle-hand).

[604] The libation was of fermented mares'-milk.

[605] _lit._ their one way.

[606] _Cf._ T.R. p. 308.

[607] Elph. MS. f. 74; W.-i-B. I.O. 215 f. 83 and 217 f. 66;
Mems. p. 104.

[608] It may be noted that Bābur calls his mother's brothers,
not _ṯaghāī_ but _dādā_ father. I have not met with an
instance of his saying 'My ṯaghāī' as he says 'My dādā.' _Cf._
index _s.n._ _taghāī_.

[609] _kūrūnūsh qīlīb_, reflective from _kūrmak_, to see.

[610] A rider's metaphor.

[611] As touching the misnomer, 'Mughūl dynasty' for the
Tīmūrid rulers in Hindūstān, it may be noted that here, as
Bābur is speaking to a Chaghatāī Mughūl, his 'Turk' is left to
apply to himself.

[612] Gulistān, cap. viii, Maxim 12 (Platts' ed. p. 147).

[613] This backward count is to 890 AH. when Aḥmad fled from
cultivated lands (T.R. p. 113).

[614] It becomes clear that Aḥmad had already been asked to
come to Tāshkīnt.

[615] _Cf._ f. 96b for his first departure without help.

[616] Yagha (Yaghma) is not on the Fr. map of 1904, but
suitably located is Turbat (Tomb) to which roads converge.

[617] Elph. MS. _tūshkūcha_; Ḥai. MS. _yūkūnchā_. The
importance Aḥmad attached to ceremony can be inferred by the
details given (f. 103) of his meeting with Maḥmūd.

[618] _kūrūshkāīlār._ _Cf._ Redhouse who gives no support for
reading the verb _kūrmak_ as meaning _to embrace_.

[619] _būrk_, a tall felt cap (Redhouse). In the adjective
applied to the cap there are several variants. The Ḥai. MS.
writes _muftūl_, solid or twisted. The Elph. MS. has
_muftūn-lūq_ which has been understood by Mr. Erskine to mean,
gold-embroidered.

[620] The wording suggests that the decoration is in
chain-stitch, pricked up and down through the stuff.

[621] _tāsh chantāī._ These words have been taken to mean
whet-stone (_bilgū-tāsh_). I have found no authority for
reading _tāsh_ as whet-stone. Moreover to allow 'bag of the
stone' to be read would require _tāsh (nīng) chantāī-sī_ in
the text.

[622] lit. bag-like things. Some will have held spare
bow-strings and archers' rings, and other articles of
'repairing kit.' With the gifts, it seems probable that the
_gosha-gīr_ (f. 107) was given.

[623] Vullers, _clava sex foliis_.

[624] Zenker, _casse-tête_. _Kīstin_ would seem to be formed
from the root, _kīs_, cutting, but M. de C. describes it as a
ball attached by a strap or chain to a handle. _Sanglākh_, a
sort of mace (_gurz_).

[625] The _Rauzatu'ṣ-ṣafā_ states that The Khāns left Tāshkīnt
on Muḥarram 15th (July 21st. 1502), in order to restore Bābur
and expel Taṃbal (Erskine).

[626] lit. saw the count (_dīm_). _Cf._ f. 100 and note
concerning the count. Using a Persian substitute, the
Kehr-Ilminsky text writes _san_ (_kūrdīlār_).

[627] Elph. MS. _aṃbārchī_, steward, for Itārchī, a
tribal-name. The 'Mīrzā' and the rank of the army-begs are
against supposing a steward in command. Here and just above,
the texts write Mīrzā-i-Itārchī and Mīrzā-i-Dūghlāt, thus
suggesting that in names not ending with a vowel, the _iẓāfat_
is required for exact transliteration, _e.g._
Muḥammad-i-dūghlāt.

[628] _Alāī-līq aūrchīnī._ I understand the march to have been
along the northern slope of the Little Alāī, south of Aūsh.

[629] As of Ālmālīgh and Ālmātū (fol. 2b) Bābur reports a
tradition with caution. The name Aūz-kīnt may be read to mean
'Own village,' independent, as _Aūz-beg_, Own-beg.

[630] He would be one of the hereditary Khwājas of Andijān (f.
16).

[631] For several battle-cries _see_ Th. Radloff's _Réceuils_
etc. p. 322.

[632] _qāshqa ātlīq kīshī._ For a parallel phrase _see_ f.
92b.

[633] Bābur does not explain how the imbroglio was cleared up;
there must have been a dramatic moment when this happened.

[634] _Darwāna_ (a trap-door in a roof) has the variant
_dur-dāna_, a single pearl; _tūqqāī_ perhaps implies
relationship; _lūlū_ is a pearl, a wild cow etc.

[635] Ḥai. MS. _sāīrt kīshī_. Muḥ. `Alī is likely to be the
librarian (_cf._ index _s.n._).

[636] Elph. MS. _ramāqgha u tūr-gā_; Ḥai. MS. _tārtātgha u
tūr-gā_. Ilminsky gives no help, varying much here from the
true text. The archetype of both MSS. must have been difficult
to read.

[637] The Ḥai. MS.'s pointing allows the sobriquet to mean
'Butterfly.' His family lent itself to nick-names; in it three
brothers were known respectively as Fat or Lubberly, Fool and,
perhaps, Butterfly.

[638] _bīrk ārīgh_, doubly strong by its trench and its
current.

[639] I understand that time failed to set the standard in its
usual rest. E. and de C. have understood that the yak-tail
(_qūtās tūghī_ f. 100) was apart from the staff and that time
failed to adjust the two parts. The _tūgh_ however is the
whole standard; moreover if the tail were ever taken off at
night from the staff, it would hardly be so treated in a mere
bivouac.

[640] _aīshīklīk tūrlūq_, as on f. 113. I understand this to
mean that the two men were as far from their followers as
sentries at a Gate are posted outside the Gate.

[641] So too 'Piero of Cosimo' and 'Lorenzo of Piero of the
Medici.' _Cf._ the names of five men on f. 114.

[642] _shashtīm._ The _shasht_ (thumb) in archery is the
thumb-shield used on the left hand, as the _zih-gīr_
(string-grip), the archer's ring, is on the right-hand thumb.

It is useful to remember, when reading accounts of shooting
with the Turkī (Turkish) bow, that the arrows (_aūq_) had
notches so gripping the string that they kept in place until
released with the string.

[643] _sar-i-sabz gosha gīr._ The _gosha-gīr_ is an implement
for remedying the warp of a bow-tip and string-notch. For
further particulars _see_ Appendix C.

The term _sar-i-sabz_, lit. green-head, occurs in the sense of
'quite young' or 'new,' in the proverb, 'The red tongue loses
the green head,' quoted in the _T̤abaqāt-i-akbarī_ account of
Bābur's death. Applied here, it points to the _gosha-gīr_ as
part of the recent gift made by Aḥmad to Bābur.

[644] _Taṃbal aīkāndūr._ By this tense I understand that Bābur
was not at first sure of the identity of the pseudo-sentries,
partly because of their distance, partly, it may be presumed,
because of concealment of identity by armour.

[645] _dūwulgha būrkī_; _i.e._ the soft cap worn under the
iron helm.

[646] Nūyān's sword dealt the blow (f. 97b). Gul-badan also
tells the story (f. 77) à propos of a similar incident in
Humāyūn's career. Bābur repeats the story on f. 234.

[647] _yāldāghlāmāī dūr aīdīm._ The Second W.-i-B. has taken
this as from _yāltūrmāq_, to cause to glisten, and adds the
gloss that the sword was rusty (I.O. 217 f. 70b).

[648] The text here seems to say that the three men were on
foot, but this is negatived by the context.

[649] Amongst the various uses of the verb _tūshmak_, to
descend in any way, the B.N. does not allow of 'falling
(death) in battle.' When I made the index of the Ḥai. MS.
facsimile, this was not known to me; I therefore erroneously
entered the men enumerated here as killed at this time.

[650] Elph. MS. _yakhshī_. Zenker explains _bakhshī_
(pay-master) as meaning also a Court-physician.

[651] The Ḥai. Elph. and Kehr's MS. all have _pūchqāq tāqmāq_
or it may be _pūḥqāq tāqmāq_. T. _būkhāq_ means bandage,
_pūchāq_, rind of fruit, but the word clear in the three Turkī
MSS. means, skin of a fox's leg.

[652] The _daryā_ here mentioned seems to be the Kāsān-water;
the route taken from Bīshkhārān to Pāp is shewn on the Fr. map
to lead past modern Tūpa-qūrghān. Pāp is not marked, but was,
I think, at the cross-roads east of Touss (Karnān).

[653] Presumably Jahāngīr's.

[654] Here his father was killed (f. 6b). _Cf._ App. A.

[655] `Alī-dost's son (f. 79b).

[656] The sobriquet _Khīz_ may mean Leaper, or Impetuous.

[657] _kūīlāk_, syn. _kūnglāk_, a shirt not opening at the
breast. It will have been a short garment since the under-vest
was visible.

[658] _i.e._ when Bābur was writing in Hindūstān. Exactly at
what date he made this entry is not sure. `Alī was in Koel in
933 AH. (f. 315) and then taken prisoner, but Bābur does not
say he was killed,—as he well might say of a marked man, and,
as the captor was himself taken shortly after, `Alī may have
been released, and may have been in Koel again. So that the
statement 'now in Koel' may refer to a time later than his
capture. The interest of the point is in its relation to the
date of composition of the _Bābur-nāma_.

No record of `Alī's bravery in Aūsh has been preserved. The
reference here made to it may indicate something attempted in
908 AH. after Bābur's adventure in Karnān (f. 118b) or in 909
AH. from Sūkh. _Cf._ Translator's note f. 118b.

[659] _aūpchīnlīk._ Vambéry, _gepanzert_; Shaw, four
horse-shoes and their nails; Steingass, _aūpcha-khāna_, a
guard-house.

[660] Sang is a ferry-station (Kostenko, i, 213). Pāp may well
have been regretted (f. 109b and f. 112b)! The well-marked
features of the French map of 1904 allows Bābur's flight to be
followed.

[661] In the Turkī text this saying is in Persian; in the
Kehr-Ilminsky, in Turkī, as though it had gone over with its
Persian context of the W.-i-B. from which the K.-I. text here
is believed to be a translation.

[662] _Cf._ f. 96b and Fr. Map for route over the Kīndīr-tau.

[663] This account of Muḥ. Bāqir reads like one given later to
Bābur; he may have had some part in Bābur's rescue (_cf._
Translator's Note to f. 118b).

[664] Perhaps reeds for a raft. Sh. N. p. 258, _Sāl aūchūn bār
qāmīsh_, reeds are there also for rafts.

[665] Here the Turkī text breaks off, as it might through loss
of pages, causing a blank of narrative extending over some 16
months. _Cf._ App. D. for a passage, supposedly spurious,
found with the Ḥaidarābād Codex and the Kehr-Ilminsky text,
purporting to tell how Bābur was rescued from the risk in
which the lacuna here leaves him.

[666] As in the Farghāna Section, so here, reliance is on the
Elphinstone and Ḥaidarābād MSS. The Kehr-Ilminsky text still
appears to be a retranslation from the _Wāqi`āt-i-bāburī_ and
verbally departs much from the true text; moreover, in this
Section it has been helped out, where its archetype was
illegible or has lost fragmentary passages, from the Leyden
and Erskine _Memoirs_. It may be mentioned, as between the
First and the Second _Wāqi`āt-i-bāburī_, that several obscure
passages in this Section are more explicit in the First
(Pāyanda-ḥasan's) than in its successor (`Abdu-r-raḥīm's).

[667] Elph. MS. f. 90b; W.-i-B. I.O. 215, f. 96b and 217, f.
79; Mems. p. 127. "In 1504 AD. Ferdinand the Catholic drove
the French out of Naples" (Erskine). In England, Henry VII was
pushing forward a commercial treaty, the _Intercursus malus_,
with the Flemings and growing in wealth by the exactions of
Empson and Dudley.

[668] presumably the pastures of the "Ilak" Valley. The route
from Sūkh would be over the `Alā`u'd-dīn-pass, into the
Qīzīl-sū valley, down to Āb-i-garm and on to the Aīlāq-valley,
Khwāja `Imād, the Kāfirnigān, Qabādīān, and Aūbāj on the Amū.
See T.R. p. 175 and Farghāna Section, p. 184, as to the
character of the journey.

[669] Amongst the Turkī tribes, the time of first applying the
razor to the face is celebrated by a great entertainment.
Bābur's miserable circumstances would not admit of this
(Erskine).

The text is ambiguous here, reading either that Sūkh was left
or that Aīlāq-yīlāq was reached in Muḥarram. As the birthday
was on the 8th, the journey very arduous and, for a party
mostly on foot, slow, it seems safest to suppose that the
start was made from Sūkh at the end of 909 AH. and not in
Muḥarram, 910 AH.

[670] _chārūq_, rough boots of untanned leather, formed like a
moccasin with the lower leather drawn up round the foot; they
are worn by Khīrghīz mountaineers and caravan-men on journeys
(Shaw).

[671] _chāpān_, the ordinary garment of Central Asia (Shaw).

[672] The _ālāchūq_, a tent of flexible poles, covered with
felt, may be the _khargāh_ (kibitka); Persian _chādar_ seems
to represent Turkī _āq awī_, white house.

[673] _i.e._ with Khusrau's power shaken by Aūzbeg attack,
made in the winter of 909 AH. (_Shaibānī-nāma_ cap. lviii).

[674] Cf. ff. 81 and 81b. The armourer's station was low for
an envoy to Bābur, the superior in birth of the armourer's
master.

[675] var. Chaqānīān and Saghānīān. The name formerly
described the whole of the Ḥiṣār territory (Erskine).

[676] the preacher by whom the _Khuṯba_ is read (Erskine).

[677] _bī bāqī_ or _bī Bāqī_; perhaps a play of words with the
double meaning expressed in the above translation.

[678] Amongst these were widows and children of Bābur's uncle,
Maḥmūd (f. 27b).

[679] _aūghūl._ As being the son of Khusrau's sister, Aḥmad
was nephew to Bāqī; there may be in the text a scribe's slip
from one _aūghūl_ to another, and the real statement be that
Aḥmad was the son of Bāqī's son, Muḥ. Qāsim, which would
account for his name Aḥmad-i-qāsim.

[680] Cf. f. 67.

[681] Bābur's loss of rule in Farghāna and Samarkand.

[682] about 7 miles south of Aībak, on the road to Sar-i-tāgh
(mountain-head, Erskine).

[683] _viz._ the respective fathers, Maḥmūd and `Umar Shaikh.
The arrangement was made in 895 AH. (1490 AD.).

[684] _Gulistān_ cap. i, story 3. Part of this quotation is
used again on f. 183.

[685] Maḥmūd's sons under whom Bāqī had served.

[686] Uncles of all degrees are included as elder brethren,
cousins of all degrees, as younger ones.

[687] Presumably the ferries; perhaps the one on the main road
from the north-east which crosses the river at Fort Murgh-āb.

[688] Nine deaths, perhaps where the Amū is split into nine
channels at the place where Mīrzā Khān's son Sulaimān later
met his rebel grandson Shāh-rukh (_T̤abaqāt-i-akbarī_, Elliot
& Dowson, v, 392, and A.N. Bib. Ind., 3rd ed., 441).
Tūqūz-aūlūm is too far up the river to be Arnold's "shorn and
parcelled Oxus".

[689] Shaibāq himself had gone down from Samarkand in 908 AH.
and in 909 AH. and so permanently located his troops as to
have sent their families to them. In 909 AH. he drove Khusrau
into the mountains of Badakhshān, but did not occupy Qūndūz;
thither Khusrau returned and there stayed till now, when
Shaibāq again came south (fol. 123). See Sh. N. cap. lviii _et
seq._

[690] From Taṃbal, to put down whom he had quitted his army
near Balkh (Sh. N. cap. lix).

[691] This, one of the many Red-rivers, flows from near
Kāhmard and joins the Andar-āb water near Dūshī.

[692] A _garī_ is twenty-four minutes.

[693] Qorān, _Surat_ iii, verse 25; Sale's Qorān, ed. 1825, i,
56.

[694] Cf. f. 82.

[695] _viz._ Bāī-sanghar, bowstrung, and Mas`ūd, blinded.

[696] Muḥ. Ṣāliḥ is florid over the rubies of Badakhshān he
says Bābur took from Khusrau, but Ḥaidar says Bābur not only
had Khusrau's property, treasure, and horses returned to him,
but refused all gifts Khusrau offered. "This is one trait out
of a thousand in the Emperor's character." Ḥaidar mentions,
too, the then lack of necessaries under which Bābur suffered
(Sh. N., cap. lxiii, and T.R. p. 176).

[697] Cf. T. R. p. 134 n. and 374 n.

[698] _Jība_, so often used to describe the quilted corselet,
seems to have here a wider meaning, since the _jība-khāna_
contained both _joshan_ and _kūhah_, _i.e._ coats-of-mail and
horse-mail with accoutrements. It can have been only from this
source that Bābur's men obtained the horse-mail of f. 127.

[699] He succeeded his father, Aūlūgh Beg _Kābulī_, in 907
AH.; his youth led to the usurpation of his authority by
Sherīm Ẕikr, one of his begs; but the other begs put Sherīm to
death. During the subsequent confusions Muḥ. Muqīm _Arghūn_,
in 908 AH., got possession of Kābul and married a sister of
`Abdu'r-razzāq. Things were in this state when Bābur entered
the country in 910 AH. (Erskine).

[700] var. Ūpīān, a few miles north of Chārikār.

[701] Suhail (Canopus) is a most conspicuous star in
Afghānistān; it gives its name to the south, which is never
called Janūb but Suhail; the rising of Suhail marks one of
their seasons (Erskine). The honour attaching to this star is
due to its seeming to rise out of Arabia Felix.

[702] The lines are in the Preface to the _Anwār-i-suhailī_
(Lights of Canopus).

[703] "Die Kirghis-qazzāq drücken die Sonnen-höhe in Pikenaus"
(von Schwarz, p. 124).

[704] Presumably, dark with shade, as in _qarā-yīghāch_, the
hard-wood elm (f. 47b and note to _narwān_).

[705] _i.e._ Sayyid Muḥammad `Alī, the door-ward. These
_būlāks_ seem likely to have been groups of 1,000 fighting-men
(Turki _Mīng_).

[706] In-the-water and Water-head.

[707] Walī went from his defeat to Khwāst; wrote to Maḥmūd
_Aūzbeg_ in Qūndūz to ask protection; was fetched to Qūndūz by
Muḥ. Ṣāliḥ, the author of the _Shaibānī-nāma_, and forwarded
from Qūndūz to Samarkand (Sh. N. cap. lxiii). Cf. f. 29b.

[708] _i.e._ where justice was administered, at this time,
outside Bābur's tent.

[709] They would pass Ajar and make for the main road over the
Dandān-shikan Pass.

[710] The clansmen may have obeyed Aḥmad's orders in thus
holding up the families.

[711] The name may be from Turkī _tāq_, a horse-shoe, but I.O.
215 f. 102 writes Persian _naqīb_, the servant who announces
arriving guests.

[712] Here, as immediately below, when mentioning the
Chār-bāgh and the tomb of Qūtlūq-qadam, Bābur uses names
acquired by the places at a subsequent date. In 910 AH. the
Taster was alive; the Chār-bāgh was bought by Bābur in 911
AH., and Qūtlūq-qadam fought at Kānwāha in 933 AH.

[713] The Kūcha-bāgh is still a garden about 4 miles from
Kābul on the north-west and divided from it by a low
hill-pass. There is still a bridge on the way (Erskine).

[714] Presumably that on which the Bālā-ḥiṣār stood, the
glacis of a few lines further.

[715] Cf. f. 130.

[716] One of Muqīm's wives was a Tīmūrid, Bābur's
first-cousin, the daughter of Aūlūgh Beg _Kābulī_; another was
Bībī Zarīf Khātūn, the mother of that Māh-chūchūq, whose anger
at her marriage to Bābur's faithful Qāsim Kūkūldāsh has filled
some pages of history (Gulbadan's H.N. _s.n._ Māh-chūchūq and
Erskine's B. and H. i, 348).

[717] Some 9 m. north of Kābul on the road to Āq-sarāī.

[718] The Ḥai. MS. (only) writes First Rabī but the Second
better suits the near approach of winter.

[719] Elph. MS. fol. 97; W.-i-B. I.O. 215 f. 102b and 217 f.
85; Mems. p. 136. Useful books of the early 19th century, many
of them referring to the _Bābur-nāma_, are Conolly's
_Travels_, Wood's _Journey_, Elphinstone's _Caubul_, Burnes'
_Cabool_, Masson's _Narrative_, Lord's and Leech's articles in
JASB 1838 and in Burnes' _Reports_ (India Office Library),
Broadfoot's _Report_ in RGS Supp. Papers vol. I.

[720] f. 1b where Farghāna is said to be on the limit of
cultivation.

[721] f. 131b. To find these _tūmāns_ here classed with what
was not part of Kābul suggest a clerical omission of "beyond"
or "east of" (Lamghānāt). It may be more correct to write
Lāmghānāt, since the first syllable may be _lām_, fort. The
modern form Laghmān is not used in the _Bābur-nāma_, nor, it
may be added is Paghmān for Pamghān.

[722] It will be observed that Bābur limits the name
Afghānistān to the countries inhabited by Afghān tribesmen;
they are chiefly those south of the road from Kābul to
Pashāwar (Erskine). See Vigne, p. 102, for a boundary between
the Afghāns and Khurāsān.

[723] Al-birūnī's _Indika_ writes of both Turk and Hindū-shāhī
Kings of Kābul. See Raverty's _Notes_ p. 62 and Stein's _Shāhī
Kings of Kābul_. The mountain is 7592 ft. above the sea, some
1800 ft. therefore above the town.

[724] The Kābul-river enters the Chār-dih plain by the
Dih-i-yaq`ūb narrows, and leaves it by those of Dūrrīn. Cf.
_S.A. War_, Plan p. 288 and Plan of action at Chār-āsiyā
(Four-mills), the second shewing an off-take which may be Wais
Ātāka's canal. See Vigne, p. 163 and Raverty's _Notes_ pp. 69
and 689.

[725] This, the Bālā-jūī (upper-canal) was a four-mill stream
and in Masson's time, as now, supplied water to the gardens
round Bābur's tomb. Masson found in Kābul honoured descendants
of Wais Ātāka (ii, 240).

[726] But for a, perhaps negligible, shortening of its first
vowel, this form of the name would describe the normal end of
an irrigation canal, a little pool, but other forms with other
meanings are open to choice, _e.g._ small hamlet (Pers.
_kul_), or some compound containing Pers. _gul_, a rose, in
its plain or metaphorical senses. Jarrett's _Āyīn-i-akbarī_
writes Gul-kīnah, little rose (?). Masson (ii, 236) mentions a
similar pleasure-resort, Sanjī-tāq.

[727] The original ode, with which the parody agrees in rhyme
and refrain, is in the _Dīwān, s.l. Dāl_ (Brockhaus ed. 1854,
i, 62 and lith. ed. p. 96). See Wilberforce Clarke's literal
translation i, 286 (H. B.). A marginal note to the Ḥaidarābād
Codex gives what appears to be a variant of one of the rhymes
of the parody.

[728] _aūlūgh kūl_; some 3 m. round in Erskine's time; mapped
as a swamp in _S.A. War_ p. 288.

[729] A marginal note to the Ḥai. Codex explains this name to
be an abbreviation of Khwāja Shamsū'd-dīn _Jān-bāz_ (or
_Jahān-bāz_; Masson, ii, 279 and iii, 93).

[730] _i.e_. the place made holy by an impress of saintly
foot-steps.

[731] Two eagles or, Two poles, used for punishment. Vigne's
illustration (p. 161) clearly shows the spur and the detached
rock. Erskine (p. 137 n.) says that `Uqābain seems to be the
hill, known in his day as `Āshiqān-i-`ārifān, which connects
with Bābur Bādshāh. See Raverty's _Notes_ p. 68.

[732] During most of the year this wind rushes through the
Hindū-kush (Parwān)-pass; it checks the migration of the birds
(f. 142), and it may be the cause of the deposit of the
Running-sands (Burnes, p. 158). Cf. Wood, p. 124.

[733] He was Badī`u'z-zamān's _Ṣadr_ before serving Bābur; he
died in 918 AH. (1512 AD.), in the battle of Kūl-i-malik where
`Ubaidu'l-lāh _Aūzbeg_ defeated Bābur. He may be identical
with Mīr Ḥusain the Riddler of f. 181, but seems not to be
Mullā Muḥ. _Badakhshī_, also a Riddler, because the
_Ḥabību's-siyār_ (ii, 343 and 344) gives this man a separate
notice. Those interested in enigmas can find one made by
T̤ālib on the name Yaḥya (Ḥ.S. ii, 344). Sharafu'd-dīn `Alī
_Yazdī_, the author of the _Z̤afar-nāma_, wrote a book about a
novel kind of these puzzles (T.R. p. 84).

[734] The original couplet is as follows:—

_Bakhūr dar arg-i Kābul mai, bagardān kāsa pāy dar pāy,
Kah ham koh ast, u ham daryā, u ham shahr ast, u ham ṣaḥrā'._

What T̤ālib's words may be inferred to conceal is the opinion
that like Badī`u'z-zamān and like the meaning of his name,
Kābul is the Wonder-of-the-world. (Cf. M. Garçin de Tassy's
_Rhétorique_ [p. 165], for _ces combinaisons énigmatiques_.)

[735] All MSS. do not mention Kāshghar.

[736] Khīta (Cathay) is Northern China; Chīn (_infra_) is
China; Rūm is Turkey and particularly the provinces near
Trebizond (Erskine).

[737] 300% to 400% (Erskine).

[738] Persian _sinjid_, Brandis, _elæagnus hortensis_; Erskine
(Mems. p. 138) jujube, presumably the _zizyphus jujuba_ of
Speede, Supplement p. 86. Turkī _yāngāq_, walnut, has several
variants, of which the most marked is _yānghkāq_. For a good
account of Kābul fruits _see_ Masson, ii, 230.

[739] a kind of plum (?). It seems unlikely to be a cherry
since Bābur does not mention cherries as good in his old
dominions, and Firminger (p. 244) makes against it as
introduced from India. Steingass explains _alū-bālū_ by
"sour-cherry, an armarylla"; if sour, is it the Morello
cherry?

[740] The sugar-cane was seen in abundance in Lan-po (Lamghān)
by a Chinese pilgrim (Beale, p. 90); Bābur's introduction of
it may have been into his own garden only in Nīngnahār (f.
132b).

[741] _i.e._ the seeds of _pinus Gerardiana_.

[742] _rawāshlār._ The green leaf-stalks (_chūkrī_) of _ribes
rheum_ are taken into Kābul in mid-April from the
Pamghān-hills; a week later they are followed by the blanched
and tended _rawāsh_ (Masson, ii, 7). _See_ Gul-badan's H.N.
trs. p. 188, Vigne, p. 100 and 107, Masson, ii, 230, Conolly,
i, 213.

[743] a large green fruit, shaped something like a citron;
also a large sort of cucumber (Erskine).

[744] The _ṣāḥibī_, a grape praised by Bābur amongst
Samarkandī fruits, grows in Koh-dāman; another well-known
grape of Kābul is the long stoneless _ḥusainī_, brought by
Afghān traders into Hindūstān in round, flat boxes of poplar
wood (Vigne, p. 172).

[745] An allusion, presumably, to the renouncement of wine
made by Bābur and some of his followers in 933 AH. (1527 AD.
f. 312). He may have had `Umar _Khayyām's_ quatrain in mind,
"Wine's power is known to wine-bibbers alone" (Whinfield's 2nd
ed. 1901, No. 164).

[746] _pūstīn_, usually of sheep-skin. For the wide range of
temperature at Kābul in 24 hours, _see_ Ency. Brtt. art.
Afghānistān. The winters also vary much in severity (Burnes,
p. 273).

[747] Index _s.n._ As he fought at Kānwāha, he will have been
buried after March 1527 AD.; this entry therefore will have
been made later. The Curriers'-gate is the later Lahor-gate
(Masson, ii, 259).

[748] Index _s.n._

[749] For lists of the Hindū-kush passes _see_ Leech's Report
VII; Yule's _Introductory Essay_ to Wood's _Journey_ 2nd ed.;
PRGS 1879, Markham's art. p. 121.

The highest _cols_ on the passes here enumerated by Bābur
are,—Khawāk 11,640 ft.—T̤ūl, height not known,—Pārandī 15,984
ft.—Bāj-gāh (Toll-place) 12,000 ft.—Walīān (Saints) 15,100
ft.—Chahār-dār (Four-doors) 18,900 ft. and Shibr-tū 9800 ft.
In considering the labour of their ascent and descent, the
general high level, north and south of them, should be borne
in mind; _e.g._ Chārikār (Chār-yak-kār) stands 5200 ft. and
Kābul itself at 5780 ft. above the sea.

[750] _i.e._ the hollow, long, and small-bāzār roads
respectively. Panjhīr is explained by Hindūs to be Panj-sher,
the five lion-sons of Pandu (Masson, iii, 168).

[751] Shibr is a Hazāra district between the head of the
Ghūr-bund valley and Bāmīān. It does not seem to be correct to
omit the _tū_ from the name of the pass. Persian _tū_, turn,
twist (syn. _pīch_) occurs in other names of local passes; to
read it here as a _turn_ agrees with what is said of Shibr-tū
pass as not crossing but turning the Hindū-kush (Cunningham).
Lord uses the same wording about the Ḥājī-ghāt (var. -kāk
etc.) traverse of the same spur, which "turns the extremity of
the Hindū-kush". _See_ Cunningham's _Ancient Geography_, i,
25; Lord's _Ghūr-bund_ (JASB 1838 p. 528), Masson, iii, 169
and Leech's _Report_ VII.

[752] Perhaps through Jālmīsh into Saighān.

[753] _i.e._ they are closed.

[754] It was unknown in Mr. Erskine's day (Mems. p. 140).
Several of the routes in Raverty's _Notes_ (p. 92 etc.) allow
it to be located as on the Īrī-āb, near to or identical with
Bāghzān, 35 _kurohs_ (70 m.) s.s.e. of Kābul.

[755] Farmūl, about the situation of which Mr. Erskine was in
doubt, is now marked in maps, Ūrghūn being its principal
village.

[756] 15 miles below Atak (Erskine). Mr. Erskine notes that he
found no warrant, previous to Abū'l-faẓl's, for calling the
Indus the Nīl-āb, and that to find one would solve an ancient
geographical difficulty. This difficulty, my husband suggests,
was Alexander's supposition that the Indus was the Nile. In
books grouping round the _Bābur-nāma_, the name Nīl-āb is not
applied to the Indus, but to the ferry-station on that river,
said to owe its name to a spring of azure water on its eastern
side. (Cf. Afẓal Khān _Khattak_, R.'s _Notes_ p. 447.)

I find the name Nīl-āb applied to the Kābul-river:—1. to its
Arghandī affluent (Cunningham, p. 17, Map); 2. through its
boatman class, the Nīl-ābīs of Lālpūra, Jalālābād and Kūnār
(G. of I. 1907, art. Kābul); 3. inferentially to it as a
tributary of the Indus (D'Herbélot); 4. to it near its
confluence with the grey, silt-laden Indus, as blue by
contrast (Sayyid Ghulām-i-muḥammad, R.'s _Notes_ p. 34). (For
Nīl-āb (Naulibis?) in Ghūr-bund _see_ Cunningham, p. 32 and
Masson, iii, 169.)

[757] By one of two routes perhaps,—either by the
Khaibar-Nīngnahār-Jagdālīk road, or along the north bank of
the Kābul-river, through Goshṭa to the crossing where, in
1879, the 10th Hussars met with disaster. _See_ _S.A. War_,
Map 2 and p. 63; Leech's _Reports_ II and IV (Fords of the
Indus); and R.'s _Notes_ p. 44.

[758] Hāru, Leech's Harroon, apparently, 10 m. above Atak. The
text might be read to mean that both rivers were forded near
their confluence, but, finding no warrant for supposing the
Kābul-river fordable below Jalālābād, I have guided the
translation accordingly; this may be wrong and may conceal a
change in the river.

[759] Known also as Dhān-kot and as Mu`az̤z̤am-nagar
(_Ma`āṣiru'l-`umrā_ i, 249 and A.N. trs. H.B. index _s.n._
Dhān-kot). It was on the east bank of the Indus, probably near
modern Kālā-bāgh, and was washed away not before 956 AH. (1549
AD. H. Beveridge).

[760] Chaupāra seems, from f. 148b, to be the Chapari of
Survey Map 1889. Bābur's _Dasht_ is modern Dāman.

[761] _aīmāq_, used usually of Mughūls, I think. It may be
noted that Lieutenant Leech compiled a vocabulary of the
tongue of the Mughūl Aīmāq in Qandahār and Harāt (JASB 1838,
p. 785).

[762] The _Āyīn-i-akbarī_ account of Kābul both uses and
supplements the _Bābur-nāma_.

[763] _viz._ `Alī-shang, Alangār and Mandrāwar (the Lamghānāt
proper), Nīngnahār (with its _bulūk_, Kāma),
Kūnār-with-Nūr-gal, (and the two _bulūks_ of Nūr-valley and
Chaghān-sarāī).

[764] _See_ Appendix E, _On Nagarahāra_.

[765] The name Adīnapūr is held to be descended from ancient
Udyānapūra (Garden-town); its ancestral form however was
applied to Nagarahāra, apparently, in the Bārān-Sūrkh-rūd
_dū-āb_, and not to Bābur's _dārogha's_ seat. The Sūrkh-rūd's
deltaic mouth was a land of gardens; when Masson visited
Adīnapūr he went from Bālā-bāgh (High-garden); this appears to
stand where Bābur locates his Bāgh-i-wafā, but he was shown a
garden he took to be this one of Bābur's, a mile higher up the
Sūrkh-rūd. A later ruler made the Chār-bāgh of maps. It may be
mentioned that Bālā-bāgh has become in some maps Rozābād
(Garden-town). _See_ Masson, i, 182 and iii, 186; R.'s
_Notes_; and Wilson's _Ariana Antiqua_, Masson's art.

[766] One of these _tangī_ is now a literary asset in Mr.
Kipling's _My Lord the Elephant_. Bābur's 13 y. represent some
82 miles; on f. 137b the Kābul-Ghaznī road of 14 y. represents
some 85; in each case the _yīghāch_ works out at over six
miles (Index _s.n._ _yīghāch_ and Vigne, p. 454). Sayyid
Ghulām-i-muḥammad traces this route minutely (R.'s _Notes_ pp.
57, 59).

[767] Masson was shewn "Chaghatai castles", attributed to
Bābur (iii, 174).

[768] Dark-turn, perhaps, as in Shibr-tū, Jāl-tū, _etc._ (f.
130b and note to Shibr-tū).

[769] f. 145 where the change is described in identical words,
as seen south of the Jagdālīk-pass. The Bādām-chashma pass
appears to be a traverse of the eastern rampart of the
Tīzīn-valley.

[770] Appendix E, _On Nagarahāra_.

[771] No record exists of the actual laying-out of the garden;
the work may have been put in hand during the Mahmand
expedition of 914 AH. (f. 216); the name given to it suggests
a gathering there of loyalists when the stress was over of the
bad Mughūl rebellion of that year (f. 216b where the narrative
breaks off abruptly in 914 AH. and is followed by a gap down
to 925 AH.-1519 AD.).

[772] No annals of 930 AH. are known to exist; from Ṣafar 926
AH. to 932 AH. (Jan. 1520-Nov. 1525 AD.) there is a lacuna.
Accounts of the expedition are given by Khāfī Khān, i, 47 and
Firishta, lith. ed. p. 202.

[773] Presumably to his son, Humāyūn, then governor in
Badakhshān; Bukhārā also was under Bābur's rule.

[774] Here, _qārī_, yards. The dimensions 10 by 10, are those
enjoined for places of ablution.

[775] Presumably those of the _tūqūz-rūd_, _supra_. Cf.
Appendix E, _On Nagarahāra_.

[776] White-mountain; Pushtū, Spīn-ghur (or ghar).

[777] _i.e._ the Lamghānāt proper. The range is variously
named; in (Persian) Siyāh-koh (Black-mountain), which like
Turkī Qarā-tāgh may mean non-snowy; by Tājīks, Bāgh-i-ātāka
(Foster-father's garden); by Afghāns, Kanda-ghur, and by
Lamghānīs Koh-i-būlān,—Kanda and Būlān both being
ferry-stations below it (Masson, iii, 189; also the Times Nov.
20th 1912 for a cognate illustration of diverse naming).

[778] A comment made here by Mr. Erskine on changes of name is
still appropriate, but some seeming changes may well be due to
varied selection of land-marks. Of the three routes next
described in the text, one crosses as for Mandrāwar; the
second, as for `Alī-shang, a little below the outfall of the
Tīzīn-water; the third may take off from the route, between
Kābul and Tag-aū, marked in Col. Tanner's map (PRGS 1881 p.
180). Cf. R's Route 11; and for Aūlūgh-nūr, Appendix F, _On
the name Nūr_.

[779] The name of this pass has several variants. Its second
component, whatever its form, is usually taken to mean _pass_,
but to read it here as pass would be redundant, since Bābur
writes "pass (_kūtal_) of Bād-i-pīch". Pich occurs as a place
name both east (Pīch) and west (Pīchghān) of the _kūtal_, but
what would suit the bitter and even fatal winds of the pass
would be to read the name as Whirling-wind (_bād-i-pīch_).
Another explanation suggests itself from finding a
considerable number of pass-names such as Shibr-tū, Jāi-tū,
Qarā-tū, in which _tū_ is a synonym of _pīch_, turn, twist;
thus Bād-i-pīch may be the local form of Bād-tū, Windy-turn.

[780] _See_ Masson, iii, 197 and 289. Both in Pashāī and
Lamghānī, _lām_ means fort.

[781] _See_ Appendix F, _On the name Dara-i-nūr_.

[782] _ghair mukarrar._ Bābur may allude to the remarkable
change men have wrought in the valley-bottom (Appendix F, for
Col. Tanner's account of the valley).

[783] f. 154.

[784] _diospyrus lotus_, the European date-plum, supposed to
be one of the fruits eaten by the Lotophagi. It is purple, has
bloom and is of the size of a pigeon's egg or a cherry. See
Watts' _Economic Products of India_; Brandis' _Forest Trees_,
Illustrations; and Speede's _Indian Hand-book_.

[785] As in Lombardy, perhaps; in Luhūgur vines are clipped
into standards; in most other places in Afghānistān they are
planted in deep trenches and allowed to run over the
intervening ridges or over wooden framework. In the narrow
Khūlm-valley they are trained up poplars so as to secure them
the maximum of sun. _See_ Wood's _Report_ VI p. 27; Bellew's
_Afghānistān_ p. I75 and _Mems_. p. 142 note.

[786] Appendix G, _On the names of two Nūrī wines_.

[787] This practice Bābur viewed with disgust, the hog being
an impure animal according to Muḥammadan Law (Erskine).

[788] The _Khazīnatu'l-asfiyā_ (ii, 293) explains how it came
about that this saint, one honoured in Kashmīr, was buried in
Khutlān. He died in Hazāra (Paklī) and there the Paklī Sulṯān
wished to have him buried, but his disciples, for some
unspecified reason, wished to bury him in Khutlān. In order to
decide the matter they invited the Sultān to remove the bier
with the corpse upon it. It could not be stirred from its
place. When, however, a single one of the disciples tried to
move it, he alone was able to lift it, and to bear it away on
his head. Hence the burial in Khutlān. The death occurred in
786 AH. (1384 AD.). A point of interest in this legend is
that, like the one to follow, concerning dead women, it shews
belief in the living activities of the dead.

[789] The MSS. vary between 920 and 925 AH.—neither date seems
correct. As the annals of 925 AH. begin in Muḥarram, with
Bābur to the east of Bājaur, we surmise that the Chaghān-sarāī
affair may have occurred on his way thither, and at the end of
924 AH.

[790] _karanj_, _coriandrum sativum_.

[791] Some 20-24 m. north of Jalālābād. The name Multa-kundī
may refer to the Rām-kundī range, or mean Lower district, or
mean Below Kundī. _See_ Biddulph's _Khowārī Dialect s.n_
under; R.'s _Notes_ p. 108 and _Dict. s.n. kund_; Masson, i,
209.

[792] _i.e._ treat her corpse as that of an infidel (Erskine).

[793] It would suit the position of this village if its name
were found to link to the Turkī verb _chaqmāq_, to go out,
because it lies in the mouth of a defile (Dahānah-i-koh,
Mountain-mouth) through which the road for Kāfiristān goes out
past the village. A not-infrequent explanation of the name to
mean White-house, Āq-sarāī, may well be questioned. _Chaghān_,
white, is Mughūlī and it would be less probable for a Mughūlī
than for a Turkī name to establish itself. Another explanation
may lie in the tribe name Chugānī. The two forms _chaghān_ and
_chaghār_ may well be due to the common local interchange in
speech of _n_ with _r_. (For Dahānah-i-koh _see_ [some] maps
and Raverty's Bājaur routes.)

[794] Nīmchas, presumably,—half-bred in custom, perhaps in
blood—; and not improbably, converted Kāfirs. It is useful to
remember that Kāfiristān was once bounded, west and south, by
the Bārān-water.

[795] Kāfir wine is mostly poor, thin and, even so, usually
diluted with water. When kept two or three years, however, it
becomes clear and sometimes strong. Sir G. S. Robertson never
saw a Kāfir drunk (_Kāfirs of the Hindū-kush_, p. 591).

[796] Kāma might have classed better under Nīngnahār of which
it was a dependency.

[797] _i.e._ water-of-Nijr; so too, Badr-aū and Tag-aū.
Nijr-aū has seven-valleys (JASB 1838 p. 329 and Burnes'
_Report X_). Sayyid Ghulām-i-muḥammad mentions that Bābur
established a frontier-post between Nijr-aū and Kāfiristān
which in his own day was still maintained. He was an envoy of
Warren Hastings to Tīmūr Shāh _Sadozī_ (R.'s _Notes_ p. 36 and
p. 142).

[798] _Kāfirwash_; they were Kafirs converted to
Muḥammadanism.

[799] _Archa_, if not inclusive, meaning conifer, may
represent _juniperus excelsa_, this being the common local
conifer. The other trees of the list are _pinus Gerardiana_
(Brandis, p. 690), _quercus bīlūt_, the holm-oak, and
_pistacia mutica_ or _khanjak_, a tree yielding mastic.

[800] _rūba-i-parwān_, _pteromys inornatus_, the large, red
flying-squirrel (Blandford's _Fauna of British India_,
_Mammalia_, p. 363).

[801] The _giz_ is a short-flight arrow used for shooting
small birds _etc._ Descending flights of squirrels have been
ascertained as 60 yards, one, a record, of 80 (Blandford).

[802] Apparently _tetrogallus himalayensis_, the Himalayan
snow-cock (Blandford, iv, 143).Burnes (_Cabool_ p. 163)
describes the _kabg-i-darī_ as the _rara avis_ of the Kābul
Kohistān, somewhat less than a turkey, and of the _chikor_
(partridge) species. It was procured for him first in
Ghūr-bund, but, when snow has fallen, it could be had nearer
Kābul. Bābur's _bū-qalamūn_ may have come into his vocabulary,
either as a survival direct from Greek occupation of Kābul and
Panj-āb, or through Arabic writings. PRGS 1879 p. 251, Kaye's
art. and JASB 1838 p. 863, Hodgson's art.

[803] Bartavelle's _Greek-partridge_, _tetrao-_ or
_perdrix-rufus_ [f. 279 and Mems. p. 320 n.].

[804] A similar story is told of some fields near
Whitby:—"These wild geese, which in winter fly in great flocks
to the lakes and rivers unfrozen in the southern parts, to the
great amazement of every-one, fall suddenly down upon the
ground when they are in flight over certain neighbouring
fields thereabouts; a relation I should not have made, if I
had not received it from several credible men." See _Notes to
Marmion_ p. xlvi (Erskine); Scott's _Poems_, Black's ed. 1880,
vii, 104.

[805] Are we to infer from this that the musk-rat (_Crocidura
cœrulea_, Lydekker, p. 626) was not so common in Hindūstān in
the age of Bābur as it has now become? He was not a careless
observer (Erskine).

[806] Index _s.n._ _Bābur-nāma_, date of composition; also f.
131.

[807] In the absence of examples of _bund_ to mean _kūtal_,
and the presence "in those countries" of many in which _bund_
means _koh_, it looks as though a clerical error had here
written _kūtal_ for _koh_. But on the other hand, the wording
of the next passage shows just the confusion an author's
unrevised draft might shew if a place were, as this is, both a
_tūmān_ and a _kūtal_ (_i.e._ a steady rise to a traverse). My
impression is that the name Ghūr-bund applies to the embanking
spur at the head of the valley-_tūmān_, across which roads
lead to Ghūrī and Ghūr (PRGS 1879, Maps; Leech's Report VII;
and Wood's VI).

[808] So too when, because of them, Leech and Lord turned
back, _re infectâ_.

[809] It will be noticed that these villages are not classed
in any _tūmān_; they include places "rich without parallel" in
agricultural products, and level lands on which towns have
risen and fallen, one being Alexandria ad Caucasum. They
cannot have been part of the unremunerative Ghūr-bund _tūmān_;
from their place of mention in Bābur's list of _tūmāns_, they
may have been part of the Kābul _tūmān_ (f. 178), as was
Koh-dāman (Burnes' _Cabool_ p. 154; Haughton's _Charikar_ p.
73; and Cunningham's _Ancient History_, i, 18).

[810] Dūr-namāī, seen from afar (Masson, iii, 152) is not
marked on the Survey Maps; Masson, Vigne and Haughton locate
it. Bābur's "head" and "foot" here indicate status and not
location.

[811] Mems. p. 146 and _Méms_, i, 297, Arabs' encampment and
_Cellule des Arabes_. Perhaps the name may refer to uses of
the level land and good pasture by horse _qāfilas_, since
_Kurra_ is written with _tashdīd_ in the Ḥaidarābād Codex, as
in _kurra-tāz_, a horse-breaker. Or the _tāziyān_ may be the
fruit of a legend, commonly told, that the saint of the
neighbouring Running-sands was an Arabian.

[812] Presumably this is the grass of the millet, the growth
before the ear, on which grazing is allowed (Elphinstone, i,
400; Burnes, p. 237).

[813] Wood, p. 115; Masson, iii, 167; Burnes, p. 157 and JASB
1838 p. 324 with illustration; Vigne, pp. 219, 223; Lord, JASB
1838 p. 537; _Cathay and the way thither_, Hakluyt Society
vol. I. p. xx, para. 49; _History of Musical Sands_, C.
Carus-Wilson.

[814] _West_ might be more exact, since some of the group are
a little north, others a little south of the latitude of
Kābul.

[815] Affluents and not true sources in some cases (Col.
Holdich's _Gates of India_, _s.n._ Koh-i-bābā; and PRGS 1879,
maps pp. 80 and 160).

[816] The Pamghān range. These are the villages every
traveller celebrates. Masson's and Vigne's illustrations
depict them well.

[817] _Cercis siliquastrum_, the Judas-tree. Even in 1842 it
was sparingly found near Kābul, adorning a few tombs, one
Bābur's own. It had been brought from Sih-yārān where, as also
at Chārikār, (Chār-yak-kār) it was still abundant and still a
gorgeous sight. It is there a tree, as at Kew, and not a bush,
as in most English gardens (Masson, ii, 9; Elphinstone, i,
194; and for the tree near Harāt, f. 191 n. to Ṣafar).

[818] Khwāja Maudūd of Chisht, Khwāja Khāwand Sa`īd and the
Khwāja of the Running-sands (Elph. MS. f. 104b, marginal
note).

[819] The yellow-flowered plant is not _cercis siliquastrum_
but one called _mahaka_(?) in Persian, a shrubby plant with
pea-like blossoms, common in the plains of Persia, Bilūchistān
and Kābul (Masson, iii, 9 and Vigne, p. 216).

[820] The numerical value of these words gives 925 (Erskine).
F. 246b _et seq._ for the expedition.

[821] f. 178. I.O. MS. No. 724, _Haft-iqlīm_ f. 135 (Ethé, p.
402); Rieu, pp. 21_a_, 1058_b_.

[822] of Afghan habit. The same term is applied (f. 139b) to
the Zurmutīs; it may be explained in both places by Bābur's
statement that Zurmutīs grow corn, but do not cultivate
gardens or orchards.

[823] _aīkān dūr._ Sabuk-tīgīn, d. 387 AH.-997 AD., was the
father of Sl. Maḥmūd _Ghaznawī_, d. 421 AH.-1030 AD.

[824] d. 602 AH.-1206 AD.