Chapter XLIV: Section III: Hindūstān (18)

[1616] Erskine suggested that this man was a rich banker, but
he might well be the Farmulī Shaikh-zāda of f. 256_b_, in view
of the exchange Afghān historians make of the Farmulī title
Shaikh for Mīān (_Tārīkh-i-sher-shāhī_, E. & D. iv, 347 and
_Tārīkh-i-daudī_ ib. 457).

[1617] This Biban, or Bīban, as Bābur always calls him without
title, is Malik Biban _Jilwānī_. He was associated with Shaikh
Bāyazīd _Farmulī_ or, as Afghān writers style him, Mīān
Bāyazīd _Farmulī_. (Another of his names was Mīān Biban, son
of Mīān Āṭā _Sāhū-khail_ (E. & D. iv, 347).)

[1618] This name occurs so frequently in and about the Panj-āb
as to suggest that it means a fort (Ar. _maluẕat_?). This one
in the Siwāliks was founded by Tātār Khān _Yūsuf-khail_
(_Lūdī_) in the time of Buhlūl _Lūdī_ (E. and D. iv, 415).

[1619] In the Beth Jalandhar _dū-āb_.

[1620] _i.e._ on the Siwāliks, here locally known as Katār
Dhār.

[1621] Presumably they were from the Hazāra district east of
the Indus. The _T̤abaqāt-i-akbarī_ mentions that this
detachment was acting under Khalīfa apart from Bābur and
marching through the skirt-hills (lith. ed. p. 182).

[1622] _dūn_, f. 260 and note.

[1623] These were both refugees from Harāt.

[1624] Sarkār of Baṭāla, in the Bārī _dū-āb_ (A.-i-A. Jarrett,
p. 110).

[1625] _kūrūshūr waqt_ (Index _s.n._ _kūrūsh_).

[1626] Bābur's phrasing suggests beggary.

[1627] This might refer to the time when Ibrāhīm's commander
Bihār (Bahādur) Khān _Nūḥānī_ took Lāhor (Translator's Note
_in loco_ p. 441).

[1628] They were his father's. Erskine estimated the 3 _krors_
at £75,000.

[1629] _shiqq_, what hangs on either side, perhaps a satirical
reference to the ass' burden.

[1630] As illustrating Bābur's claim to rule as a Tīmūrid in
Hindūstān, it may be noted that in 814 AH. (1411 AD.), Khiẓr
Khān who is allowed by the date to have been a Sayyid ruler in
Dihlī, sent an embassy to Shāhrukh Mīrzā the then Tīmūrid
ruler of Samarkand to acknowledge his suzerainty
(_Maṯla`u's-sa`dain_, Quatremère, N. et Ex. xiv, 196).

[1631] Firishta says that Bābur mounted for the purpose of
preserving the honour of the Afghāns and by so doing enabled
the families in the fort to get out of it safely (lith. ed. p.
204).

[1632] _chuhra_; they will have been of the Corps of braves
(_yīgīt_; Appendix H. section _c._).

[1633] _kīm kullī gharẓ aul aīdī_; Pers. trs. _ka
gharẓ-i-kullī-i-au būd_.

[1634] Persice, the eves of Sunday and Monday; Anglice,
Saturday and Sunday nights.

[1635] Ghāzī Khān was learned and a poet (Firishta ii, 42).

[1636] _mullayāna khūd_, perhaps books of learned topic but
not in choice copies.

[1637] f. 257. It stands in 31° 50' N. and 76° E. (G. of I.).

[1638] This is on the Salt-range, in 32° 42' N. and 72° 50' E.
(_Āyīn-i-akbarī_ trs. Jarrett, i, 325; Provincial Gazetteer,
Jīhlam District).

[1639] He died therefore in the town he himself built. Kitta
Beg probably escorted the Afghān families from Milwat also;
Dilāwar Khān's own seems to have been there already (f. 257).

The _Bābur-nāma_ makes no mention of Daulat Khān's relations
with Nānak, the founder of the Sikh religion, nor does it
mention Nānak himself. A tradition exists that Nānak, when on
his travels, made exposition of his doctrines to an attentive
Bābur and that he was partly instrumental in bringing Bābur
against the Afghāns. He was 12 years older than Bābur and
survived him nine. (Cf. _Dabistān_ lith. ed. p. 270; and, for
Jahāngīr Pādshāh's notice of Daulat Khān, _Tūzūk-i-jahāngīrī_,
Rogers and Beveridge, p. 87).

[1640] I translate _dūn_ by _dale_ because, as its equivalent,
Bābur uses _julga_ by which he describes a more pastoral
valley than one he calls a _dara_.

[1641] _bīr āqār-sū._ Bābur's earlier uses of this term
[_q.v._ index] connect it with the swift flow of water in
irrigation channels; this may be so here but also the term may
make distinction between the rapid mountain-stream and the
slow movement of rivers across plains.

[1642] There are two readings of this sentence; Erskine's
implies that the neck of land connecting the fort-rock with
its adjacent hill measures 7-8 _qārī_ (yards) from side to
side; de Courteille's that where the great gate was, the
perpendicular fall surrounding the fort shallowed to 7-8
yards. The Turkī might be read, I think, to mean whichever
alternative was the fact. Erskine's reading best bears out
Bābur's account of the strength of the fort, since it allows
of a cleft between the hill and the fort some 140-160 feet
deep, as against the 21-24 of de Courteille's. Erskine may
have been in possession of information [in 1826] by which he
guided his translation (p. 300), "At its chief gate, for the
space of 7 or 8 _gez_ (_qārī_), there is a place that admits
of a draw-bridge being thrown across; it may be 10 or 12 _gez_
wide." If de Courteille's reading be correct in taking 7-8
_qārī_ only to be the depth of the cleft, that cleft may be
artificial.

[1643] _yīghāch_, which also means wood.

[1644] f. 257.

[1645] Chief scribe (f. 13 n. to `Abdu'l-wahhāb). Shaw's
Vocabulary explains the word as meaning also a "high official
of Central Asian sovereigns, who is supreme over all _qāzīs_
and _mullās_."

[1646] Bābur's persistent interest in Balkh attracts
attention, especially at this time so shortly before he does
not include it as part of his own territories (f. 270).

Since I wrote of Balkh _s.a._ 923 AH. (1517 AD.), I have
obtained the following particulars about it in that year; they
are summarized from the _Ḥabību's-siyar_ (lith. ed. iii, 371).
In 923 AH. Khwānd-amīr was in retirement at Pasht in
Ghūrjistān where also was Muḥammad-i-zamān Mīrzā. The two went
in company to Balkh where the Mīrzā besieged Bābur's man
Ibrāhīm _chāpūk_ (Slash-face), and treacherously murdered one
Aūrdū-shāh, an envoy sent out to parley with him. Information
of what was happening was sent to Bābur in Kābul. Bābur
reached Balkh when it had been besieged a month. His presence
caused the Mīrzā to retire and led him to go into the
Darā-i-gaz (Tamarind-valley). Bābur, placing in Balkh
Faqīr-i-`alī, one of those just come up with him, followed the
Mīrzā but turned back at Āq-guṃbaz (White-dome) which lies
between Chāch-charān in the Herī-rūd valley and the Ghūrjistān
border, going no further because the Ghūrjistānīs favoured the
Mīrzā. Bābur went back to Kābul by the Fīrūz-koh, Yaka-aūlāng
(cf. f. 195) and Ghūr; the Mīrzā was followed up by others,
captured and conveyed to Kābul.

[1647] Both were amīrs of Hind. I understand the cognomen
Maẕhab to imply that its bearer occupied himself with the
Muḥammadan Faith in its exposition by divines of Islām
(_Hughes' Dictionary of Islām_).

[1648] These incidents are included in the summary of `Ālam
Khān's affairs in section _i_ (f. 255_b_). It will be observed
that Bābur's wording implies the "waiting" by one of lower
rank on a superior.

[1649] Elph. MS. Karnāl, obviously a clerical error.

[1650] Shaikh Sulaimān Effendi (Kunos) describes a _tunqiṯār_
as the guardian in war of a prince's tent; a night-guard; and
as one who repeats a prayer aloud while a prince is mounting.

[1651] _rūd_, which, inappropriate for the lower course of the
Ghaggar, may be due to Bābur's visit to its upper course
described immediately below. As has been noted, however, he
uses the word _rūd_ to describe the empty bed of a
mountain-stream as well as the swift water sometimes filling
that bed. The account, here-following, of his visit to the
upper course of the Ghaggar is somewhat difficult to
translate.

[1652] _Hindūstāndā daryālārdīn bāshqa, bīr āqār-sū kīm bār_
(_dūr_, is added by the Elph. MS.), _bū dūr_. Perhaps the
meaning is that the one (chief?) irrigation stream, apart from
great rivers, is the Ghaggar. The bed of the Ghaggar is
undefined and the water is consumed for irrigation (G. of I.
xx, 33; Index _s.n._ _āqār-sū_).

[1653] in Patiāla. Maps show what may be Bābur's strong
millstream joining the Ghaggar.

[1654] Presumably he was of Ibrāhīm's own family, the
Sāhū-khail. His defeat was opportune because he was on his way
to join the main army.

[1655] At this place the Elphinstone Codex has preserved,
interpolated in its text, a note of Humāyūn's on his first use
of the razor. Part of it is written as by Bābur:—"Today in
this same camp the razor or scissors was applied to Humāyūn's
face." Part is signed by Humāyūn:—"As the honoured dead,
earlier in these Acts (_wāqi`āt_) mentions the first
application of the razor to his own face (f. 120), so in
imitation of him I mention this. I was then at the age of 18;
now I am at the age of 48, I who am the sub-signed Muḥammad
Humāyūn." A scribe's note attests that this is "copied from
the hand-writing of that honoured one". As Humāyūn's 48th
(lunar) birthday occurred a month before he left Kābul, to
attempt the re-conquest of Hindūstān, in November 1554 AD. (in
the last month of 961 AH.), he was still 48 (lunar) years old
on the day he re-entered Dihlī on July 23rd 1555 AD. (Ramẓān
1st 962 AH.), so that this "shaving passage" will have been
entered within those dates. That he should study his Father's
book at that time is natural; his grandson Jahāngīr did the
same when going to Kābul; so doubtless would do its author's
more remote descendants, the sons of Shāh-jahān who
reconquered Transoxiana.

(Concerning the "shaving passage" _vide_ the notes on the
Elphinstone Codex in JRAS. 1900 p. 443, 451; 1902 p. 653; 1905
p. 754; and 1907 p. 131.)

[1656] This ancient town of the Sahāranpūr district is
associated with a saint revered by Hindūs and Muḥammadans. Cf.
W. Crooke's _Popular Religion of Northern India_ p. 133. Its
_chashma_ may be inferred (from Bābur's uses of the word
_q.v._ Index) as a water-head, a pool, a gathering place of
springs.

[1657] He was the eighth son of Bābur's maternal-uncle Sl.
Aḥmad Khān _Chaghatāī_ and had fled to Bābur, other brothers
following him, from the service of their eldest brother
Manṣūr, Khāqān of the Mughūls (_Tārīkh-i-rashīdī_ trs. p.
161).

[1658] _fars̱-waqtī_, when there is light enough to
distinguish one object from another.

[1659] _dīm kūrūldī_ (Index _s.n._ _dīm_). Here the L. & E.
_Memoirs_ inserts an explanatory passage in Persian about the
_dīm_. It will have been in one of the _Wāqi`āt-i-bāburī MSS._
Erskine used; it is in Muḥ. _Shīrāzī_'s lithograph copy of the
Udaipūr Codex (p. 173). It is not in the Turkī text or in all
the MSS. of the Persian translation. Manifestly, it was
entered at a time when Bābur's term _dīm kūrūldī_ requires
explanation in Hindustan. The writer of it himself does not
make details clear; he says only, "It is manifest that people
declare (the number) after counting the mounted army in the
way agreed upon amongst them, with a whip or a bow held in the
hand." This explanation suggests that in the march-past the
troops were measured off as so many bow- or whip-lengths
(Index _s.n._ _dīm_).

[1660] These _arāba_ may have been the baggage-carts of the
army and also carts procured on the spot. Erskine omits
(_Memoirs_ p. 304) the words which show how many carts were
collected and from whom. Doubtless it would be through not
having these circumstances in his mind that he took the
_arāba_ for gun-carriages. His incomplete translation, again,
led Stanley Lane-Poole to write an interesting note in his
_Bābur_ (p. 161) to support Erskine against de Courteille
(with whose rendering mine agrees) by quoting the circumstance
that Humāyūn had 700 guns at Qanauj in 1540 AD. It must be
said in opposition to his support of Erskine's "gun-carriages"
that there is no textual or circumstantial warrant for
supposing Bābur to have had guns, even if made in parts, in
such number as to demand 700 gun-carriages for their
transport. What guns Bābur had at Pānī-pat will have been
brought from his Kābul base; if he had acquired any, say from
Lāhor, he would hardly omit to mention such an important
reinforcement of his armament; if he had brought many guns on
carts from Kābul, he must have met with transit-difficulties
harassing enough to chronicle, while he was making that long
journey from Kābul to Pānī-pat, over passes, through
skirt-hills and many fords. The elephants he had in Bīgrām may
have been his transport for what guns he had; he does not
mention his number at Pānī-pat; he makes his victory a
bow-man's success; he can be read as indicating that he had
two guns only.

[1661] These Ottoman (text, _Rūmī_, Roman) defences Ustād
`Alī-qulī may have seen at the battle of Chāldirān fought some
40 leagues from Tābrīz between Sl. Salīm _Rūmī_ and Shāh
Ismā`īl _Ṣafawī_ on Rajab 1st 920 AH. (Aug. 22nd 1514 AD.). Of
this battle Khwānd-amīr gives a long account, dwelling on the
effective use made in it of chained carts and palisades
(_Ḥabību's-siyar_ iii, part 4, p. 78; _Akbar-nāma_ trs. i,
241).

[1662] Is this the village of the Pānī Afghāns?

[1663] Index _s.n._ arrow.

[1664] _Pareshān jam`ī u jam`ī pareshān;
Giriftār qaumī u qaumī `ajā'ib._

These two lines do not translate easily without the context of
their original place of occurrence. I have not found their
source.

[1665] _i.e._ of his father and grandfather, Sikandar and
Buhlūl.

[1666] As to the form of this word the authoritative MSS. of
the Turkī text agree and with them also numerous good ones of
the Persian translation. I have made careful examination of
the word because it is replaced or explained here and there in
MSS. by _s:hb:ndī_, the origin of which is said to be obscure.
The sense of _b:d-hindī_ and of _s:hb:ndī_ is the same, _i.e._
irregular levy. The word as Bābur wrote it must have been
understood by earlier Indian scribes of both the Turkī and
Persian texts of the _Bābur-nāma_. Some light on its
correctness may be thought given by Hobson Jobson (Crooke's
ed. p. 136) _s.n._ Byde or Bede Horse, where the word Byde is
said to be an equivalent of _pindārī_, _lūtī_, and _qāzzāq_,
raider, plunderer, so that Bābur's word _b:d-hindī_ may mean
_qāzzāq_ of Hind. Wherever I have referred to the word in many
MSS. it is pointed to read _b:d_, and not _p:d_, thus
affording no warrant for understanding _pad_, foot, foot-man,
infantry, and also negativing the spelling _bīd_, _i.e._ with
a long vowel as in _Byde_.

It may be noted here that Muḥ. _Shīrāzī_ (p. 174) substituted
_s:hb:ndī_ for Bābur's word and that this led our friend the
late William Irvine to attribute mistake to de Courteille who
follows the Turkī text (_Army of the Mughūls_ p. 66 and
_Mémoires_ ii, 163).

[1667] _bī tajarba yīgīt aīdī_ of which the sense may be that
Bābur ranked Ibrāhīm, as a soldier, with a brave who has not
yet proved himself deserving of the rank of beg. It cannot
mean that he was a youth (_yīgīt_) without experience of
battle.

[1668] Well-known are the three decisive historical battles
fought near the town of Pānī-pat, _viz._ those of Bābur and
Ibrāhīm in 1526, of Akbar and Hīmū in 1556, and of Aḥmad
_Abdālī_ with the Mahratta Confederacy in 1761. The following
lesser particulars about the battle-field are not so
frequently mentioned:—(_i_) that the scene of Bābur's victory
was long held to be haunted, Badāyūnī himself, passing it at
dawn some 62 years later, heard with dismay the din of
conflict and the shouts of the combatants; (_ii_) that Bābur
built a (perhaps commemorative) mosque one mile to the n.e. of
the town; (_iii_) that one of the unaccomplished desires of
Sher Shāh _Sūr_, the conqueror of Bābur's son Humāyūn, was to
raise two monuments on the battle-field of Pānī-pat, one to
Ibrāhīm, the other to those Chaghatāī sulṯāns whose martyrdom
he himself had brought about; (_iv_) that in 1910 AD. the
British Government placed a monument to mark the scene of Shāh
_Abdālī's_ victory of 1761 AD. This monument would appear,
from Sayyid Ghulām-i-`alī's _Nigār-nāma-i-hind_, to stand
close to the scene of Bābur's victory also, since the
Mahrattas were entrenched as he was outside the town of
Pānī-pat. (Cf. E. & D. viii, 401.)

[1669] This important date is omitted from the L. & E.
_Memoirs_.

[1670] This wording will cover armour of man and horse.

[1671] _ātlāndūk_, Pers. trs. _sūwār shudīm_. Some later
oriental writers locate Bābur's battle at two or more miles
from the town of Pānī-pat, and Bābur's word _ātlāndūk_ might
imply that his cavalry rode forth and arrayed outside his
defences, but his narrative allows of his delivering attack,
through the wide sally-ports, after arraying behind the carts
and mantelets which checked his adversary's swift advance. The
Mahrattas, who may have occupied the same ground as Bābur,
fortified themselves more strongly than he did, as having
powerful artillery against them. Aḥmad Shāh _Abdālī's_ defence
against them was an ordinary ditch and _abbattis_, [Bābur's
ditch and branch,] mostly of _dhāk_ trees (_Butea frondosa_),
a local product Bābur also is likely to have used.

[1672] The preceding three words seem to distinguish this Shāh
Ḥusain from several others of his name and may imply that he
was the son of _Yāragī Mughūl Ghānchī_ (Index and I.O. 217 f.
184b l. 7).

[1673] For Bābur's terms _vide_ f. 209_b_

[1674] This is Mīrzā Khān's son, _i.e._ Wais _Mīrān-shāhī's_.

[1675] A dispute for this right-hand post of honour is
recorded on f. 100_b_, as also in accounts of Culloden.

[1676] _tartīb u yāsāl_, which may include, as Erskine took it
to do, the carts and mantelets; of these however, Ibrāhīm can
hardly have failed to hear before he rode out of camp.

[1677] f. 217_b_ and note; Irvine's _Army of the Indian
Mughuls_ p. 133. Here Erskine notes (_Mems._ p. 306) "The size
of these artillery at this time is very uncertain. The word
_firingī_ is now (1826 AD.) used in the Deccan for a swivel.
At the present day, _zarb-zan_ in common usage is a small
species of swivel. Both words in Bābur's time appear to have
been used for field-cannon." (For an account of guns,
intermediate in date between Bābur and Erskine, _see_ the
_Āyīn-i-akbarī_. Cf. f. 264 n. on the carts (_arāba_).)

[1678] Although the authority of the
_Tārīkh-i-salāṯīn-i-afaghāna_ is not weighty its reproduction
of Afghān opinion is worth consideration. It says that
astrologers foretold Ibrāhīm's defeat; that his men, though
greatly outnumbering Bābur's, were out-of-heart through his
ill-treatment of them, and his amīrs in displeasure against
him, but that never-the-less, the conflict at Pānī-pat was
more desperate than had ever been seen. It states that Ibrāhīm
fell where his tomb now is (_i.e._ in _circa_ 1002 AH.-1594
AD.); that Bābur went to the spot and, prompted by his tender
heart, lifted up the head of his dead adversary, and said,
"Honour to your courage!", ordered brocade and sweetmeats made
ready, enjoined Dilāwar Khān and Khalīfa to bathe the corpse
and to bury it where it lay (E. & D. v, 2). Naturally, part of
the reverence shewn to the dead would be the burial together
of head and trunk.

[1679] f. 209_b_ and App. H. section _c._ Bābā _chuhra_ would
be one of the corps of braves.

[1680] He was a brother of Muḥibb-i-`alī's mother.

[1681] To give Humāyūn the title Mīrzā may be a scribe's
lapse, but might also be a _nuance_ of Bābur's, made to shew,
with other _minutiae_, that Humāyūn was in chief command. The
other minute matters are that instead of Humāyūn's name being
the first of a simple series of commanders' names with the
enclitic accusative appended to the last one (here Walī), as
is usual, Humāyūn's name has its own enclitic _nī_; and,
again, the phrase is "_Humāyūn with_" such and such begs, a
turn of expression differentiating him from the rest. The same
unusual variations occur again, just below, perhaps with the
same intention of shewing chief command, there of Mahdī
Khwāja.

[1682] A small matter of wording attracts attention in the
preceding two sentences. Bābur, who does not always avoid
verbal repetition, here constructs two sentences which, except
for the place-names Dihlī and Āgra, convey information of
precisely the same action in entirely different words.

[1683] d. 1325 AD. The places Bābur visited near Dihlī are
described in the _Reports of the Indian Archaeological
Survey_, in Sayyid Aḥmad's _As̤ār Sanādīd_ pp. 74-85, in
Keene's _Hand-book to Dihlī_ and Murray's _Hand-book to Bengal
etc._ The last two quote much from the writings of Cunningham
and Fergusson.

[1684] and on the same side of the river.

[1685] d. 1235 AD. He was a native of Aūsh [Ush] in Farghāna.

[1686] d. 1286 AD. He was a Slave ruler of Dihlī.

[1687] `Alāu'u'd-dīn Muḥ. Shāh _Khiljī Turk_ d. 1316 AD. It is
curious that Bābur should specify visiting his Minār
(_minārī_, Pers. trs. I.O. 217 f. 185_b_, _minār-i-au_) and
not mention the Quṯb Minār. Possibly he confused the two. The
`Alāī Minār remains unfinished; the Quṯb is judged by
Cunningham to have been founded by Quṯbu'd-dīn Aībak _Turk_,
_circa_ 1200 AD. and to have been completed by Sl.
Shamsu'd-dīn Altamsh (Aīltimīsh?) _Turk_, _circa_ 1220 AD. Of
the two tanks Bābur visited, the Royal-tank (_ḥauẓ-i-khāẓ_)
was made by `Alāu'u'd-dīn in 1293 AD.

[1688] The familiar Turkī word Tūghlūq would reinforce much
else met with in Dihlī to strengthen Bābur's opinion that, as
a Turk, he had a right to rule there. Many, if not all, of the
Slave dynasty were Turks; these were followed by the Khiljī
Turks, these again by the Tūghlūqs. Moreover the Panj-āb he
had himself taken, and lands on both sides of the Indus
further south had been ruled by Ghaznawid Turks. His latest
conquests were "where the Turk had ruled" (f. 226_b_) long,
wide, and with interludes only of non-Turkī sway.

[1689] Perhaps this charity was the _Khams_ (Fifth) due from a
victor.

[1690] Bikramājīt was a Tūnūr Rājpūt. Bābur's unhesitating
statement of the Hindu's destination at death may be called a
fruit of conviction, rather than of what modern opinion calls
intolerance.

[1691] 120 years (Cunningham's _Report of the Archaeological
Survey_ ii, 330 _et seq._).

[1692] The _Tārīkh-i-sher-shāhī_ tells a good deal about the
man who bore this title, and also about others who found
themselves now in difficulty between Ibrāhīm's tyranny and
Bābur's advance (E. & D. iv, 301).

[1693] Gūālīār was taken from Bikramājīt in 1518 AD.

[1694] _i.e._ from the Deccan of which `Alāu'u'd-dīn is said
to have been the first Muḥammadan invader. An account of this
diamond, identified as the Koh-i-nūr, is given in _Hobson
Jobson_ but its full history is not told by Yule or by
Streeter's _Great Diamonds of the World_, neither mentioning
the presentation of the diamond by Humāyūn to Taḥmāsp of which
Abū'l-faẓl writes, dwelling on its overplus of payment for all
that Humāyūn in exile received from his Persian host
(_Akbar-nāma_ trs. i, 349 and note; _Asiatic Quarterly
Review_, April 1899 H. Beveridge's art. _Bābur's diamond_;
_was it the Koh-i-nūr?_).

[1695] 320 _ratīs_ (Erskine). The _ratī_ is 2.171 Troy grains,
or in picturesque primitive equivalents, is 8 grains of rice,
or 64 mustard seeds, or 512 poppy-seeds,—uncertain weights
which Akbar fixed in cat's-eye stones.

[1696] Bābur's plurals allow the supposition that the three
men's lives were spared. Malik Dād served him thenceforth.

[1697] Erskine estimated these as _dams_ and worth about
£1750, but this may be an underestimate (_H. of I._ i, App.
E.).

[1698] "These begs of his" (or hers) may be the three written
of above.

[1699] These will include cousins and his half-brothers
Jahāngīr and Nāṣir as opposing before he took action in 925
AH. (1519 AD.). The time between 910 AH. and 925 AH. at which
he would most desire Hindūstān is after 920 AH. in which year
he returned defeated from Transoxiana.

[1700] _kīchīk karīm_, which here seems to make contrast
between the ruling birth of members of his own family and the
lower birth of even great begs still with him. Where the
phrase occurs on f. 295, Erskine renders it by "down to the
dregs", and de Courteille (ii, 235) by "_de toutes les
bouches_" but neither translation appears to me to suit
Bābur's uses of the term, inasmuch as both seem to go too low
(cf. f. 270_b_).

[1701] _aīūrūshūb_, Pers. trs. _chaspīda_, stuck to.

[1702] The first expedition is fixed by the preceding passage
as in 925 AH. which was indeed the first time a passage of the
Indus is recorded. Three others are found recorded, those of
926, 930 and 932 AH. Perhaps the fifth was not led by Bābur in
person, and may be that of his troops accompanying `Ālam Khān
in 931 AH. But he may count into the set of five, the one made
in 910 AH. which he himself meant to cross the Indus. Various
opinions are found expressed by European writers as to the
dates of the five.

[1703] Muḥammad died 632 AD. (11 AH.).

[1704] Tramontana, n. of Hindū-kush. For particulars about the
dynasties mentioned by Bābur see Stanley Lane-Poole's
_Muḥammadan Dynasties_.

[1705] Maḥmūd of Ghaznī, a Turk by race, d. 1030 AD. (421
AH.).

[1706] known as Muḥ. _Ghūrī_, d. 1206 AD. (602 AH.).

[1707] _sūrūbtūrlār_, lit. drove them like sheep (cf. f.
154b).

[1708] _khūd_, itself, not Bābur's only Hibernianism.

[1709] "This is an excellent history of the Musalmān world
down to the time of Sl. Nāṣir of Dihlī A.D. 1252. It was
written by Abū `Umar Minḥāj al Jūrjānī. See Stewart's
catalogue of Tipoo's Library, p. 7" (Erskine). It has been
translated by Raverty.

[1710] _bargustwān-wār_; Erskine, cataphract horse.

[1711] The numerous instances of the word _pādshāh_ in this
part of the _Bābur-nāma_ imply no such distinction as attaches
to the title Emperor by which it is frequently translated
(Index _s.n._ _pādshāh_).

[1712] d. 1500 AD. (905 AH.).

[1713] d. 1388 AD. (790 AH.).

[1714] The ancestor mentioned appears to be Naṣrat Shāh, a
grandson of Fīrūz Shāh _Tūghlūq_ (S. L. Poole p. 300 and
Beale, 298).

[1715] His family belonged to the Rājpūt sept of Tānk, and had
become Muḥammadan in the person of Sadharān the first ruler of
Gujrāt (Crooke's _Tribes and Castes; Mirāt-i-sikandarī_,
Bayley p. 67 and n.).

[1716] S. L.-Poole p. 316-7.

[1717] Mandāū (Mandū) was the capital of Malwā.

[1718] Stanley Lane-Poole shews (p. 311) a dynasty of three
Ghūrīs interposed between the death of Fīrūz Shāh in 790 AH.
and the accession in 839 AH. of the first Khiljī ruler of
Gujrāt Maḥmūd Shāh.

[1719] He reigned from 1518 to 1532 AD. (925 to 939 AH.
S.L.-P. p. 308) and had to wife a daughter of Ibrāhīm _Lūdī_
(_Riyaẓu's-salāṯīn_). His dynasty was known as the
Ḥusain-shāhī, after his father.

[1720] "Strange as this custom may seem, a similar one
prevailed down to a very late period in Malabar. There was a
jubilee every 12 years in the Samorin's country, and any-one
who succeeded in forcing his way through the Samorin's guards
and slew him, reigned in his stead. 'A jubilee is proclaimed
throughout his dominions at the end of 12 years, and a tent is
pitched for him in a spacious plain, and a great feast is
celebrated for 10 or 12 days with mirth and jollity, guns
firing night and day, so, at the end of the feast, any four of
the guests that have a mind to gain a throne by a desperate
action in fighting their way through 30 or 40,000 of his
guards, and kill the Samorin in his tent, he that kills him,
succeeds him in his empire.' See Hamilton's _New Account of
the East Indies_ vol. i. p. 309. The attempt was made in 1695,
and again a very few years ago, but without success" (Erskine
p. 311).

The custom Bābur writes of—it is one dealt with at length in
Frazer's _Golden Bough_—would appear from Blochmann's
_Geography and History of Bengal_ (JASB 1873 p. 286) to have
been practised by the Habshī rulers of Bengal of whom he
quotes Faria y Souza as saying, "They observe no rule of
inheritance from father to son, but even slaves sometimes
obtain it by killing their master, and whoever holds it three
days, they look upon as established by divine providence. Thus
it fell out that in 40 years space they had 13 kings
successively."

[1721] No doubt this represents Vijāyanagar in the Deccan.

[1722] This date places the composition of the _Description of
Hindustan_ in agreement with Shaikh Zain's statement that it
was in writing in 935 AH.

[1723] Are they the Khas of Nepal and Sikkim? (G. of I.).

[1724] Here Erskine notes that the Persian (trs.) adds, "_mīr_
signifying a hill, and _kas_ being the name of the natives of
the hill-country." This may not support the name _kas_ as
correct but may be merely an explanation of Bābur's meaning.
It is not in I.O. 217 f. 189 or in Muḥ. _Shīrāzī_'s
lithographed _Wāqi`āt-i-bāburī_ p. 190.

[1725] Either yak or the tassels of the yak. See Appendix M.

[1726] My husband tells me that Bābur's authority for this
interpretation of Sawālak may be the _Z̤afar-nāma_ (Bib. Ind.
ed. ii, 149).

[1727] _i.e._ the countries of Hindūstān.

[1728] so pointed, carefully, in the Ḥai. MS. Mr. Erskine
notes of these rivers that they are the Indus, Hydaspes,
Ascesines, Hydraotes, Hesudrus and Hyphasis.

[1729] _Āyīn-i-akbarī_, Jarrett 279.

[1730] _pārcha pārcha_, _kīchīkrāk kīchīkrāk_, _āndā mūndā_,
_tāshlīq tāqghīna_. The Gazetteer of India (1907 i, 1) puts
into scientific words, what Bābur here describes, the ruin of
a great former range.

[1731] Here _āqār-sūlār_ might safely be replaced by
"irrigation channels" (Index _s.n._).

[1732] The verb here is _tāshmāq_; it also expresses to carry
like ants (f. 220), presumably from each person's carrying a
pitcher or a stone at a time, and repeatedly.

[1733] "This" notes Erskine (p. 315) "is the _wulsa_ or
_walsa_, so well described by Colonel Wilks in his Historical
Sketches vol. i. p. 309, note 'On the approach of an hostile
army, the unfortunate inhabitants of India bury under ground
their most cumbrous effects, and each individual, man, woman,
and child above six years of age (the infant children being
carried by their mothers), with a load of grain proportioned
to their strength, issue from their beloved homes, and take
the direction of a country (if such can be found,) exempt from
the miseries of war; sometimes of a strong fortress, but more
generally of the most unfrequented hills and woods, where they
prolong a miserable existence until the departure of the
enemy, and if this should be protracted beyond the time for
which they have provided food, a large portion necessarily
dies of hunger.' See the note itself. The Historical Sketches
should be read by every-one who desires to have an accurate
idea of the South of India. It is to be regretted that we do
not possess the history of any other part of India, written
with the same knowledge or research."

"The word _wulsa_ or _walsa_ is Dravidian. Telugu has
_valasa_, 'emigration, flight, or removing from home for fear
of a hostile army.' Kanarese has _valasĕ_, _ŏlasĕ_, and
_ŏlisĕ_, 'flight, a removing from home for fear of a hostile
army.' Tamil has _valasei_, 'flying for fear, removing
hastily.' The word is an interesting one. I feel pretty sure
it is not Aryan, but Dravidian; and yet it stands alone in
Dravidian, with nothing that I can find in the way of a root
or affinities to explain its etymology. Possibly it may be a
borrowed word in Dravidian. Malayalam has no corresponding
word. Can it have been borrowed from Kolarian or other
primitive Indian speech?" (Letter to H. Beveridge from Mr. F.
E. Pargiter, 8th August, 1914.)

_Wulsa_ seems to be a derivative from Sanscrit _ūlvash_, and
to answer to Persian _wairānī_ and Turkī _būzūghlūghī_.

[1734] _lalmī_, which in Afghānī (Pushtū) signifies grown
without irrigation.

[1735] "The improvement of Hindūstān since Bābur's time must
be prodigious. The wild elephant is now confined to the
forests under Hemāla, and to the Ghats of Malabar. A wild
elephant near Karrah, Mānikpūr, or Kālpī, is a thing, at the
present day (1826 AD.), totally unknown. May not their
familiar existence in these countries down to Bābur's days, be
considered rather hostile to the accounts given of the
superabundant population of Hindūstān in remote times?"
(Erskine).

[1736] _dīwān._ I.O. 217 f. 190b, _dar dīwān fīl jawāb
mīgūīnd_; Mems. p. 316. They account to the government for the
elephants they take; _Méms._ ii, 188, _Les habitants payent
l'impôt avec le produit de leur chasse_. Though de
Courteille's reading probably states the fact, Erskine's
includes de C.'s and more, inasmuch as it covers all captures
and these might reach to a surplusage over the imposts.

[1737] Pers. trs. _gaz_=24 inches. _Il est bon de rappeler que
le mot turk qārī, que la version persane rend par gaz, désigne
proprement l'espace compris entre le haut de l'épaule jusqu'au
bout des doigts_ (de Courteille, ii, 189 note). The _qārī_
like one of its equivalents, the ell (Zenker), is a variable
measure; it seems to approach more nearly to a yard than to a
_gaz_ of 24 inches. See _Memoirs of Jahāngīr_ (R. & B. pp. 18,
141 and notes) for the heights of elephants, and for
discussion of some measures.

[1738] _khūd_, itself.

[1739] _i.e._ pelt; as Erskine notes, its skin is scattered
with small hairs. Details such as this one stir the question,
for whom was Bābur writing? Not for Hindūstān where what he
writes is patent; hardly for Kābul; perhaps for Transoxiana.

[1740] Shaikh Zain's wording shows this reference to be to a
special piece of artillery, perhaps that of f. 302.

[1741] A string of camels contains from five to seven, or, in
poetry, even more (Vullers, ii, 728, _sermone poetico series
decem camelorum_). The item of food compared is corn only
(_būghūz_) and takes no account therefore of the elephant's
green food.

[1742] The Ency. Br. states that the horn seldom exceeds a
foot in length; there is one in the B.M. measuring 18 inches.

[1743] āb-khẉura kishtī, water-drinker's boat, in which name
kishtī may be used with reference to shape as boat is in
_sauce-boat_. Erskine notes that rhinoceros-horn is supposed
to sweat on approach of poison.

[1744] _aīlīk_, Pers. trs. _angusht_, finger, each seemingly
representing about one inch, a hand's thickness, a finger's
breadth.

[1745] lit. hand (_qūl_) and leg (_būt_).

[1746] The anatomical details by which Bābur supports this
statement are difficult to translate, but his grouping of the
two animals is in agreement with the modern classification of
them as two of the three _Ungulata vera_, the third being the
tapir (Fauna of British India:—Mammals, Blanford 467 and,
illustration, 468).

[1747] De Courteille (ii, 190) reads _kūmūk_, osseuse; Erskine
reads _gūmūk_, marrow.

[1748] Index _s.n._ rhinoceros.

[1749] _Bos bubalus._

[1750] "so as to grow into the flesh" (Erskine, p. 317).

[1751] _sic_ in text. It may be noted that the name _nīl-gāī_,
common in general European writings, is that of the cow;
_nīl-gāū_, that of the bull (Blanford).

[1752] _b:ḥ:rī qūṯās_; _see_ Appendix M.

[1753] The doe is brown (Blanford, p. 518). The word _būghū_
(stag) is used alone just below and seems likely to represent
the bull of the Asiatic wapiti (f. 4 n. on _būghū-marāl_.)

[1754] _Axis porcinus_ (Jerdon, _Cervus porcinus_).

[1755] _Saiga tartarica_ (Shaw). Turkī _hūna_ is used, like
English deer, for male, female, and both. Here it seems
defined by _aīrkākī_ to mean stag or buck.

[1756] _Antelope cervicapra_, black-buck, so called from the
dark hue of its back (Yule's H.J. _s.n._ Black-buck).

[1757] _tūyūq_, underlined in the Elph. MS. by _kura_,
cannon-ball; Erskine, foot-ball, de Courteille, _pierre plus
grosse que la cheville_ (_tūyāq_).

[1758] This mode of catching antelopes is described in the
_Āyīn-i-akbarī_, and is noted by Erskine as common in his day.

[1759] _H. gainā._ It is 3 feet high (Yule's H.J. _s.n._
Gynee). Cf. A. A. Blochmann, p. 149. The ram with which it is
compared may be that of _Ovis ammon_ (Vigné's _Kashmīr etc._
ii, 278).

[1760] Here the Pers. trs. adds:—They call this kind of monkey
_langūr_ (baboon, I.O. 217 f. 192).

[1761] Here the Pers. trs. adds what Erskine mistakenly
attributes to Bābur:—People bring it from several
islands.—They bring yet another kind from several islands,
yellowish-grey in colour like a _pūstīn tīn_ (leather coat of
?; Erskine, skin of the fig, _tīn_). Its head is broader and
its body much larger than those of other monkeys. It is very
fierce and destructive. It is singular _quod penis ejus semper
sit erectus, et nunquam non ad coitum idoneus_ [Erskine].

[1762] This name is explained on the margin of the Elph. MS.
as "_rāsū_, which is the weasel of Tartary" (Erskine). _Rāsū_
is an Indian name for the squirrel _Sciurus indicus_. The
_kīsh_, with which Bābur's _nūl_ is compared, is explained by
de C. as _belette_, weasel, and by Steingass as a fur-bearing
animal; the fur-bearing weasel is (_Mustelidae_) _putorius
ermina_, the ermine-weasel (Blanford, p. 165), which thus
seems to be Bābur's _kīsh_. The alternative name Bābur gives
for his _nūl_, _i.e._ _mūsh-i-khūrma_, is, in India, that of
_Sciurus palmarum_, the palm-squirrel (G. of I. i, 227); this
then, it seems that Bābur's _nūl_ is. Erskine took _nūl_ here
to be the mongoose (_Herpestes mūngūs_) (p. 318); and
Blanford, perhaps partly on Erskine's warrant, gives
_mūsh-i-khūrma_ as a name of the lesser _mungūs_ of Bengal. I
gather that the name _nawal_ is not exclusively confined even
now to the (_mungūs_.)

[1763] If this be a tree-mouse and not a squirrel, it may be
_Vandeleuria oleracea_ (G. of I. i, 228).

[1764] The notes to this section are restricted to what serves
to identify the birds Bābur mentions, though temptation is
great to add something to this from the mass of interesting
circumstance scattered in the many writings of observers and
lovers of birds. I have thought it useful to indicate to what
language a bird's name belongs.

[1765] Persian, _gul_; English, eyes.

[1766] _qūlāch_ (Zenker, p. 720); Pers. trs. (217 f. 192_b_)
_yak qad-i-adm_; de Courteille, _brasse_ (fathom). These three
are expressions of the measure from finger-tip to finger-tip
of a man's extended arms, which should be his height, a fathom
(6 feet).

[1767] _qānāt_, of which here "primaries" appears to be the
correct rendering, since Jerdon says (ii, 506) of the bird
that its "wings are striated black and white, primaries and
tail deep chestnut".

[1768] The _qīrghāwal_, which is of the pheasant species, when
pursued, will take several flights immediately after each
other, though none long; peacocks, it seems, soon get tired
and take to running (Erskine).

[1769] Ar. _barrāq_, as on f. 278_b_ last line where the Elph.
MS. has _barrāq_, marked with the _tashdīd_.

[1770] This was, presumably, just when Bābur was writing the
passage.

[1771] This sentence is in Arabic.

[1772] A Persian note, partially expunged from the text of the
Elph. MS. is to the effect that 4 or 5 other kinds of parrot
are heard of which the revered author did not see.

[1773] Erskine suggests that this may be the _loory_
(_Loriculus vernalis_, Indian loriquet).

[1774] The birds Bābur classes under the name _shārak_ seem to
include what Oates and Blanford (whom I follow as they give
the results of earlier workers) class under _Sturnus_,
_Eulabes_ and _Calornis_, starling, grackle and mīna, and
tree-stare (_Fauna of British India_, Oates, vols. i and ii,
Blanford, vols. iii and iv).

[1775] Turkī, _qabā_; Ilminsky, p. 361, _tang_ (_tund_?).

[1776] E. D. Ross's _Polyglot List of Birds_, p. 314,
_Chighīr-chīq_, Northern swallow; Elph. MS. f. 230_b_
interlined _jil_ (Steingass lark). The description of the bird
allows it to be _Sturnus humii_, the Himālayan starling
(Oates, i, 520).

[1777] Elph. and Ḥai. MSS. (Sans. and Bengālī) _p:ndūī_; two
good MSS. of the Pers. trs. (I.O. 217 and 218) _p:ndāwalī_;
Ilminsky (p. 361) _mīnā_; Erskine (_Mems._ p. 319)
_pindāwelī_, but without his customary translation of an
Indian name. The three forms shewn above can all mean "having
protuberance or lump" (_pinḍā_) and refer to the bird's
wattle. But the word of the presumably well-informed scribes
of I.O. 217 and 218 can refer to the bird's sagacity in speech
and be _panḍāwalī_, possessed of wisdom. With the same
spelling, the word can translate into the epithet _religiosa_,
given to the wattled _mīnā_ by Linnæus. This epithet Mr.
Leonard Wray informs me has been explained to him as due to
the frequenting of temples by the birds; and that in Malāya
they are found living in cotes near Chinese temples.—An
alternative name (one also connecting with _religiosa_)
allowed by the form of the word is _bīnḍā-walī_. H. _bīnḍā_ is
a mark on the forehead, made as a preparative to devotion by
Hindus, or in Sans. and _Bengālī_, is the spot of paint made
on an elephant's trunk; the meaning would thus be "having a
mark". Cf. Jerdon and Oates _s.n._ _Eulabes religiosa_.

[1778] _Eulabes intermedia_, the Indian grackle or hill-mīna.
Here the Pers. trs. adds that people call it _mīna_.

[1779] _Calornis chalybeius_, the glossy starling or
tree-stare, which never descends to the ground.

[1780] _Sturnopastor contra_, the pied mīna.

[1781] Part of the following passage about the _lūja_ (var.
_lūkha_, _lūcha_) is _verbatim_ with part of that on f. 135;
both were written about 934-5 AH. as is shewn by Shaikh Zain
(Index _s.n._) and by inference from references in the text
(Index _s.n._ B.N. date of composition). _See_ Appendix N.

[1782] Lit. mountain-partridge. There is ground for
understanding that one of the birds known in the region as
_monals_ is meant. _See_ Appendix N.

[1783] Sans. _chakora_; Ar. _durrāj_; P. _kabg_; T. _kīklīk_.

[1784] Here, probably, southern Afghānistān.

[1785] _Caccabis chukūr_ (Scully, Shaw's Vocabulary) or _C.
pallescens_ (Hume, quoted under No. 126 E. D. Ross' _Polyglot
List_).

[1786] "In some parts of the country (_i.e._ India before 1841
AD.), tippets used to be made of the beautiful black,
white-spotted feathers of the lower plumage (of the _durrāj_),
and were in much request, but they are rarely procurable now"
(_Bengal Sporting Magazine_ for 1841, quoted by Jerdon, ii,
561).

[1787] A broad collar of red passes round the whole neck
(Jerdon, ii, 558).

[1788] Ar. _durrāj_ means one who repeats what he hears, a
tell-tale.

[1789] Various translations have been made of this passage, "I
have milk and sugar" (Erskine), "_J'ai du lait, un peu de
sucre_" (de Courteille), but with short _sh:r_, it might be
read in more than one way ignoring milk and sugar. See Jerdon,
ii, 558 and Hobson Jobson _s.n._ Black-partridge.

[1790] Flower-faced, _Trapogon melanocephala_, the horned
(_sing_)-monal. It is described by Jahāngīr (_Memoirs_, R. and
B., ii, 220) under the names [H. and P.] _phūl-paikār_ and
Kashmīrī, _sonlū_.

[1791] _Gallus sonneratii_, the grey jungle-fowl.

[1792] Perhaps _Bambusicola fytchii_, the western
bambu-partridge. For _chīl_ see E. D. Ross, _l.c._ No. 127.

[1793] Jahāngīr (_l.c._) describes, under the Kashmīrī name
_pūṯ_, what may be this bird. It seems to be _Gallus
ferrugineus_, the red jungle-fowl (Blanford, iv, 75).

[1794] Jahāngīr helps to identify the bird by mentioning its
elongated tail-feathers,—seasonal only.

[1795] The migrant quail will be _Coturnix communis_, the grey
quail, 8 inches long; what it is compared with seems likely to
be the bush-quail, which is non-migrant and shorter.

[1796] Perhaps _Perdicula argunda_, the rock bush-quail, which
flies in small coveys.

[1797] Perhaps _Coturnix coromandelica_, the black-breasted or
rain quail, 7 inches long.

[1798] Perhaps _Motacilla citreola_, a yellow wag-tail which
summers in Central Asia (Oates, ii, 298). If so, its Kābul
name may refer to its flashing colour. Cf. E. D. Ross, _l.c._
No. 301; de Courteille's _Dictionary_ which gives _qārcha_,
wag-tail, and Zenker's which fixes the colour.

[1799] _Eupodotis edwardsii_; Turkī, _tūghdār_ or _tūghdīrī_.

[1800] Erskine noting (Mems. p. 321), that the bustard is
common in the Dakkan where it is bigger than a turkey, says it
is called _tūghdār_ and suggests that this is a corruption of
_tūghdāq_. The uses of both words are shewn by Bābur, here,
and in the next following, account of the _charz_. Cf. G. of
I. i, 260 and E. D. Ross _l.c._ Nos. 36, 40.

[1801] _Sypheotis bengalensis_ and _S. aurita_, which are both
smaller than _Otis houbara_ (_tūghdīrī_). In Hindustan _S.
aurita_ is known as _līkh_ which name is the nearest approach
I have found to Bābur's [_lūja_] _lūkha_.

[1802] Jerdon mentions (ii, 615) that this bird is common in
Afghānistān and there called _dugdaor_ (_tūghdār_,
_tūghdīrī_).

[1803] _Cf._ Appendix B, since I wrote which, further
information has made it fairly safe to say that the Hindūstān
_bāghrī-qarā_ is _Pterocles exustus_, the common sand-grouse
and that the one of f. 49b is _Pterocles arenarius_, the
larger or black-bellied sand-grouse. _P. exustus_ is said by
Yule (H. J. _s.n._ Rock-pigeon) to have been miscalled
rock-pigeon by Anglo-Indians, perhaps because its flight
resembles the pigeon's. This accounts for Erskine's rendering
(p. 321) _bāghrī-qarā_ here by rock-pigeon.

[1804] _Leptoptilus dubius_, Hind. _hargīlā_. Hindūstānīs call
it _pīr-i-dīng_ (Erskine) and _peda dhauk_ (Blanford), both
names referring, perhaps, to its pouch. It is the adjutant of
Anglo-India. Cf. f. 235.

[1805] only when young (Blanford, ii, 188).

[1806] Elph. MS. _mank:sā_ or _mankīā_; Ḥai. MS. _m:nk_.
Haughton's _Bengali Dictionary_ gives two forms of the name
_mānek-jur_ and _mānak-yoī_. It is _Dissura episcopus_, the
white-necked stork (Blanford iv, 370, who gives _manik-jor_
amongst its Indian names). Jerdon classes it (ii, 737) as
_Ciconia leucocephala_. It is the beefsteak bird of
Anglo-India.

[1807] _Ciconia nigra_ (Blanford, iv, 369).

[1808] Under the Hindūstānī form, _būza_, of Persian _buzak_
the birds Bābur mentions as _buzak_ can be identified. The
large one is _Inocotis papillosus_, _būza_, _kāla būza_, black
curlew, king-curlew. The bird it equals in size is a buzzard,
Turkī _sār_ (not Persian _sār_, starling). The king-curlew has
a large white patch on the inner lesser and marginal coverts
of its wings (Blanford, iv, 303). This agrees with Bābur's
statement about the wings of the large _buzak_. Its length is
27 inches, while the starling's is 9-1/2 inches.

[1809] _Ibis melanocephala_, the white ibis, Pers. _safed
buzak_, Bengali _sabut būza_. It is 30 inches long.

[1810] Perhaps, _Plegadis falcinellus_, the glossy ibis, which
in most parts of India is a winter visitor. Its length is 25
inches.

[1811] Erskine suggests that this is _Platalea leucorodia_,
the _chamach-būza_, spoon-bill. It is 33 inches long.

[1812] _Anas poecilorhyncha._ The Ḥai. MS. writes _gharm-pāī_,
and this is the Indian name given by Blanford (iv, 437).

[1813] _Anas boschas._ Dr. Ross notes (No. 147), from the
_Sanglākh_, that _sūna_ is the drake, _būrchīn_, the duck and
that it is common in China to call a certain variety of bird
by the combined sex-names. Something like this is shewn by the
uses of _būghā_ and _marāl_ _q.v._ Index.

[1814] _Centropus rufipennis_, the common coucal (Yule's H.J.
_s.n._ Crow-pheasant); H. _makokhā_, _Cuculus castaneus_
(Buchanan, quoted by Forbes).

[1815] _Pteropus edwardsii_, the flying-fox. The inclusion of
the bat here amongst birds, may be a clerical accident, since
on f. 136 a flying-fox is not written of as a bird.

[1816] Bābur here uses what is both the Kābul and Andijān name
for the magpie, Ar. _`aqqa_ (Oates, i, 31 and Scully's Voc),
instead of T. _sāghizghān_ or P. _dam-sīcha_ (tail-wagger).

[1817] The Pers. trs. writes _sāndūlāch mamūlā_, _mamūlā_
being Arabic for wag-tail. De Courteille's Dictionary
describes the _sāndūlāch_ as small and having a long tail, the
cock-bird green, the hen, yellow. The wag-tail suiting this in
colouring is _Motacilla borealis_ (Oates, ii, 294; syn.
_Budytes viridis_, the green wag-tail); this, as a migrant,
serves to compare with the Indian "little bird", which seems
likely to be a red-start.

[1818] This word may represent Scully's _kirich_ and be the
Turkī name for a swift, perhaps _Cypselus affinis_.

[1819] This name is taken from its cry during the breeding
season (Yule's H.J. _s.n._ Koel).

[1820] Bābur's distinction between the three crocodiles he
mentions seems to be that of names he heard, _shīr-ābī_,
_siyāh-sār_, and _ghaṛīāl_.

[1821] In this passage my husband finds the explanation of two
somewhat vague statements of later date, one made by
Abū'l-faẓl (A. A. Blochmann, p. 65) that Akbar called the
_kīlās_ (cherry) the _shāh-ālū_ (king-plum), the other by
Jahāngīr that this change was made because _kīlās_ means
lizard (_Jahāngīr's Memoirs_, R. & B. i, 116). What Akbar did
is shewn by Bābur; it was to reject the _Persian_ name
_kīlās_, cherry, because it closely resembled _Turkī gīlās_,
lizard. There is a lizard _Stellio Lehmanni_ of Transoxiana
with which Bābur may well have compared the crocodile's
appearance (Schuyler's _Turkistān_, i, 383). Akbar in
Hindūstān may have had _Varanus salvator_ (6 ft. long) in
mind, if indeed he had not the great lizard, _al lagarto_, the
alligator itself in his thought. The name _kīlās_ evidently
was banished only from the Court circle, since it is still
current in Kashmīr (Blochmann _l.c._ p. 616); and Speede (p.
201) gives _keeras_, cherry, as used in India.

[1822] This name as now used, is that of the purely
fish-eating crocodile. [In the Turkī text Bābur's account of
the _ghaṛīāl_ follows that of the porpoise; but it is grouped
here with those of the two other crocodiles.]

[1823] As the Ḥai. MS. and also I.O. 216 f. 137 (Pers. trs.)
write _kalah_ (_galah_)-fish, this may be a large cray-fish.
One called by a name approximating to _galah_-fish is found in
Malāyan waters, _viz._ the _galah_-prawn (_hūdang_) (cf.
Bengālī _gūla-chingrī_, _gūla_-prawn, Haughton). _Galah_ and
_gūla_ may express lament made when the fish is caught
(Haughton pp. 931, 933, 952); or if _kalah_ be read, this may
express scolding. Two good MSS. of the _Wāqi`āt-i-bāburī_
(Pers. trs.) write _kaka_; and their word cannot but have
weight. Erskine reproduces _kaka_ but offers no explanation of
it, a failure betokening difficulty in his obtaining one. My
husband suggests that _kaka_ may represent a stuttering sound,
doing so on the analogy of Vullers' explanation of the
word,—_Vir ridiculus et facetus qui simul balbutiat_; and also
he inclines to take the fish to be a crab (_kakra_). Possibly
_kaka_ is a popular or vulgar name for a cray-fish or a crab.
Whether the sound is lament, scolding, or stuttering the
fisherman knows! Shaikh Zain enlarges Bābur's notice of this
fish; he says the bones are prolonged (_bar āwarda_) from the
ears, that these it agitates at time of capture, making a
noise like the word _kaka_ by which it is known, that it is
two _wajab_ (18 in.) long, its flesh surprisingly tasty, and
that it is very active, leaping a _gaz_ (_cir._ a yard) out of
the water when the fisherman's net is set to take it. For
information about the Malāyan fish, I am indebted to Mr. Cecil
Wray.

[1824] T. _qiyünlīghī_, presumably referring to spines or
difficult bones; T. _qīn_, however, means a scabbard [Shaw].

[1825] One of the common frogs is a small one which, when
alarmed, jumps along the surface of the water (G. of I. i,
273).

[1826] _Anb_ and _anbah_ (pronounced _aṃb_ and _aṃbah_) are
now less commonly used names than _ām_. It is an interesting
comment on Bābur's words that Abū'l-faẓl spells _anb_, letter
by letter, and says that the _b_ is quiescent (_Āyīn_ 28; for
the origin of the word mango, _vide_ Yule's H.J. _s.n._).

[1827] A corresponding diminutive would be fairling.

[1828] The variants, entered in parenthesis, are found in the
Bib. Ind. ed. of the _Āyīn-i-akbarī_ p. 75 and in a (bazar)
copy of the _Qurānu's-sā`dain_ in my husband's possession. As
Amīr Khusrau was a poet of Hindūstān, either _khẉash_
(_khẉesh_) [our own] or _mā_ [our] would suit his meaning. The
couplet is, literally:—

Our fairling, [_i.e._ mango] beauty-maker of the garden,
Fairest fruit of Hindūstān.

[1829] Daulat Khān _Yūsuf-khail Lūdī_ in 929 AH. sent Bābur a
gift of mangoes preserved in honey (_in loco_ p. 440).

[1830] I have learned nothing more definite about the word
_kārdī_ than that it is the name of a superior kind of peach
(_Ghiyās̤u'l-lughat_).

[1831] The preceding sentence is out of place in the Turkī
text; it may therefore be a marginal note, perhaps not made by
Bābur.

[1832] This sentence suggests that Bābur, writing in Āgra or
Fatḥpūr did not there see fine mango-trees.

[1833] See Yule's H.J. on the plantain, the banana of the
West.

[1834] This word is a descendant of Sanscrit _mocha_, and
parent of _musa_ the botanical name of the fruit (Yule).

[1835] Shaikh Effendī (Kunos), Zenker and de Courteille say of
this only that it is the name of a tree. Shaw gives a name
that approaches it, _ārman_, a grass, a weed; Scully explains
this as _Artemisia vulgaris_, wormwood, but Roxburgh gives no
_Artemisia_ having a leaf resembling the plantain's. Scully
has _arāmadān_, unexplained, which, like _amān-qarā_, may
refer to comfort in shade. Bābur's comparison will be with
something known in Transoxiana. Maize has general resemblance
with the plantain. So too have the names of the plants, since
_mocha_ and _mauz_ stand for the plantain and (Hindī) _mukā'ī_
for maize. These incidental resemblances bear, however
lightly, on the question considered in the Ency. Br. (art.
maize) whether maize was early in Asia or not; some writers
hold that it was; if Bābur's _amān-qarā_ were maize, maize
will have been familiar in Transoxiana in his day.

[1836] Abū'l-faẓl mentions that the plantain-tree bears no
second crop unless cut down to the stump.

[1837] Bābur was fortunate not to have met with a seed-bearing
plantain.

[1838] The ripe "dates" are called P. _tamar-i Hind_, whence
our tamarind, and _Tamarindus Indica_.

[1839] _Sophora alopecuroides_, a leguminous plant (Scully).

[1840] Abū'l-faẓl gives _galaundā_ as the name of the "fruit"
[_mewa_],—Forbes, as that of the fallen flower. Cf. Brandis p.
426 and Yule's H.J. _s.n._ Mohwa.