The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)
(5) Hume and Henderson (_Lāhor to Yārkand_ p. 59) write of the numerous
black yāk-hair tents seen round the Pangong Lake, of fine saddle yāks,
and of the tame ones as being some white or brown but mostly black.
(6) Olufsen's _Through the Unknown Pamirs_ (p. 118) speaks of the large
numbers of _Bos grunniens_ (yāk) domesticated by the Kirghiz in the
Pamirs.
(7) Cf. Gazetteer of India _s.n._ yāk.
(8) Shaikh Zain applies the word _baḥrī_ to the porpoise, when
paraphrasing the _Bābur-nāma_ f. 281_b_.
N.—NOTES ON A FEW BIRDS.
In attempting to identify some of the birds of Bābur's lists difficulty
arises from the variety of names provided by the different tongues of
the region concerned, and also in some cases by the application of one
name to differing birds. The following random gleanings enlarge and, in
part, revise some earlier notes and translations of Mr. Erskine's and my
own. They are offered as material for the use of those better acquainted
with bird-lore and with Himālayan dialects.
_a._ _Concerning the lūkha_, _lūja_, _lūcha_, _kūja_ (f.135 and
f.278_b_).
The nearest word I have found to _lūkha_ and its similars is _likkh_, a
florican (Jerdon, ii, 615), but the florican has not the chameleon
colours of the _lūkha_ (var.). As Bābur when writing in Hindūstān, uses
such "book-words" as Ar. _baḥrī_ (_qūṯās_) and Ar. _bū-qalamūn_
(chameleon), it would not be strange if his name for the "_lūkha_" bird
represented Ar. _awja_, very beautiful, or connected with Ar. _loḥ_,
shining splendour.
The form _kūja_ is found in Ilminsky's imprint p.361 (_Mémoires_ ii,
198, _koudjeh_).
What is confusing to translators is that (as it now seems to me) Bābur
appears to use the name _kabg-i-darī_ in both passages (f.135 and
f.278_b_) to represent two birds; (1) he compares the _lūkha_ as to size
with the _kabg-i-darī_ of the Kābul region, and (2) for size and colour
with that of Hindūstān. But the bird, of the Western Himālayas known by
the name _kabg-i-darī_ is the Himālayan snow-cock, _Tetraogallus
himālayensis_, Turkī, _aūlār_ and in the Kābul region, _chīūrtika_
(f.249, Jerdon, ii, 549-50); while the _kabg-i-darī_ (syn. _chikor_) of
Hindūstān, whether of hill or plain, is one or more of much smaller
birds.
The snow-cock being 28 inches in length, the _lūkha_ bird must be of
this size. Such birds as to size and plumage of changing colour are the
_Lophophori_ and _Trapagons_, varieties of which are found in places
suiting Bābur's account of the _lūkha_.
It may be noted that the Himālayan snow-cock is still called
_kabg-i-darī_ in Afghānistān (Jerdon, ii, 550) and in Kashmīr (Vigne's
_Travels in Kashmīr_ ii, 18). As its range is up to 18,000 feet, its
Persian name describes it correctly whether read as "of the mountains"
(_dari_), or as "royal" (_darī_) through its splendour.
I add here the following notes of Mr. Erskine's, which I have not quoted
already where they occur (cf. f. 135 and f. 278_b_):—
On f. 135, "_lokheh_" is said to mean _hill-chikor_.
On f. 278_b_, to "_lūjeh_", "The Persian has _lūkheh_."
" to "_kepki durrī_", "The _kepkī deri_, or _durri_ is
much larger than the common _kepk_ of Persia
and is peculiar to Khorāsān. It is said to be
a beautiful bird. The common _kepk_ of Persia
and Khorāsān is the _hill-chikor_ of India."
" to "higher up", "The _lujeh_ may be the _chikor_
of the plains which Hunter calls bartavelle or
Greek partridge."
The following corrections are needed about my own notes:—(1) on f. 135
(p. 213) n. 7 is wrongly referred; it belongs to the first word, _viz._
_kabg-i-darī_, of p. 214; (2) on f. 279 (p. 496) n. 2 should refer to
the second _kabg-i-darī_.
_b. Birds called mūnāl (var. monāl and moonaul)._
Yule writing in _Hobson Jobson_ (p. 580) of the "_moonaul_" which he
identifies as _Lophophorus Impeyanus_, queries whether, on grounds he
gives, the word _moonaul_ is connected etymologically with Sanscrit
_muni_, an "eremite". In continuation of his topic, I give here the
names of other birds called _mūnāl_, which I have noticed in various
ornithological works while turning their pages for other information.
Besides _L. Impeyanus_ and _Trapagon Ceriornis satyra_ which Yule
mentions as called "_moonaul_", there are _L. refulgens_, _mūnāl_ and
_Ghūr_ (mountain)-_mūnāl_; _Trapagon Ceriornis satyra_, called _mūnāl_
in Nipāl; _T. C. melanocephalus_, called _sing_ (horned)-_mūnāl_ in the
N.W. Himālayas; _T. himālayensis_, the _jer_- or _cher-mūnāl_ of the
same region, known also as _chikor_; and _Lerwa nevicola_, the
snow-partridge known in Garhwal as _Quoir_- or _Qūr-mūnāl_. Do all these
birds behave in such a way as to suggest that _mūnāl_ may imply the
individual isolation related by Jerdon of _L. Impeyanus_, "In the
autumnal and winter months numbers are generally collected in the same
quarter of the forest, though often so widely scattered that each bird
appears to be alone?" My own search amongst vocabularies of
hill-dialects for the meaning of the word has been unsuccessful, spite
of the long range _mūnāls_ in the Himālayas.
_c. Concerning the word chīūrtika, chourtka._
Jerdon's entry (ii, 549, 554) of the name _chourtka_ as a synonym of
_Tetraogallus himālayensis_ enables me to fill a gap I have left on f.
249 (p. 491 and n. 6),[2810] with the name Himālayan snow-cock, and to
allow Bābur's statement to be that he, in January 1520 AD. when coming
down from the _Bād-i-pīch_ pass, saw many snow-cocks. The _Memoirs_
(p.282) has "_chikors_", which in India is a synonym for _kabg-i-darī_;
the _Mémoires_ (ii, 122) has _sauterelles_, but this meaning of
_chīūrtika_ does not suit wintry January. That month would suit for the
descent from higher altitudes of snow-cocks. Griffith, a botanist who
travelled in Afghānistān _cir._ 1838 AD., saw myriads of _cicadæ_
between Qilat-i-ghilzai and Ghazni, but the month was July.
_d._ _On the qūṯān_ (f. 142, p. 224; _Memoirs_, p. 153; _Mémoires_ ii,
313).
Mr. Erskine for _qūṯān_ enters _khawāṣil_ [gold-finch] which he will
have seen interlined in the Elphinstone Codex (f. 109_b_) in explanation
of _qūṯān_.
Shaikh Effendi (Kunos' ed., p. 139) explains _qūṯān_ to be the
gold-finch, _Steiglitz_.
Ilminsky's _qūtān_ (p. 175) is translated by M. de Courteille as
_pélicane_ and certainly some copies of the 2nd Persian translation
[Muḥ. _Shīrāzi's_ p. 90] have _ḥawāṣil_, pelican.
The pelican would class better than the small finch with the
herons and egrets of Bābur's trio; it also would appear a more likely
bird to be caught "with the cord".
That Bābur's _qūṯān_ (_ḥawāṣil_) migrated in great numbers is however
against supposing it to be _Pelicanus onocrotatus_ which is seen in
India during the winter, because it appears there in moderate numbers
only, and Blanford with other ornithologists states that no western
pelican migrates largely into India.
Perhaps the _qūṯān_ was Linnæus' _Pelicanus carbo_ of which one synonym
is _Carbo comoranus_, the cormorant, a bird seen in India in large
numbers of both the large and small varieties. As cormorants are not
known to breed in that country, they will have migrated in the masses
Bābur mentions.
A translation matter falls to mention here:—After saying that the
_aūqār_ (grey heron), _qarqara_ (egret), and _qūtān_ (cormorant) are
taken with the cord, Bābur says that this method of bird-catching is
unique (_bū nūḥ qūsh tūtmāq ghair muqarrar dūr_) and describes it. The
Persian text omits to translate the _tūtmāq_ (by _P. giriftan_); hence
Erskine (_Mems._ p. 153) writes, "The last mentioned fowl" (_i.e._ the
_qūṯān_) "is rare," notwithstanding Bābur's statement that all three of
the birds he names are caught in masses. De Courteille (p. 313) writes,
as though only of the _qūtān_, "_ces derniers toutefois ne se prennent
qu'accidentelment_," perhaps led to do so by knowledge of the
circumstance that _Pelicanus onocrotatus_ is rare in India.
O.—NOTES BY HUMĀYŪN ON SOME HINDŪSTĀN FRUITS.
The following notes, which may be accepted as made by Humāyūn and in the
margin of the archetype of the Elphinstone Codex, are composed in Turkī
which differs in diction from his father's but is far closer to that
classic model than is that of the producer [Jahāngīr?] of the
"Fragments" (Index _s.n._). Various circumstances make the notes
difficult to decipher _verbatim_ and, unfortunately, when writing in
Jan. 1917, I am unable to collate with its original in the Advocates
Library, the copy I made of them in 1910.
_a._ _On the kadhil_, _jack-fruit_, _Artocarpus integrifolia_ (f.
283_b_, p. 506; Elphinstone MS. f. 235_b_).[2811]
The contents of the note are that the strange-looking pumpkin (_qar`_,
which is also Ibn Batuta's word for the fruit), yields excellent white
juice, that the best fruit grows from the roots of the tree,[2812] that
many such grow in Bengal, and that in Bengal and Dihli there grows a
_kadhil_-tree covered with hairs (_Artocarpus hirsuta_?).
_b._ _On the amrit-phal_, _mandarin-orange_, _Citrus aurantium_ (f. 287,
p. 512; Elphinstone Codex, f. 238_b_, l. 12).
The interest of this note lies in its reference to Bābur.
A Persian version of it is entered, without indication of what it is or
of who was its translator, in one of the volumes of Mr. Erskine's
manuscript remains, now in the British Museum (Add. 26,605, p. 88).
Presumably it was made by his Turkish _munshi_ for his note in the
Memoirs (p. 329).
Various difficulties oppose the translation of the Turkī note; it is
written into the text of the Elphinstone Codex in two instalments,
neither of them in place, the first being interpolated in the account of
the _amil-bīd_ fruit, the second in that of the _jāsūn_ flower; and
there are verbal difficulties also. The Persian translation is not
literal and in some particulars Mr. Erskine's rendering of this differs
from what the Turkī appears to state.
The note is, tentatively, as follows:[2813]—"His honoured Majesty
Firdaus-makān[2814]—may God make his proof clear!—did not
favour the _amrit-phal_;[2815] as he considered it insipid,[2816] he
likened it to the mild-flavoured[2817] orange and did not make choice of
it. So much was the mild-flavoured orange despised that if any person
had disgusted (him) by insipid flattery(?) he used to say, 'He is like
orange-juice.'"[2818]
"The _amrit-phal_ is one of the very good fruits. Though its juice is
not relishing (? _chūchūq_), it is extremely pleasant-drinking. Later
on, in my own time, its real merit became known. Its tartness may be
that of the orange (_nāranj_)and _lemu_."[2819]
The above passage is followed, in the text of the Elphinstone Codex, by
Bābur's account of the _jāsūn_ flower, and into this a further
instalment of Humāyūn's notes is interpolated, having opposite its first
line the marginal remark, "This extra note, seemingly made by Humāyūn
Pādshāh, the scribe has mistakenly written into the text." Whether its
first sentence refer to the _amrit-phal_ or to the _amil-bīd_ must be
left for decision to those well acquainted with the orange-tribe. It is
obscure in my copy and abbreviated in its Persian translation;
summarized it may state that when the fruit is unripe, its acidity is
harmful to the digestion, but that it is very good when ripe.—The note
then continues as below:—
_c. The kāmila, H. kauṅlā, the orange._[2820]
"There are in Bengal two other fruits of the acid kind. Though the
_amrit-phal_ be not agreeable, they have resemblance to it (?)."
"One is the _kāmila_ which may be as large as an orange (_nāranj_); some
took it to be a large _nārangī_ (orange) but it is much pleasanter