The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)
correct style is Bābur Mīrzā. (_Cf._ f. 215 and note.)
[39] See _Āyīn-i-akbarī_, Jarrett, p. 44.
[40] The Ḥai. MS. and a good many of the W.-i-B. MSS. here
write Aūtrār. [Aūtrār like Tarāz was at some time of its
existence known as Yāngī (New).] Tarāz seems to have stood
near the modern Auliya-ātā; Ālmālīgh,—a Metropolitan see of
the Nestorian Church in the 14th. century,—to have been the
old capital of Kuldja, and Ālmātū (var. Ālmātī) to have been
where Vernoe (Vierny) now is. Ālmālīgh and Ālmātū owed their
names to the apple (_ālmā_). _Cf._ Bretschneider's Mediæval
Geography p. 140 and T.R. (Elias and Ross) _s.nn._
[41] _Mughūl u Aūzbeg jihatdīn._ I take this, the first
offered opportunity of mentioning (1) that in transliterating
Turkī words I follow Turkī lettering because I am not
competent to choose amongst systems which _e.g._ here,
reproduce Aūzbeg as Ūzbeg, Özbeg and Euzbeg; and (2) that
style being part of an autobiography, I am compelled, in
pressing back the Memoirs on Bābur's Turkī mould, to retract
from the wording of the western scholars, Erskine and de
Courteille. Of this compulsion Bābur's bald phrase _Mughūl u
Aūzbeg jihatdīn_ provides an illustration. Each earlier
translator has expressed his meaning with more finish than he
himself; `Abdu'r-raḥīm, by _az jihat `ubūr-i_ (_Mughūl u_)
_Aūzbeg_, improves on Bābur, since the three towns lay in the
tideway of nomad passage (_`ubūr_) east and west; Erskine
writes "in consequence of the incursions" etc. and de C.
"_grace aux ravages commis_" etc.
[42] Schuyler (ii, 54) gives the extreme length of the valley
as about 160 miles and its width, at its widest, as 65 miles.
[43] Following a manifestly clerical error in the Second
W.-i-B. the _Akbar-nāma_ and the Mems. are without the
seasonal limitation, "in winter." Bābur here excludes from
winter routes one he knew well, the Kīndīrlīk Pass; on the
other hand Kostenko says that this is open all the year round.
Does this contradiction indicate climatic change? (_Cf._ f.
54b and note; A.N. Bib. Ind. ed. i, 85 (H. Beveridge i, 221)
and, for an account of the passes round Farghāna, Kostenko's
_Turkistān Region_, Tables of Contents.)
[44] Var. Banākat, Banākas̤, Fīākat, Fanākand. Of this place
Dr. Rieu writes (Pers. cat. i, 79) that it was also called
Shāsh and, in modern times, Tāshkīnt. Bābur does not identify
Fanākat with the Tāshkīnt of his day but he identifies it with
Shāhrukhiya (_cf._ Index _s.nn._) and distinguishes between
Tāshkīnt-Shāsh and Fanākat-Shāhrukhiya. It may be therefore
that Dr. Rieu's Tāshkīnt-Fanākat was Old Tāshkīnt,—(Does
Fanā-kīnt mean Old Village?) some 14 miles nearer to the
Saiḥūn than the Tāshkīnt of Bābur's day or our own.
[45] _ hech daryā qātīlmās._ A gloss of _dīgar_ (other) in the
Second W.-i-B. has led Mr. Erskine to understand "meeting with
no other river in its course." I understand Bābur to contrast
the destination of the Saiḥūn which he [erroneously] says
sinks into the sands, with the outfall of _e.g._ the Amū into
the Sea of Aral.
_Cf._ First W.-i-B. I.O. MS. 215 f. 2; Second W.-i-B. I.O. MS.
217 f. 1b and Ouseley's Ibn Haukal p. 232-244; also Schuyler
and Kostenko _l.c._
[46] Bābur's geographical unit in Central Asia is the township
or, with more verbal accuracy, the village _i.e._ the
fortified, inhabited and cultivated oasis. Of frontiers he
says nothing.
[47] _i.e._ they are given away or taken. Bābur's interest in
fruits was not a matter of taste or amusement but of food.
Melons, for instance, fresh or stored, form during some months
the staple food of Turkistānīs. _Cf._ T.R. p. 303 and (in
Kāshmīr) 425; Timkowski's _Travels of the Russian Mission_ i,
419 and Th. Radloff's _Réceuils d'Itinéraires_ p. 343.
N.B. At this point two folios of the Elphinstone Codex are
missing.
[48] Either a kind of melon or the pear. For local abundance
of pears _see_ _Āyīn-i-akbarī_, Blochmann p. 6; Kostenko and
Von Schwarz.
[49] _qūrghān_, _i.e._ the walled town within which was the
citadel (_ark_).
[50] _Tūqūz tarnau sū kīrār, bū `ajab tūr kīm bīr yīrdīn ham
chīqmās._ Second W.-i-B. I.O. 217 f. 2, _nuh jū'ī āb dar qila`
dar mī āyid u īn `ajab ast kah hama az yak jā ham na mī bar
āyid_. (_Cf._ Mems. p. 2 and _Méms._ i, 2.) I understand Bābur
to mean that all the water entering was consumed in the town.
The supply of Andijān, in the present day, is taken both from
the Āq Būrā (_i.e._ the Aūsh Water) and, by canal, from the
Qarā Daryā.
[51] _khandaqnīng tāsh yānī._ Second W.-i-B. I.O. 217 f. 2
_dar kīnār sang bast khandaq_. Here as in several other
places, this Persian translation has rendered Turkī _tāsh_,
outside, as if it were Turkī _tāsh_, stone. Bābur's adjective
_stone_ is _sangīn_ (f. 45b l. 8). His point here is the
unusual circumstance of a high-road running round the outer
edge of the ditch. Moreover Andijān is built on and of loess.
Here, obeying his Persian source, Mr. Erskine writes
"stone-faced ditch"; M. de C. obeying his Turkī one, "_bord
extérieur_."
[52] _qīrghāwal āsh-kīnasī bīla. Āsh-kīna_, a diminutive of
_āsh_, food, is the rice and vegetables commonly served with
the bird. Kostenko i, 287 gives a recipe for what seems
_āsh-kīna_.
[53] b. 1440; d. 1500 AD.
[54] Yūsuf was in the service of Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā _Shāhrukhī_
(d. 837 AH.-1434 AD.). _Cf._ Daulat Shāh's _Memoirs of the
Poets_ (Browne) pp. 340 and 350-1. (H.B.)
[55] _gūzlār aīl bīzkāk kūb būlūr._ Second W.-i-B. (I.O. 217
f. 2) here and on f. 4 has read Turkī _gūz_, eye, for Turkī
_gūz_ or _goz_, autumn. It has here a gloss not in the
Ḥaidarābād or Kehr's MSS. (_Cf_. Mems. p. 4 note.) This gloss
may be one of Humāyūn's numerous notes and may have been
preserved in the Elphinstone Codex, but the fact cannot now be
known because of the loss of the two folios already noted.
(_See_ Von Schwarz and Kostenko concerning the autumn fever of
Transoxiana.)
[56] The Pers. trss. render _yīghāch_ by _farsang_; Ujfalvy
also takes the _yīghāch_ and the _farsang_ as having a common
equivalent of about 6 _kilomètres_. Bābur's statements in
_yīghāch_ however, when tested by ascertained distances, do
not work out into the _farsang_ of four miles or the
_kilomètre_ of 8 _kil._ to 5 miles. The _yīghāch_ appears to
be a variable estimate of distance, sometimes indicating the
time occupied on a given journey, at others the distance to
which a man's voice will carry. (_Cf._ Ujfalvy _Expédition
scientifique_ ii, 179; Von Schwarz p. 124 and de C.'s Dict.
_s.n._ _yīghāch_. In the present instance, if Bābur's 4 y.
equalled 4 f. the distance from Aūsh to Andijān should be
about 16 m.; but it is 33 m. 1-3/4 fur. _i.e._ 50 _versts_.
Kostenko ii, 33.) I find Bābur's _yīghāch_ to vary from about
4 m. to nearly 8 m.
[57] _āqār sū_, the irrigation channels on which in Turkistān
all cultivation depends. Major-General Gérard writes, (Report
of the Pamir Boundary Commission, p. 6,) "Osh is a charming
little town, resembling Islāmābād in Kāshmīr,—everywhere the
same mass of running water, in small canals, bordered with
willow, poplar and mulberry." He saw the Āq Būrā, the _White
wolf_, mother of all these running waters, as a "bright,
stony, trout-stream;" Dr. Stein saw it as a "broad, tossing
river." (Buried Cities of Khotan, p. 45.) _Cf_. Réclus vi,
cap. Farghāna; Kostenko i, 104; Von Schwarz _s.nn._
[58] _Aūshnīng faẓīlatīdā khailī aḥādis̤ wārid dūr._ Second
W.-i-B. (I.O. 217 f. 2) _Faẓīlat-i-Aūsh aḥadis̤ wārid ast._
Mems. (p. 3) "The excellencies of Ush are celebrated even in
the sacred traditions." _Méms._ (i, 2) "_On cite beaucoup de
traditions qui célèbrent l'excellence de ce climat._" Aūsh may
be mentioned in the traditions on account of places of
pilgrimage near it; Bābur's meaning may be merely that its
excellencies are traditional. _Cf._ Ujfalvy ii, 172.
[59] Most travellers into Farghāna comment on Bābur's account
of it. One much discussed point is the position of the Barā
Koh. The personal observations of Ujfalvy and Schuyler led
them to accept its identification with the rocky ridge known
as the Takht-i-sulaimān. I venture to supplement this by the
suggestion that Bābur, by Barā Koh, did not mean the whole of
the rocky ridge, the name of which, Takht-i-sulaimān, an
ancient name, must have been known to him, but one only of its
four marked summits. Writing of the ridge Madame Ujfalvy says,
"_Il y a quatre sommets dont le plus élevé est le troisième
comptant par le nord_." Which summit in her sketch (p. 327) is
the third and highest is not certain, but one is so shewn that
it may be the third, may be the highest and, as being a peak,
can be described as symmetrical _i.e._ Bābur's _mauzūn_. For
this peak an appropriate name would be Barā Koh.
If the name Barā Koh could be restricted to a single peak of
the Takht-i-sulaimān ridge, a good deal of earlier confusion
would be cleared away, concerning which have written, amongst
others, Ritter (v, 432 and 732); Réclus (vi. 54); Schuyler
(ii, 43) and those to whom these three refer. For an excellent
account, graphic with pen and pencil, of Farghāna and of Aūsh
_see_ Madame Ujfalvy's _De Paris à Samarcande_ cap. v.
[60] _rūd._ This is a precise word since the Āq Būrā (the
White Wolf), in a relatively short distance, falls from the
Kūrdūn Pass, 13,400 ft. to Aūsh, 3040 ft. and thence to
Andijān, 1380 ft. _Cf._ Kostenko i, 104; Huntingdon in
Pumpelly's _Explorations in Turkistān_ p. 179 and the French
military map of 1904.
[61] Whether Bābur's words, _bāghāt_, _bāghlār_ and _bāghcha_
had separate significations, such as orchard, vineyard and
ordinary garden _i.e._ garden-plots of small size, I am not
able to say but what appears fairly clear is that when he
writes _bāghāt u bāghlār_ he means _all sorts of gardens_,
just as when he writes _begāt u beglār_, he means _begs of all
ranks_.
[62] Madame Ujfalvy has sketched a possible successor.
Schuyler found two mosques at the foot of Takht-i-sulaimān,
perhaps Bābur's Jauza Masjid.
[63] _aūl shāh-jū'īdīn sū qūyārlār._
[64] Ribbon Jasper, presumably.
[65] Kostenko (ii, 30), 71-3/4 versts _i.e._ 47 m. 4-1/2 fur.
by the Postal Road.
[66] Instead of their own kernels, the Second W.-i-B. stuffs
the apricots, in a fashion well known in India by _khūbānī_,
with almonds (_maghz-i badām_). The Turkī wording however
allows the return to the apricots of their own kernels and Mr.
Rickmers tells me that apricots so stuffed were often seen by
him in the Zar-afshān Valley. My husband has shewn me that
Niẕāmī in his Haft Paikar appears to refer to the other
fashion, that of inserting almonds:—
"I gave thee fruits from the garden of my heart,
Plump and sweet as honey in milk;
Their substance gave the lusciousness of figs,
In their hearts were the kernels of almonds."
[67] What this name represents is one of a considerable number
of points in the _Bābur-nāma_ I am unable to decide. _Kīyīk_
is a comprehensive name (_cf._ Shaw's Vocabulary); _āq kīyīk_
might mean _white sheep_ or _white deer_. It is rendered in
the Second W.-i-B., here, by _ahū-i-wāriq_ and on f. 4, by
_ahū-i-safed_. Both these names Mr. Erskine has translated by