The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)
"white deer," but he mentions that the first is said to mean
_argālī_ _i.e._ _ovis poli_, and refers to _Voyages de Pallas_
iv, 325.
[68] Concerning this much discussed word, Bābur's testimony is
of service. It seems to me that he uses it merely of those
settled in towns (villages) and without any reference to tribe
or nationality. I am not sure that he uses it always as a
noun; he writes of a _Sārt kīshī_, a Sārt person. His Asfara
Sārts may have been Turkī-speaking settled Turks and his
Marghīnānī ones Persian-speaking Tājiks. _Cf._ Shaw's
Vocabulary; _s.n._ Sārt; Schuyler i, 104 and note; Nalivkine's
_Histoire du Khanat de Khokand_ p. 45 n. Von Schwarz _s.n._;
Kostenko i, 287; Petzbold's _Turkistan_ p. 32.
[69] Shaikh Burhānu'd-dīn `Alī _Qīlīch_: b. _circa_ 530 AH.
(1135 AD.) d. 593 AH. (1197 AD.). _See_ Hamilton's _Hidāyat_.
[70] The direct distance, measured on the map, appears to be
about 65 m. but the road makes _détour_ round mountain spurs.
Mr. Erskine appended here, to the "_farsang_" of his Persian
source, a note concerning the reduction of Tatar and Indian
measures to English ones. It is rendered the less applicable
by the variability of the _yīghāch_, the equivalent for a
_farsang_ presumed by the Persian translator.
[71] Ḥai. MS. _Farsī-gū'ī_. The Elph. MS. and all those
examined of the W.-i-B. omit the word _Farsī_; some writing
_kohī_ (mountaineer) for _gū'ī_. I judge that Bābur at first
omitted the word _Farsī_, since it is entered in the Ḥai. MS.
above the word _gū'ī_. It would have been useful to Ritter
(vii, 733) and to Ujfalvy (ii, 176). _Cf._ Kostenko i, 287 on
the variety of languages spoken by Sārts.
[72] Of the Mirror Stone neither Fedtschenko nor Ujfalvy could
get news.
[73] Bābur distinguishes here between Tāshkīnt and
Shāhrukhiya. _Cf._ f. 2 and note to Fanākat.
[74] He left the hill-country above Sūkh in Muḥarram 910 AH.
(mid-June 1504 AD.).
[75] For a good account of Khujand _see_ Kostenko i, 346.
[76] Khujand to Andijān 187 m. 2 fur. (Kostenko ii, 29-31)
and, helped out by the time-table of the Transcaspian Railway,
from Khujand to Samarkand appears to be some 154 m. 5-1/4 fur.
[77] Both men are still honoured in Khujand (Kostenko i, 348).
For Khwāja Kamāl's Life and _Dīwān_, _see_ Rieu ii, 632 and
Ouseley's Persian Poets p. 192. _Cf._ f. 83b and note.
[78] _kūb artūq dūr_, perhaps brought to Hindūstān where Bābur
wrote the statement.
[79] Turkish arrow-flight, London, 1791, 482 yards.
[80] I have found the following forms of this name,—Ḥai. MS.,
M:nūgh:l; Pers. trans. and Mems., Myoghil; Ilminsky, M:tugh:l;
_Méms._ Mtoughuil; Réclus, Schuyler and Kostenko, Mogul Tau;
Nalivkine, "d'apres Fedtschenko," Mont Mogol; Fr. Map of 1904,
M. Muzbek. It is the western end of the Kurāma Range (Kīndīr
Tau), which comes out to the bed of the Sīr, is 26-2/3 miles
long and rises to 4000 ft. (Kostenko, i, 101). Von Schwarz
describes it as being quite bare; various writers ascribe
climatic evil to it.
[81] Pers. trans. _ahū-i-safed_. _Cf._ f. 3b note.
[82] These words translate into _Cervus marāl_, the Asiatic
Wapiti, and to this Bābur may apply them. Dictionaries explain
_marāl_ as meaning _hind_ or _doe_ but numerous books of
travel and Natural History show that it has wider application
as a generic name, _i.e._ deer. The two words _būghū_ and
_marāl_ appear to me to be used as _e.g._ drake and duck are
used. _Marāl_ and duck can both imply the female sex, but also
both are generic, perhaps primarily so. _Cf._ for further
mention of _būghū-marāl_ f. 219 and f. 276. For uses of the
word _marāl_, _see_ the writings _e.g._ of Atkinson, Kostenko
(iii, 69), Lyddeker, Littledale, Selous, Ronaldshay, Church
(Chinese Turkistan), Biddulph (Forsyth's Mission).
[83] _Cf._ f. 2 and note.
[84] Schuyler (ii, 3), 18 m.
[85] Ḥai. MS. _Hamesha bū deshttā yīl bār dūr. Marghīnānghā
kīm sharqī dūr, hamesha mūndīn yīl bārūr; Khujandghā kīm
gharībī dūr, dā'im mūndīn yīl kīlūr._
This is a puzzling passage. It seems to say that wind always
goes east and west from the steppe as from a generating
centre. E. and de C. have given it alternative directions,
east or west, but there is little point in saying this of wind
in a valley hemmed in on the north and the south. Bābur limits
his statement to the steppe lying in the contracted mouth of
the Farghāna valley (_pace_ Schuyler ii, 51) where special
climatic conditions exist such as (_a_) difference in
temperature on the two sides of the Khujand narrows and
currents resulting from this difference,—(_b_) the heating of
the narrows by sun-heat reflected from the Mogol-tau,—and
(_c_) the inrush of westerly wind over Mīrzā Rabāṯ. Local
knowledge only can guide a translator safely but Bābur's
directness of speech compels belief in the significance of his
words and this particularly when what he says is unexpected.
He calls the Hā Darwesh a whirling wind and this it still is.
Thinkable at least it is that a strong westerly current (the
prevailing wind of Farghāna) entering over Mīrzā Rabāṯ and
becoming, as it does become, the whirlwind of Hā Darwesh on
the hemmed-in steppe,—becoming so perhaps by conflict with the
hotter indraught through the Gates of Khujand—might force that
indraught back into the Khujand Narrows (in the way _e.g._
that one Nile in flood forces back the other), and at Khujand
create an easterly current. All the manuscripts agree in
writing to (_ghā_) Marghīnān and to (_ghā_) Khujand. It may be
observed that, looking at the map, it appears somewhat strange
that Bābur should take, for his wind objective, a place so
distant from his (defined) Hā Darwesh and seemingly so
screened by its near hills as is Marghīnān. But that westerly
winds are prevalent in Marghīnān is seen _e.g._ in
Middendorff's _Einblikke in den Farghāna Thal_ (p. 112). _Cf._
Réclus vi, 547; Schuyler ii, 51; Cahun's _Histoire du Khanat
de Khokand_ p. 28 and Sven Hedin's _Durch Asien's Wüsten s.n.
būrān_.
[86] _bādiy__a_; a word perhaps selected as punning on _bād_,
wind.
[87] _i.e._ Akhsī Village. This word is sometimes spelled
Akhsīkīs̤ but as the old name of the place was Akhsī-kīnt, it
may be conjectured at least that the _s̤ā'ī mas̤allas̤a_ of
Akhsīkīs̤ represents the three points due for the _nūn_ and
_tā_ of _kīnt_. Of those writing Akhsīkīt may be mentioned the
Ḥai. and Kehr's MSS. (the Elph. MS. here has a lacuna) the
_Z̤afar-nāma_ (Bib. Ind. i, 44) and Ibn Haukal (Ouseley p.
270); and of those writing the word with the _s̤ā'ī
muṣallas̤a_ (_i.e._ as Akhsīkīs̤), Yāqūt's Dict, i, 162,
Reinaud's Abū'l-feda I. ii, 225-6, Ilminsky (p. 5) departing
from his source, and I.O. Cat. (Ethé) No. 1029. It may be
observed that Ibn Haukal (Ouseley p. 280) writes Banākaṣ for
Banākat. For As̤īru'd-dīn _Akhsīkītī_, _see_ Rieu ii, 563;
Daulat Shāh (Browne) p. 121 and Ethé I.O. Cat. No. 1029.
[88] Measured on the French military map of 1904, this may be
80 kil. _i.e._ 50 miles.
[89] Concerning several difficult passages in the rest of
Bābur's account of Akhsī, _see_ Appendix A.
[90] The W.-i-B. here translates _būghū-marāl_ by _gazawn_ and
the same word is entered, under-line, in the Ḥai. MS. _Cf._ f.
3b and note and f. 4 and note.
[91] _postīn pesh b:r:h._ This obscure Persian phrase has been
taken in the following ways:—
(_a_) W.-i-B. I.O. 215 and 217 (_i.e._ both versions) reproduce
the phrase.
(_b_) W.-i-B. MS., quoted by Erskine, p. 6 note,
(_postīn-i mīsh burra_).
(_c_) Leyden's MS. Trs., a sheepskin mantle of five lambskins.
(_d_) Mems., Erskine, p. 6, a mantle of five lambskins.
(_e_) The Persian annotator of the Elph. MS., underlining _pesh_,
writes, _panj_, five.
(_f_) Klaproth (Archives, p. 109), _pustini pisch breh, d.h. gieb
den vorderen Pelz_.
(_g_) Kehr, p. 12 (Ilminsky p. 6) _postin bīsh b:r:h_.
(_h_) De. C, i, 9, _fourrure d'agneau de la première qualité_.
The "lambskins" of L. and E. carry on a notion of comfort
started by their having read _sayāh_, shelter, for Turkī
_sā'ī_, torrent-bed; de C. also lays stress on fur and warmth,
but would not the flowery border of a mountain stream prompt
rather a phrase bespeaking ornament and beauty than one
expressing warmth and textile softness? If the phrase might be
read as _postīn pesh perā_, what adorns the front of a coat,
or as _postīn pesh bar rah_, the fine front of the coat, the
phrase would recall the gay embroidered front of some leathern
postins.
[92] Var. _tabarkhūn_. The explanation best suiting its uses,
enumerated here, is Redhouse's second, the Red Willow. My
husband thinks it may be the Hyrcanian Willow.
[93] Steingass describes this as "an arrow without wing or
point" (barb?) and tapering at both ends; it may be the
practising arrow, _t`alīm aūqī_, often headless.
[94] _tabarraklūq._ Cf. f. 48b foot, for the same use of the
word.
[95] _yabrūju'ṣ-ṣannam._ The books referred to by Bābur may
well be the _Rauzatu'ṣ-ṣafā_ and the _Ḥabību's-siyār_, as
both mention the plant.
[96] The Turkī word _āyīq_ is explained by Redhouse as _awake_
and _alert_; and by Meninski and de Meynard as _sobered_ and
as _a return to right senses_. It may be used here as a
equivalent of _mihr_ in _mihr-giyāh_, the plant of love.
[97] Mr. Ney Elias has discussed the position of this group of
seven villages. (_Cf._ T. R. p. 180 n.) Arrowsmith's map
places it (as Iti-kint) approximately where Mr. Th. Radloff
describes seeing it _i.e._ on the Farghāna slope of the Kurāma
range. (_Cf. Réceuil d'Itinéraires_ p. 188.) Mr. Th. Radloff
came into Yītī-kīnt after crossing the Kīndīrlīk Pass from
Tāshkīnt and he enumerates the seven villages as traversed by
him before reaching the Sīr. It is hardly necessary to say
that the actual villages he names may not be those of Bābur's
Yītī-kint. Wherever the word is used in the _Bābur-nāma_ and
the _Tārīkh-i-rashīdī_, it appears from the context allowable
to accept Mr. Radloff's location but it should be borne in
mind that the name Yītī-kīnt (Seven villages or towns) might
be found as an occasional name of Altī-shahr (Six towns).
_See_ T.R. _s.n._ Altī-shahr.
[98] _kīshī_, person, here manifestly fighting men.
[99] Elph. MS. f. 2b; First W.-i-B. I.O. 215 f. 4b; Second
W.-i-B. I.O. 217 f. 4; Mems. p. 6; Ilminsky p. 7; _Méms._ i.
10.
The rulers whose affairs are chronicled at length in the
Farghāna Section of the B.N. are, (I) of Timūrid Turks,
(always styled Mīrzā), (_a_) the three Mīrān-shāhī brothers,
Aḥmad, Maḥmūd and `Umar Shaikh with their successors,
Bāī-sunghar, `Alī and Bābur; (_b_) the Bāī-qarā, Ḥusain of
Harāt: (II) of Chīngīz Khānīds, (always styled Khān,) (_a_)
the two Chaghatāī Mughūl brothers, Maḥmūd and Aḥmad; (_b_) the
Shaibānid Aūzbeg, Muḥammad Shaibānī (Shāh-i-bakht or Shaibāq
or Shāhī Beg).
In electing to use the name _Shaibānī_, I follow not only the
Ḥai. Codex but also Shaibānī's Boswell, Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ Mīrzā.
The Elph. MS. frequently uses _Shaibāq_ but its authority down
to f. 198 (Ḥai. MS. f. 243b) is not so great as it is after
that folio, because not till f. 198 is it a direct copy of
Bābur's own. It may be more correct to write "the Shaibānī