The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)
explains it as a fenced field of growing grain.
[392] _Cf._ f. 40. There it is located at one _yīghāch_ and
here at 3 _kurohs_ from the town.
[393] _ṯaur._ _Cf._ Zenker _s.n._ I understand it to lie, as
Khān Yūrtī did, in a curve of the river.
[394] 162 m. by rail.
[395] _Cf._ f. 3.
[396] _tīrīsīnī sūīūb._ The verb _sūīmāk_, to despoil, seems
to exclude the common plan of stoning the fruit. _Cf._ f. 3b,
_dānasīnī alīp_, taking out the stones.
[397] _Mīn Samarkandtā aūl (or auwal) aīchkāndā Bukhārā
chāghīrlār nī aīchār aīdīm._ These words have been understood
to refer to Bābur's initial drinking of wine but this reading
is negatived by his statement (f. 189) that he first drank
wine in Harāt in 912 AH. I understand his meaning to be that
the wine he drank in Samarkand was Bukhārā wine. The time
cannot have been earlier than 917 AH. The two words _aūl
aīchkāndā_, I read as parallel to _aūl_ (_bāghrī qarā_) (f.
280) 'that drinking,' 'that bird,' _i.e._ of those other
countries, not of Hindūstān where he wrote.
It may be noted that Bābur's word for wine, _chāghīr_, may not
always represent wine of the grape but may include wine of the
apple and pear (cider and perry), and other fruits. Cider, its
name seeming to be a descendant of _chāghīr_, was introduced
into England by Crusaders, its manufacture having been learned
from Turks in Palestine.
[398] 48 m. 3 fur. by way of the Aītmāk Pass (mod. Takhta
Qarachi), and, Réclus (vi, 256) Buz-gala-khāna, Goat-house.
[399] The name Aītmāk, to build, appears to be due to the
stone quarries on the range. The pass-head is 34 m. from
Samarkand and 3000 ft. above it. _See_ Kostenko ii, 115 and
Schuyler ii, 61 for details of the route.
[400] The description of this hall is difficult to translate.
Clavijo (Markham 124) throws light on the small recesses.
_Cf._ Z̤.N. i, 781 and 300 and Schuyler ii, 68.
[401] The Tāq-i-kisrī, below Bāghdād, is 105 ft. high, 84 ft.
span and 150 ft. in depth (Erskine).
[402] _Cf._ f. 46. Bābur does not mention that Tīmūr's father
was buried at Kesh. Clavijo (Markham p. 123) says it was
Tīmūr's first intention to be buried near his father, in Kesh.
[403] Abū'l-fidā (Reinaud II, ii, 21) says that Nasaf is the
Arabic and Nakhshab the local name for Qarshī. Ibn Haukal
(Ouseley p. 260) writes Nakhshab.
[404] This word has been translated _burial-place_ and
_cimetière_ but Qarshī means castle, or royal-residence. The
Z̤.N. (i, 111) says that Qarshī is an equivalent for Ar.
_qaṣr_, palace, and was so called, from one built there by
Qublāī Khān (d. 1294 AD.). Perhaps Bābur's word is connected
with Gūrkhān, the title of sovereigns in Khutan, and means
great or royal-house, _i.e._ palace.
[405] 94 m. 6-1/2 fur. via Jām (Kostenko i, 115.)
[406] See Appendix B.
[407] some 34 m. (Kostenko i, 196). Schuyler mentions that he
heard in Qarā-kūl a tradition that the district, in bye-gone
days, was fertilized from the Sīr.
[408] _Cf._ f. 45.
[409] By _abjad_ the words _`Abbās kasht_ yield 853. The date
of the murder was Ramẓān 9, 853 AH. (Oct. 27th. 1449 AD.).
[410] This couplet is quoted in the _Rauẓatu'ṣ-ṣafā_ (lith.
ed. vi, f. 234 foot) and in the Ḥ.S. ii, 44. It is said, in
the R.Ṣ. to be by Niẕāmī and to refer to the killing by
Shīrūya of his father, Khusrau Parwīz in 7 AH. (628 AD.). The
Ḥ.S. says that `Abdu'l-laṯīf constantly repeated the couplet,
after he had murdered his father. [See also Daulat Shāh
(Browne p. 356 and p. 366.) H.B.]
[411] By _abjad_, _Bābā Ḥusain kasht_ yields 854. The death
was on Rabi` I, 26, 854 AH. (May 9th. 1450 AD.). See R.Ṣ. vi,
235 for an account of this death.
[412] This overstates the time; dates shew 1 yr. 1 mth. and a
few days.
[413] _i.e._ The Khān of the Mughūls, Bābur's uncle.
[414] Elph. MS. _aūrmaghāīlār_, might not turn; Ḥai. and
Kehr's MSS. (_sar bā bād_) _bīrmāghāīlār_, might not give.
Both metaphors seem drawn from the protective habit of man and
beast of turning the back to a storm-wind.
[415] _i.e._ betwixt two waters, the Miyān-i-dū-āb of India.
Here, it is the most fertile triangle of land in Turkistān
(Réclus, vi, 199), enclosed by the eastern mountains, the
Nārīn and the Qarā-sū; Rabāṯik-aūrchīnī, its alternative name,
means Small Station sub-district. From the uses of _aūrchīn_ I
infer that it describes a district in which there is no
considerable head-quarters fort.
[416] _i.e._ his own, Qūtlūq-nigār Khānīm and hers,
Aīsān-daulat Begīm, with perhaps other widows of his father,
probably Shāh Sulṯān Begīm.
[417] _Cf._ f. 16 for almost verbatim statements.
[418] Blacksmith's Dale. _Ahangarān_ appears corrupted in
modern maps to _Angren_. _See_ Ḥ.S. ii, 293 for Khwānd-amīr's
wording of this episode.
[419] _Cf._ f. 1b and Kostenko i, 101.
[420] _i.e._ Khān Uncle (Mother's brother).
[421] n.w. of the Sang ferry over the Sīr.
[422] perhaps, messenger of good tidings.
[423] This man's family connections are interesting. He was
`Alī-shukr Beg _Bahārlū's_ grandson, nephew therefore of Pāshā
Begīm; through his son, Saif-`alī Beg, he was the grandfather
of Bairām Khān-i-khānān and thus the g.g.f. of `Abdu'r-raḥīm
Mīrzā, the translator of the Second _Wāqi`āt-i-bāburī_. _See_
Firishta lith. ed. p. 250.
[424] Bābur's (step-)grandmother, co-widow with Aīsān-daulat
of Yūnas Khān and mother of Aḥmad and Maḥmud _Chaghatāī_.
[425] Here the narrative picks up the thread of Khusrau Shāh's
affairs, dropped on f. 44.
[426] _mīng tūmān fulūs_, _i.e._ a thousand
sets-of-ten-thousand small copper coins. Mr. Erskine (Mems. p.
61) here has a note on coins. As here the _tūmān_ does not
seem to be a coin but a number, I do not reproduce it,
valuable as it is _per se_.
[427] _ārīqlār_; this the annotator of the Elph. MS. has
changed to _āshlīq_, provisions, corn.
[428] _Samān-chī_ may mean Keeper of the Goods. Tīngrī-bīrdī,
Theodore, is the purely Turkī form of the Khudāī-bīrdī,
already met with several times in the B.N.
[429] Bast (Bost) is on the left bank of the Halmand.
[430] _Cf._ f. 56b.
[431] known as _Kābulī_. He was a son of Abū-sa`īd and thus an
uncle of Bābur. He ruled Kābul and Ghaznī from a date previous
to his father's death in 873 AH. (perhaps from the time `Umar
Shaikh was _not_ sent there, in 870 AH. _See_ f. 6b) to his
death in 907 AH. Bābur was his virtual successor in Kābul, in
910 AH.
[432] Elph. MS. f. 42; W.-i-B. I.O. 215 f. 47b and 217 f. 38;
Mems. p. 63. Bābur here resumes his own story, interrupted on
f. 56.
[433] _aīsh achīlmādī_, a phrase recurring on f. 59b foot. It
appears to imply, of trust in Providence, what the English
"The way was not opened," does. _Cf._ f. 60b for another
example of trust, there clinching discussion whether to go or
not to go to Marghīnān.
[434] _i.e._ _Aḥrārī_. He had been dead some 10 years. The
despoilment of his family is mentioned on f. 23b.
[435] _fatratlār_, here those due to the deaths of Aḥmad and
Maḥmūd with their sequel of unstable government in Samarkand.
[436] _Aūghlāqchī_, the player of the kid-game, the
gray-wolfer. Yār-yīlāq will have gone with the rest of
Samarkand into `Alī's hands in Rajab 903 AH. (March 1498).
Contingent terms between him and Bābur will have been made;
Yūsuf may have recognized some show of right under them, for
allowing Bābur to occupy Yār-yīlāq.
[437] _i.e._ after 933 AH. _Cf._ f. 46b and note concerning
the Bikramāditya era. See index _s.n._ Aḥmad-i-yūsuf and Ḥ.S.
ii, 293.
[438] This plural, unless ironical, cannot be read as
honouring `Alī; Bābur uses the honorific plural most rarely
and specially, _e.g._ for saintly persons, for The Khān and
for elder women-kinsfolk.
[439] _bīr yārīm yīl._ Dates shew this to mean six months. It
appears a parallel expression to Pers. _hasht-yak_,
one-eighth.
[440] Ḥ.S. ii, 293, in place of these two quotations, has a
_misra`_,—_Na rāy ṣafar kardan u na rūy iqāmat_, (Nor resolve
to march, nor face to stay).
[441] _i.e._ in Samarkand.
[442] Point to point, some 145 m. but much further by the
road. Tang-āb seems likely to be one of the head-waters of
Khwāja Bikargān-water. Thence the route would be by
unfrequented hill-tracks, each man leading his second horse.
[443] _tūn yārīmī naqāra waqtīdā._ _Tūn yārīmī_ seems to mean
half-dark, twilight. Here it cannot mean mid-night since this
would imply a halt of twelve hours and Bābur says no halt was
made. The drum next following mid-day is the one beaten at
sunset.
[444] The voluntary prayer, offered when the sun has well
risen, fits the context.
[445] I understand that the obeisance was made in the
Gate-house, between the inner and outer doors.
[446] This seeming sobriquet may be due to eloquence or to
good looks.
[447] _qarā tīyāq._ _Cf._ f. 63 where black bludgeons are used
by a red rabble.
[448] He was head-man of his clan and again with Shaibānī in
909 AH. (Sh. N. Vambéry, p. 272). Erskine (p. 67) notes that
the Manghīts are the modern Nogais.
[449] _i.e._ in order to allow for the here very swift
current. The Ḥ.S. varying a good deal in details from the B.N.
gives the useful information that Aūzūn Ḥasan's men knew
nothing of the coming of the Tāshkīnt Mughūls.
[450] _Cf._ f. 4b and App. A. as to the position of Akhsī.
[451] _bārīnī qīrdīlār._ After this statement the five
exceptions are unexpected; Bābur's wording is somewhat
confused here.
[452] _i.e._ in Hindūstān.
[453] Taṃbal would be the competitor for the second place.
[454] 47 m. 4-1/2 fur.
[455] Bābur had been about two lunar years absent from Andijān
but his loss of rule was of under 16 months.
[456] A scribe's note entered here on the margin of the Ḥai.
MS. is to the effect that certain words are not in the noble
archetype (_nashka sharīf_); this supports other circumstances
which make for the opinion that this Codex is a direct copy of
Bābur's own MS. _See_ Index s.n. Ḥai. MS. and JRAS 1906, p.
87.
[457] _Musalmān_ here seems to indicate mental contrast with
Pagan practices or neglect of Musalmān observances amongst
Mughūls.
[458] _i.e._ of his advisors and himself.
[459] _Cf._ f. 34.
[460] _circa_ 933 AH. All the revolts chronicled by Bābur as
made against himself were under Mughūl leadership. Long Ḥasan,
Taṃbal and `Alī-dost were all Mughūls. The worst was that of
914 AH. (1518 AD.) in which Qulī _Chūnāq_ disgraced himself
(T.R. p. 357).
[461] _Chūnāq_ may indicate the loss of one ear.
[462] _Būqāq_, amongst other meanings, has that of _one who
lies in ambush_.
[463] This remark has interest because it shews that (as Bābur
planned to write more than is now with the B.N. MSS.) the
first gap in the book (914 AH. to 925 AH.) is accidental. His
own last illness is the probable cause of this gap. _Cf._ JRAS
1905, p. 744. Two other passages referring to unchronicled
matters are one about the Bāgh-i-ṣafā (f. 224), and one about
Sl. `Alī T̤aghāī (f. 242).
[464] I surmise Aīlāīsh to be a local name of the Qarā-daryā
affluent of the Sīr.
[465] _aīkī aūch naubat chāpqūlāb bāsh chīqārghalī qūīmās._ I
cannot feel so sure as Mr. E. and M. de C. were that the man's