The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)
_gosha-gīr_ (f. 107) was given.
[623] Vullers, _clava sex foliis_.
[624] Zenker, _casse-tête_. _Kīstin_ would seem to be formed
from the root, _kīs_, cutting, but M. de C. describes it as a
ball attached by a strap or chain to a handle. _Sanglākh_, a
sort of mace (_gurz_).
[625] The _Rauzatu'ṣ-ṣafā_ states that The Khāns left Tāshkīnt
on Muḥarram 15th (July 21st. 1502), in order to restore Bābur
and expel Taṃbal (Erskine).
[626] lit. saw the count (_dīm_). _Cf._ f. 100 and note
concerning the count. Using a Persian substitute, the
Kehr-Ilminsky text writes _san_ (_kūrdīlār_).
[627] Elph. MS. _aṃbārchī_, steward, for Itārchī, a
tribal-name. The 'Mīrzā' and the rank of the army-begs are
against supposing a steward in command. Here and just above,
the texts write Mīrzā-i-Itārchī and Mīrzā-i-Dūghlāt, thus
suggesting that in names not ending with a vowel, the _iẓāfat_
is required for exact transliteration, _e.g._
Muḥammad-i-dūghlāt.
[628] _Alāī-līq aūrchīnī._ I understand the march to have been
along the northern slope of the Little Alāī, south of Aūsh.
[629] As of Ālmālīgh and Ālmātū (fol. 2b) Bābur reports a
tradition with caution. The name Aūz-kīnt may be read to mean
'Own village,' independent, as _Aūz-beg_, Own-beg.
[630] He would be one of the hereditary Khwājas of Andijān (f.
16).
[631] For several battle-cries _see_ Th. Radloff's _Réceuils_
etc. p. 322.
[632] _qāshqa ātlīq kīshī._ For a parallel phrase _see_ f.
92b.
[633] Bābur does not explain how the imbroglio was cleared up;
there must have been a dramatic moment when this happened.
[634] _Darwāna_ (a trap-door in a roof) has the variant
_dur-dāna_, a single pearl; _tūqqāī_ perhaps implies
relationship; _lūlū_ is a pearl, a wild cow etc.
[635] Ḥai. MS. _sāīrt kīshī_. Muḥ. `Alī is likely to be the
librarian (_cf._ index _s.n._).
[636] Elph. MS. _ramāqgha u tūr-gā_; Ḥai. MS. _tārtātgha u
tūr-gā_. Ilminsky gives no help, varying much here from the
true text. The archetype of both MSS. must have been difficult
to read.
[637] The Ḥai. MS.'s pointing allows the sobriquet to mean
'Butterfly.' His family lent itself to nick-names; in it three
brothers were known respectively as Fat or Lubberly, Fool and,
perhaps, Butterfly.
[638] _bīrk ārīgh_, doubly strong by its trench and its
current.
[639] I understand that time failed to set the standard in its
usual rest. E. and de C. have understood that the yak-tail
(_qūtās tūghī_ f. 100) was apart from the staff and that time
failed to adjust the two parts. The _tūgh_ however is the
whole standard; moreover if the tail were ever taken off at
night from the staff, it would hardly be so treated in a mere
bivouac.
[640] _aīshīklīk tūrlūq_, as on f. 113. I understand this to
mean that the two men were as far from their followers as
sentries at a Gate are posted outside the Gate.
[641] So too 'Piero of Cosimo' and 'Lorenzo of Piero of the
Medici.' _Cf._ the names of five men on f. 114.
[642] _shashtīm._ The _shasht_ (thumb) in archery is the
thumb-shield used on the left hand, as the _zih-gīr_
(string-grip), the archer's ring, is on the right-hand thumb.
It is useful to remember, when reading accounts of shooting
with the Turkī (Turkish) bow, that the arrows (_aūq_) had
notches so gripping the string that they kept in place until
released with the string.
[643] _sar-i-sabz gosha gīr._ The _gosha-gīr_ is an implement
for remedying the warp of a bow-tip and string-notch. For
further particulars _see_ Appendix C.
The term _sar-i-sabz_, lit. green-head, occurs in the sense of
'quite young' or 'new,' in the proverb, 'The red tongue loses
the green head,' quoted in the _T̤abaqāt-i-akbarī_ account of
Bābur's death. Applied here, it points to the _gosha-gīr_ as
part of the recent gift made by Aḥmad to Bābur.
[644] _Taṃbal aīkāndūr._ By this tense I understand that Bābur
was not at first sure of the identity of the pseudo-sentries,
partly because of their distance, partly, it may be presumed,
because of concealment of identity by armour.
[645] _dūwulgha būrkī_; _i.e._ the soft cap worn under the
iron helm.
[646] Nūyān's sword dealt the blow (f. 97b). Gul-badan also
tells the story (f. 77) à propos of a similar incident in
Humāyūn's career. Bābur repeats the story on f. 234.
[647] _yāldāghlāmāī dūr aīdīm._ The Second W.-i-B. has taken
this as from _yāltūrmāq_, to cause to glisten, and adds the
gloss that the sword was rusty (I.O. 217 f. 70b).
[648] The text here seems to say that the three men were on
foot, but this is negatived by the context.
[649] Amongst the various uses of the verb _tūshmak_, to
descend in any way, the B.N. does not allow of 'falling
(death) in battle.' When I made the index of the Ḥai. MS.
facsimile, this was not known to me; I therefore erroneously
entered the men enumerated here as killed at this time.
[650] Elph. MS. _yakhshī_. Zenker explains _bakhshī_
(pay-master) as meaning also a Court-physician.
[651] The Ḥai. Elph. and Kehr's MS. all have _pūchqāq tāqmāq_
or it may be _pūḥqāq tāqmāq_. T. _būkhāq_ means bandage,
_pūchāq_, rind of fruit, but the word clear in the three Turkī
MSS. means, skin of a fox's leg.
[652] The _daryā_ here mentioned seems to be the Kāsān-water;
the route taken from Bīshkhārān to Pāp is shewn on the Fr. map
to lead past modern Tūpa-qūrghān. Pāp is not marked, but was,
I think, at the cross-roads east of Touss (Karnān).
[653] Presumably Jahāngīr's.
[654] Here his father was killed (f. 6b). _Cf._ App. A.
[655] `Alī-dost's son (f. 79b).
[656] The sobriquet _Khīz_ may mean Leaper, or Impetuous.
[657] _kūīlāk_, syn. _kūnglāk_, a shirt not opening at the
breast. It will have been a short garment since the under-vest
was visible.
[658] _i.e._ when Bābur was writing in Hindūstān. Exactly at
what date he made this entry is not sure. `Alī was in Koel in
933 AH. (f. 315) and then taken prisoner, but Bābur does not
say he was killed,—as he well might say of a marked man, and,
as the captor was himself taken shortly after, `Alī may have
been released, and may have been in Koel again. So that the
statement 'now in Koel' may refer to a time later than his
capture. The interest of the point is in its relation to the
date of composition of the _Bābur-nāma_.
No record of `Alī's bravery in Aūsh has been preserved. The
reference here made to it may indicate something attempted in
908 AH. after Bābur's adventure in Karnān (f. 118b) or in 909
AH. from Sūkh. _Cf._ Translator's note f. 118b.
[659] _aūpchīnlīk._ Vambéry, _gepanzert_; Shaw, four
horse-shoes and their nails; Steingass, _aūpcha-khāna_, a
guard-house.
[660] Sang is a ferry-station (Kostenko, i, 213). Pāp may well
have been regretted (f. 109b and f. 112b)! The well-marked
features of the French map of 1904 allows Bābur's flight to be
followed.
[661] In the Turkī text this saying is in Persian; in the
Kehr-Ilminsky, in Turkī, as though it had gone over with its
Persian context of the W.-i-B. from which the K.-I. text here
is believed to be a translation.
[662] _Cf._ f. 96b and Fr. Map for route over the Kīndīr-tau.
[663] This account of Muḥ. Bāqir reads like one given later to
Bābur; he may have had some part in Bābur's rescue (_cf._
Translator's Note to f. 118b).
[664] Perhaps reeds for a raft. Sh. N. p. 258, _Sāl aūchūn bār
qāmīsh_, reeds are there also for rafts.
[665] Here the Turkī text breaks off, as it might through loss
of pages, causing a blank of narrative extending over some 16
months. _Cf._ App. D. for a passage, supposedly spurious,
found with the Ḥaidarābād Codex and the Kehr-Ilminsky text,
purporting to tell how Bābur was rescued from the risk in
which the lacuna here leaves him.
[666] As in the Farghāna Section, so here, reliance is on the
Elphinstone and Ḥaidarābād MSS. The Kehr-Ilminsky text still
appears to be a retranslation from the _Wāqi`āt-i-bāburī_ and
verbally departs much from the true text; moreover, in this
Section it has been helped out, where its archetype was
illegible or has lost fragmentary passages, from the Leyden
and Erskine _Memoirs_. It may be mentioned, as between the
First and the Second _Wāqi`āt-i-bāburī_, that several obscure
passages in this Section are more explicit in the First
(Pāyanda-ḥasan's) than in its successor (`Abdu-r-raḥīm's).
[667] Elph. MS. f. 90b; W.-i-B. I.O. 215, f. 96b and 217, f.
79; Mems. p. 127. "In 1504 AD. Ferdinand the Catholic drove
the French out of Naples" (Erskine). In England, Henry VII was
pushing forward a commercial treaty, the _Intercursus malus_,
with the Flemings and growing in wealth by the exactions of
Empson and Dudley.
[668] presumably the pastures of the "Ilak" Valley. The route
from Sūkh would be over the `Alā`u'd-dīn-pass, into the
Qīzīl-sū valley, down to Āb-i-garm and on to the Aīlāq-valley,
Khwāja `Imād, the Kāfirnigān, Qabādīān, and Aūbāj on the Amū.
See T.R. p. 175 and Farghāna Section, p. 184, as to the
character of the journey.
[669] Amongst the Turkī tribes, the time of first applying the
razor to the face is celebrated by a great entertainment.
Bābur's miserable circumstances would not admit of this
(Erskine).
The text is ambiguous here, reading either that Sūkh was left
or that Aīlāq-yīlāq was reached in Muḥarram. As the birthday
was on the 8th, the journey very arduous and, for a party
mostly on foot, slow, it seems safest to suppose that the
start was made from Sūkh at the end of 909 AH. and not in
Muḥarram, 910 AH.
[670] _chārūq_, rough boots of untanned leather, formed like a
moccasin with the lower leather drawn up round the foot; they
are worn by Khīrghīz mountaineers and caravan-men on journeys
(Shaw).
[671] _chāpān_, the ordinary garment of Central Asia (Shaw).
[672] The _ālāchūq_, a tent of flexible poles, covered with
felt, may be the _khargāh_ (kibitka); Persian _chādar_ seems
to represent Turkī _āq awī_, white house.
[673] _i.e._ with Khusrau's power shaken by Aūzbeg attack,
made in the winter of 909 AH. (_Shaibānī-nāma_ cap. lviii).
[674] Cf. ff. 81 and 81b. The armourer's station was low for
an envoy to Bābur, the superior in birth of the armourer's
master.
[675] var. Chaqānīān and Saghānīān. The name formerly
described the whole of the Ḥiṣār territory (Erskine).
[676] the preacher by whom the _Khuṯba_ is read (Erskine).
[677] _bī bāqī_ or _bī Bāqī_; perhaps a play of words with the
double meaning expressed in the above translation.
[678] Amongst these were widows and children of Bābur's uncle,
Maḥmūd (f. 27b).
[679] _aūghūl._ As being the son of Khusrau's sister, Aḥmad
was nephew to Bāqī; there may be in the text a scribe's slip
from one _aūghūl_ to another, and the real statement be that
Aḥmad was the son of Bāqī's son, Muḥ. Qāsim, which would
account for his name Aḥmad-i-qāsim.
[680] Cf. f. 67.
[681] Bābur's loss of rule in Farghāna and Samarkand.
[682] about 7 miles south of Aībak, on the road to Sar-i-tāgh
(mountain-head, Erskine).
[683] _viz._ the respective fathers, Maḥmūd and `Umar Shaikh.
The arrangement was made in 895 AH. (1490 AD.).
[684] _Gulistān_ cap. i, story 3. Part of this quotation is
used again on f. 183.