The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)

correct. As the annals of 925 AH. begin in Muḥarram, with Bābur to the east of Bājaur, we surmise that the Chaghān-sarāī affair may have occurred on his way thither, and at the end of 924 AH. [790] _karanj_, _coriandrum sativum_. [791] Some 20-24 m. north of Jalālābād. The name Multa-kundī may refer to the Rām-kundī range, or mean Lower district, or mean Below Kundī. _See_ Biddulph's _Khowārī Dialect s.n_ under; R.'s _Notes_ p. 108 and _Dict. s.n. kund_; Masson, i, 209. [792] _i.e._ treat her corpse as that of an infidel (Erskine). [793] It would suit the position of this village if its name were found to link to the Turkī verb _chaqmāq_, to go out, because it lies in the mouth of a defile (Dahānah-i-koh, Mountain-mouth) through which the road for Kāfiristān goes out past the village. A not-infrequent explanation of the name to mean White-house, Āq-sarāī, may well be questioned. _Chaghān_, white, is Mughūlī and it would be less probable for a Mughūlī than for a Turkī name to establish itself. Another explanation may lie in the tribe name Chugānī. The two forms _chaghān_ and _chaghār_ may well be due to the common local interchange in speech of _n_ with _r_. (For Dahānah-i-koh _see_ [some] maps and Raverty's Bājaur routes.) [794] Nīmchas, presumably,—half-bred in custom, perhaps in blood—; and not improbably, converted Kāfirs. It is useful to remember that Kāfiristān was once bounded, west and south, by the Bārān-water. [795] Kāfir wine is mostly poor, thin and, even so, usually diluted with water. When kept two or three years, however, it becomes clear and sometimes strong. Sir G. S. Robertson never saw a Kāfir drunk (_Kāfirs of the Hindū-kush_, p. 591). [796] Kāma might have classed better under Nīngnahār of which it was a dependency. [797] _i.e._ water-of-Nijr; so too, Badr-aū and Tag-aū. Nijr-aū has seven-valleys (JASB 1838 p. 329 and Burnes' _Report X_). Sayyid Ghulām-i-muḥammad mentions that Bābur established a frontier-post between Nijr-aū and Kāfiristān which in his own day was still maintained. He was an envoy of Warren Hastings to Tīmūr Shāh _Sadozī_ (R.'s _Notes_ p. 36 and p. 142). [798] _Kāfirwash_; they were Kafirs converted to Muḥammadanism. [799] _Archa_, if not inclusive, meaning conifer, may represent _juniperus excelsa_, this being the common local conifer. The other trees of the list are _pinus Gerardiana_ (Brandis, p. 690), _quercus bīlūt_, the holm-oak, and _pistacia mutica_ or _khanjak_, a tree yielding mastic. [800] _rūba-i-parwān_, _pteromys inornatus_, the large, red flying-squirrel (Blandford's _Fauna of British India_, _Mammalia_, p. 363). [801] The _giz_ is a short-flight arrow used for shooting small birds _etc._ Descending flights of squirrels have been ascertained as 60 yards, one, a record, of 80 (Blandford). [802] Apparently _tetrogallus himalayensis_, the Himalayan snow-cock (Blandford, iv, 143).Burnes (_Cabool_ p. 163) describes the _kabg-i-darī_ as the _rara avis_ of the Kābul Kohistān, somewhat less than a turkey, and of the _chikor_ (partridge) species. It was procured for him first in Ghūr-bund, but, when snow has fallen, it could be had nearer Kābul. Bābur's _bū-qalamūn_ may have come into his vocabulary, either as a survival direct from Greek occupation of Kābul and Panj-āb, or through Arabic writings. PRGS 1879 p. 251, Kaye's art. and JASB 1838 p. 863, Hodgson's art. [803] Bartavelle's _Greek-partridge_, _tetrao-_ or _perdrix-rufus_ [f. 279 and Mems. p. 320 n.]. [804] A similar story is told of some fields near Whitby:—"These wild geese, which in winter fly in great flocks to the lakes and rivers unfrozen in the southern parts, to the great amazement of every-one, fall suddenly down upon the ground when they are in flight over certain neighbouring fields thereabouts; a relation I should not have made, if I had not received it from several credible men." See _Notes to Marmion_ p. xlvi (Erskine); Scott's _Poems_, Black's ed. 1880, vii, 104. [805] Are we to infer from this that the musk-rat (_Crocidura cœrulea_, Lydekker, p. 626) was not so common in Hindūstān in the age of Bābur as it has now become? He was not a careless observer (Erskine). [806] Index _s.n._ _Bābur-nāma_, date of composition; also f. 131. [807] In the absence of examples of _bund_ to mean _kūtal_, and the presence "in those countries" of many in which _bund_ means _koh_, it looks as though a clerical error had here written _kūtal_ for _koh_. But on the other hand, the wording of the next passage shows just the confusion an author's unrevised draft might shew if a place were, as this is, both a _tūmān_ and a _kūtal_ (_i.e._ a steady rise to a traverse). My impression is that the name Ghūr-bund applies to the embanking spur at the head of the valley-_tūmān_, across which roads lead to Ghūrī and Ghūr (PRGS 1879, Maps; Leech's Report VII; and Wood's VI). [808] So too when, because of them, Leech and Lord turned back, _re infectâ_. [809] It will be noticed that these villages are not classed in any _tūmān_; they include places "rich without parallel" in agricultural products, and level lands on which towns have risen and fallen, one being Alexandria ad Caucasum. They cannot have been part of the unremunerative Ghūr-bund _tūmān_; from their place of mention in Bābur's list of _tūmāns_, they may have been part of the Kābul _tūmān_ (f. 178), as was Koh-dāman (Burnes' _Cabool_ p. 154; Haughton's _Charikar_ p. 73; and Cunningham's _Ancient History_, i, 18). [810] Dūr-namāī, seen from afar (Masson, iii, 152) is not marked on the Survey Maps; Masson, Vigne and Haughton locate it. Bābur's "head" and "foot" here indicate status and not location. [811] Mems. p. 146 and _Méms_, i, 297, Arabs' encampment and _Cellule des Arabes_. Perhaps the name may refer to uses of the level land and good pasture by horse _qāfilas_, since _Kurra_ is written with _tashdīd_ in the Ḥaidarābād Codex, as in _kurra-tāz_, a horse-breaker. Or the _tāziyān_ may be the fruit of a legend, commonly told, that the saint of the neighbouring Running-sands was an Arabian. [812] Presumably this is the grass of the millet, the growth before the ear, on which grazing is allowed (Elphinstone, i, 400; Burnes, p. 237). [813] Wood, p. 115; Masson, iii, 167; Burnes, p. 157 and JASB 1838 p. 324 with illustration; Vigne, pp. 219, 223; Lord, JASB 1838 p. 537; _Cathay and the way thither_, Hakluyt Society vol. I. p. xx, para. 49; _History of Musical Sands_, C. Carus-Wilson. [814] _West_ might be more exact, since some of the group are a little north, others a little south of the latitude of Kābul. [815] Affluents and not true sources in some cases (Col. Holdich's _Gates of India_, _s.n._ Koh-i-bābā; and PRGS 1879, maps pp. 80 and 160). [816] The Pamghān range. These are the villages every traveller celebrates. Masson's and Vigne's illustrations depict them well. [817] _Cercis siliquastrum_, the Judas-tree. Even in 1842 it was sparingly found near Kābul, adorning a few tombs, one Bābur's own. It had been brought from Sih-yārān where, as also at Chārikār, (Chār-yak-kār) it was still abundant and still a gorgeous sight. It is there a tree, as at Kew, and not a bush, as in most English gardens (Masson, ii, 9; Elphinstone, i, 194; and for the tree near Harāt, f. 191 n. to Ṣafar). [818] Khwāja Maudūd of Chisht, Khwāja Khāwand Sa`īd and the Khwāja of the Running-sands (Elph. MS. f. 104b, marginal note). [819] The yellow-flowered plant is not _cercis siliquastrum_ but one called _mahaka_(?) in Persian, a shrubby plant with pea-like blossoms, common in the plains of Persia, Bilūchistān and Kābul (Masson, iii, 9 and Vigne, p. 216). [820] The numerical value of these words gives 925 (Erskine). F. 246b _et seq._ for the expedition. [821] f. 178. I.O. MS. No. 724, _Haft-iqlīm_ f. 135 (Ethé, p. 402); Rieu, pp. 21_a_, 1058_b_. [822] of Afghan habit. The same term is applied (f. 139b) to the Zurmutīs; it may be explained in both places by Bābur's statement that Zurmutīs grow corn, but do not cultivate gardens or orchards. [823] _aīkān dūr._ Sabuk-tīgīn, d. 387 AH.-997 AD., was the father of Sl. Maḥmūd _Ghaznawī_, d. 421 AH.-1030 AD. [824] d. 602 AH.-1206 AD. [825] Some Musalmāns fast through the months of Rajab, Sha`bān and Ramẓān; Muḥammadans fast only by day; the night is often given to feasting (Erskine). [826] The Garden; the tombs of more eminent Muṣalmāns are generally in gardens (Erskine). See Vigne's illustrations, pp. 133, 266. [827] _i.e._ the year now in writing. The account of the expedition, Bābur's first into Hindūstān, begins on f. 145. [828] _i.e._ the countries groupable as Khurāsān. [829] For picture and account of the dam, _see_ Vigne, pp. 138, 202. [830] f. 295b. [831] The legend is told in numerous books with varying location of the spring. One narrator, Zakarīyā _Qazwīnī_, reverses the parts, making Jāī-pāl employ the ruse; hence Leyden's note (Mems. p. 150; E. and D.'s _History of India_ ii, 20, 182 and iv, 162; for historical information, R.'s _Notes_ p. 320). The date of the events is shortly after 378 AH.-988 AD. [832] R.'s _Notes_ _s.n._ Zurmut. [833] The question of the origin of the Farmūlī has been written of by several writers; perhaps they were Turks of Persia, Turks and Tājīks. [834] This completes the list of the 14 _tūmāns_ of Kābul, _viz._ Nīngnahār, `Alī-shang, Alangār, Mandrāwar, Kūnār-with-Nūr-gal, Nijr-aū, Panjhīr, Ghūr-bund, Koh-dāman (with Kohistān?), Luhūgur (of the Kābul _tūmān_), Ghaznī, Zurmut, Farmūl and Bangash. [835] Between Nijr-aū and Tag-aū (Masson, iii, 165). Mr. Erskine notes that Bābur reckoned it in the hot climate but that the change of climate takes place further east, between `Alī-shang and Aūzbīn (_i.e._ the valley next eastwards from Tag-aū). [836] _būghūzlārīghā furṣat būlmās_; _i.e._ to kill them in the lawful manner, while pronouncing the _Bi'smi'llāh_. [837] This completes the _bulūks_ of Kābul _viz._ Badr-aū (Tag-aū), Nūr-valley, Chaghān-sarāī, Kāma and Ālā-sāī. [838] The _rūpī_ being equal to 2-1/2 _shāhrukhīs_, the _shāhrukhī_ may be taken at 10_d._ thus making the total revenue only £33,333 6_s._ 8_d._ See _Āyīn-i-akbarī_ ii, 169 (Erskine). [839] _sic_ in all B. N. MSS. Most maps print Khost. Muḥ. Ṣāliḥ says of Khwāst, "Who sees it, would call it a Hell" (Vambéry, p. 361). [840] Bābur's statement about this fodder is not easy to translate; he must have seen grass grow in tufts, and must have known the Persian word _būta_ (bush). Perhaps _kāh_ should be read to mean plant, not grass. Would Wood's _bootr_ fit in, a small furze bush, very plentiful near Bāmiān? (Wood's Report VI, p. 23; and for regional grasses, Aitchison's _Botany of the Afghān Delimitation Commission_, p. 122.) [841] _nāzū_, perhaps _cupressus torulosa_ (Brandis, p.693). [842] f. 276. [843] A laborious geographical note of Mr. Erskine's is here regretfully left behind, as now needless (Mems. p. 152). [844] Here, mainly wild-sheep and wild-goats, including _mār-khẉār_. [845] Perhaps, no conifers; perhaps none of those of the contrasted hill-tract.