The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)
in the inscription (pp. 99, 106).
[1202] This may be the Muṣalla (Yate, p. 98).
[1203] This place is located by the Ḥ.S. at 5 _farsakh_ from
Herī (de Meynard at 25 _kilomètres_). It appears to be rather
an abyss or fissure than a pond, a crack from the sides of
which water trickles into a small bason in which dwells a
mysterious fish, the beholding of which allows the attainment
of desires. The story recalls Wordsworth's undying fish of
Bow-scale Tarn. (_Cf._ Ḥ.S. Bomb. ed. ii, _Khatmat_ p. 20 and
de Meynard, _Journal Asiatique_ xvi, 480 and note.)
[1204] This is on maps to the north of Herī.
[1205] d. 232 AH. (847 AD.). _See_ Yate, p. 93.
[1206] Imām Fakhru'd-dīn _Raẓī_ (de Meynard, _Journal
Asiatique_ xvi, 481).
[1207] d. 861 AH.-1457 AD. Guhār-shād was the wife of Tīmūr's
son Shāhrukh. _See_ Mohan Lall, p. 257 and Yate, p. 98.
[1208] This Marigold-garden may be named after
Hārūnu'r-rashīd's wife Zubaida.
[1209] This will be the place n. of Herī from which Maulānā
Jalālu'd-dīn _Pūrānī_ (d. 862 AH.) took his cognomen, as also
Shaikh Jamālu'd-dīn Abū-sa`īd _Pūrān_ (f. 206) who was visited
there by Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā, ill-treated by Shaibānī (f. 206),
left Herī for Qandahār, and there died, through the fall of a
roof, in 921 AH. (Ḥ.S. iii, 345; _Khazīnatu'l-asfiya_ ii,
321).
[1210] His tomb is dated 35 or 37 AH. (656 or 658 AD.; Yate,
p. 94).
[1211] Mālān was a name of the Herī-rūd (_Journal Asiatique_
xvi, 476, 511; Mohan Lall, p. 279; Ferrier, p. 261; _etc._).
[1212] Yate, p. 94.
[1213] The position of this building between the Khūsh and
Qībchāq Gates (de Meynard, l.c. p. 475) is the probable
explanation of the variant, noted just below, of Kushk for
Khūsh as the name of the Gate. The _Tārīkh-i-rashīdī_ (p.
429), mentions this kiosk in its list of the noted ones of the
world.
[1214] var. Kushk (de Meynard, l.c. p. 472).
[1215] The reference here is, presumably, to Bābur's own
losses of Samarkand and Andijān.
[1216] Ākā or Āgā is used of elder relations; a _yīnkā_ or
_yīngā_ is the wife of an uncle or elder brother; here it
represents the widow of Bābur's uncle Aḥmad _Mīrān-shāhī_.
From it is formed the word _yīnkālīk_, levirate.
[1217] The almshouse or convent was founded here in Tīmūr's
reign (de Meynard, l.c. p. 500).
[1218] _i.e._ No smoke without fire.
[1219] This name may be due to the splashing of water. A
Langar which may be that of Mīr Ghiyās̤, is shewn in maps in
the Bām valley; from it into the Herī-rūd valley Bābur's route
may well have been the track from that Langar which, passing
the villages on the southern border of Gharjistān, goes to
Ahangarān.
[1220] This escape ought to have been included in the list of
Bābur's transportations from risk to safety given in my note
to f. 96.
[1221] The right and wrong roads are shewn by the Indian
Survey and French Military maps. The right road turns off from
the wrong one, at Daulat-yār, to the right, and mounts
diagonally along the south rampart of the Herī-rūd valley, to
the Zirrīn-pass, which lies above the Bakkak-pass and carries
the regular road for Yaka-aūlāng. It must be said, however,
that we are not told whether Yaka-aūlāng was Qāsim Beg's
objective; the direct road for Kābul from the Herī-rūd valley
is not over the Zirrīn-pass but goes from Daulat-yār by
"Āq-zarat", and the southern flank of Koh-i-bābā (bābār) to
the Unai-pass (Holdich's _Gates of India_ p. 262).
[1222] _circa_ Feb. 14th 1507, Bābur's 24th birthday.
[1223] The Hazāras appear to have been wintering outside their
own valley, on the Ghūr-bund road, in wait for travellers
[_cf._ T.R. p. 197]. They have been perennial highwaymen on
the only pass to the north not closed entirely in winter.
[1224] The Ghūr-bund valley is open in this part; the Hazāras
may have been posted on the naze near the narrows leading into
the Janglīk and their own side valleys.
[1225] Although the verses following here in the text are with
the Turkī Codices, doubt cannot but be felt as to their
authenticity. They do not fit verbally to the sentence they
follow; they are a unique departure from Bābur's plain prose
narrative and nothing in the small Hazāra affair shews cause
for such departure; they differ from his usual topics in their
bombast and comment on his men (_cf._ f. 194 for comment on
shirking begs). They appear in the 2nd Persian translation
(217 f. 134) in Turkī followed by a prose Persian rendering
(_khalāṣa_). They are not with the 1st Pers. trs. (215 f.
159), the text of which runs on with a plain prose account
suiting the size of the affair, as follows:—"The braves,
seeing their (the Hazāras) good soldiering, had stopped
surprised; wishing to hurry them I went swiftly past them,
shouting 'Move on! move on!' They paid me no attention. When,
in order to help, I myself attacked, dismounting and going up
the hill, they shewed courage and emulation in following.
Getting to the top of the pass, we drove that band off,
killing many, capturing others, making their families prisoner
and plundering their goods." This is followed by "I myself
collected" _etc._ as in the Turkī text after the verse. It
will be seen that the above extract is not a translation of
the verse; no translator or even summariser would be likely to
omit so much of his original. It is just a suitably plain
account of a trivial matter.
[1226] _Gulistān_ Cap. I. Story 4.
[1227] Bābur seems to have left the Ghūr-bund valley, perhaps
pursuing the Hazāras towards Janglīk, and to have come "by
ridge and valley" back into it for Ushtur-shahr. I have not
located Tīmūr Beg's Langar. As has been noted already (_q.v._
index) the Ghūr-bund narrows are at the lower end of the
valley; they have been surmised to be the fissured rampart of
an ancient lake.
[1228] Here this may represent a guard- or toll-house (Index
_s.n._).
[1229] As _yūrūn_ is a patch, the bearer of the sobriquet
might be Black Aḥmad the repairing-tailor.
[1230] _Second Afghān War_, Map of Kābul and its environs.
[1231] I understand that the arrival undiscovered was a result
of riding in single-file and thus shewing no black mass.
[1232] or _gharbīcha_, which Mr. Erskine explains to be the
four plates of mail, made to cover the back, front and sides;
the _jība_ would thus be the wadded under-coat to which they
are attached.
[1233] This prayer is composed of extracts from the Qorān
(_Méms_, i, 454 note); it is reproduced as it stands in Mr.
Erskine's wording (p. 216).
[1234] Bābur's reference may well be to Sanjar's birth as well
as to his being the holder of Nīngnahār. Sanjar's father had
been thought worthy to mate with one of the six Badakhshī
begīms whose line traced back to Alexander (T. R. p. 107); and
his father was a Barlās, seemingly of high family.
[1235] It may be inferred that what was done was for the
protection of the two women.
[1236] Not a bad case could have been made out for now putting
a Tīmūrid in Bābur's place in Kābul; _viz._ that he was
believed captive in Herī and that Mīrzā Khān was an effective
_locum tenens_ against the Arghūns. Haidar sets down what in
his eyes pleaded excuse for his father Muḥ. Ḥusain (T.R. p.
198).
[1237] _qūsh_, not even a little plough-land being given
(_chand qulba dihya_, 215 f. 162).
[1238] They were sons of Sl. Aḥmad Khān _Chaghatāī_.
[1239] f. 160.
[1240] Ḥaidar's opinion of Bābur at this crisis is of the more
account that his own father was one of the rebels let go to
the mercy of the "avenging servitor". When he writes of Bābur,
as being, at a time so provoking, gay, generous, affectionate,
simple and gentle, he sets before us insight and temper in
tune with Kipling's "If...."
[1241] Bābur's distinction, made here and elsewhere, between
Chaghatāī and Mughūl touches the old topic of the right or
wrong of the term "Mughūl dynasty". What he, as also Ḥaidar,
allows said is that if Bābur were to describe his mother in
tribal terms, he would say she was half-Chaghatāī,
half-Mughūl; and that if he so described himself, he would say
he was half-Tīmūrid-Turk, half-Chaghatāī. He might have called
the dynasty he founded in India Turkī, might have called it
Tīmūriya; he would never have called it Mughūl, after his
maternal grandmother.
Ḥaidar, with imperfect classification, divides Chīngīz Khān's
"Mughūl horde" into Mughūls and Chaghatāīs and of this
Chaghatāī offtake says that none remained in 953 _AH._ (1547
_AD._) except the rulers, _i.e._ sons of Sl. Aḥmad Khan (T.R.
148). Manifestly there was a body of Chaghatāīs with Bābur and
there appear to have been many near his day in the Herī
region,—`Alī-sher _Nawā`i_ the best known.
Bābur supplies directions for naming his dynasty when, as
several times, he claims to rule in Hindūstān where the "Turk"
had ruled (f. 233_b_, f. 224_b_, f. 225). To call his dynasty
Mughūl seems to blot out the centuries, something as we should
do by calling the English Teutons. If there is to be such
blotting-out, Abū'l-ghāzī would allow us, by his tables of
Turk descent, to go further, to the primal source of all the
tribes concerned, to Turk, son of Japhet. This traditional
descent is another argument against "Mughūl dynasty."
[1242] They went to Qandahār and there suffered great
privation.
[1243] Bārān seems likely to be the Baian of some maps.
Gul-i-bahār is higher up on the Panjhīr road. Chāsh-tūpa will
have been near-by; its name might mean _Hill of the heap of
winnowed-corn_.
[1244] f. 136.
[1245] Answer; Visions of his father's sway.
[1246] Elph. MS. f. 161; W.-i-B. I.O. 215 f. 164 and 217 f.
139_b_; Mems. p. 220.
[1247] The narrative indicates the location of the tribe, the
modern Ghilzāī or Ghilzī.
[1248] Sih-kāna lies s.e. of Shorkach, and near Kharbīn.
Sar-i-dih is about 25 or 30 miles s. of Ghaznī (Erskine). A
name suiting the pastoral wealth of the tribe _viz._
Mesh-khail, Sheep-tribe, is shewn on maps somewhat s. from
Kharbīn. _Cf._ Steingass _s.n._ Masht.
[1249] _yāghrūn_, whence _yāghrūnchī_, a diviner by help of
the shoulder-blades of sheep. The defacer of the Elphinstone
Codex has changed _yāghrūn_ to _yān_, side, thus making Bābur
turn his side and not his half-back to the north, altering his
direction, and missing what looks like a jesting reference to
his own divination of the road. The Pole Star was seen,
presumably, before the night became quite black.
[1250] From the subsequent details of distance done, this must
have been one of those good _yīghāch_ of perhaps 5-6 miles,
that are estimated by the ease of travel on level lands (Index
_s.v._ _yīghāch_).
[1251] I am uncertain about the form of the word translated by
"whim". The Elph. and Ḥai. Codices read _khūd d:lma_ (altered
in the first to _y:lma_); Ilminsky (p. 257) reads _khūd l:ma_
(de C. ii, 2 and note); Erskine has been misled by the Persian
translation (215 f. 164_b_ and 217 f. 139_b_). Whether
_khūd-dilma_ should be read, with the sense of "out of their
own hearts" (spontaneously), or whether _khūd-yalma_, own pace
(Turkī, _yalma_, pace) the contrast made by Bābur appears to
be between an unpremeditated gallop and one premeditated for