The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)
for whom was Bābur writing? Not for Hindūstān where what he
writes is patent; hardly for Kābul; perhaps for Transoxiana.
[1740] Shaikh Zain's wording shows this reference to be to a
special piece of artillery, perhaps that of f. 302.
[1741] A string of camels contains from five to seven, or, in
poetry, even more (Vullers, ii, 728, _sermone poetico series
decem camelorum_). The item of food compared is corn only
(_būghūz_) and takes no account therefore of the elephant's
green food.
[1742] The Ency. Br. states that the horn seldom exceeds a
foot in length; there is one in the B.M. measuring 18 inches.
[1743] āb-khẉura kishtī, water-drinker's boat, in which name
kishtī may be used with reference to shape as boat is in
_sauce-boat_. Erskine notes that rhinoceros-horn is supposed
to sweat on approach of poison.
[1744] _aīlīk_, Pers. trs. _angusht_, finger, each seemingly
representing about one inch, a hand's thickness, a finger's
breadth.
[1745] lit. hand (_qūl_) and leg (_būt_).
[1746] The anatomical details by which Bābur supports this
statement are difficult to translate, but his grouping of the
two animals is in agreement with the modern classification of
them as two of the three _Ungulata vera_, the third being the
tapir (Fauna of British India:—Mammals, Blanford 467 and,
illustration, 468).
[1747] De Courteille (ii, 190) reads _kūmūk_, osseuse; Erskine
reads _gūmūk_, marrow.
[1748] Index _s.n._ rhinoceros.
[1749] _Bos bubalus._
[1750] "so as to grow into the flesh" (Erskine, p. 317).
[1751] _sic_ in text. It may be noted that the name _nīl-gāī_,
common in general European writings, is that of the cow;
_nīl-gāū_, that of the bull (Blanford).
[1752] _b:ḥ:rī qūṯās_; _see_ Appendix M.
[1753] The doe is brown (Blanford, p. 518). The word _būghū_
(stag) is used alone just below and seems likely to represent
the bull of the Asiatic wapiti (f. 4 n. on _būghū-marāl_.)
[1754] _Axis porcinus_ (Jerdon, _Cervus porcinus_).
[1755] _Saiga tartarica_ (Shaw). Turkī _hūna_ is used, like
English deer, for male, female, and both. Here it seems
defined by _aīrkākī_ to mean stag or buck.
[1756] _Antelope cervicapra_, black-buck, so called from the
dark hue of its back (Yule's H.J. _s.n._ Black-buck).
[1757] _tūyūq_, underlined in the Elph. MS. by _kura_,
cannon-ball; Erskine, foot-ball, de Courteille, _pierre plus
grosse que la cheville_ (_tūyāq_).
[1758] This mode of catching antelopes is described in the
_Āyīn-i-akbarī_, and is noted by Erskine as common in his day.
[1759] _H. gainā._ It is 3 feet high (Yule's H.J. _s.n._
Gynee). Cf. A. A. Blochmann, p. 149. The ram with which it is
compared may be that of _Ovis ammon_ (Vigné's _Kashmīr etc._
ii, 278).
[1760] Here the Pers. trs. adds:—They call this kind of monkey
_langūr_ (baboon, I.O. 217 f. 192).
[1761] Here the Pers. trs. adds what Erskine mistakenly
attributes to Bābur:—People bring it from several
islands.—They bring yet another kind from several islands,
yellowish-grey in colour like a _pūstīn tīn_ (leather coat of
?; Erskine, skin of the fig, _tīn_). Its head is broader and
its body much larger than those of other monkeys. It is very
fierce and destructive. It is singular _quod penis ejus semper
sit erectus, et nunquam non ad coitum idoneus_ [Erskine].
[1762] This name is explained on the margin of the Elph. MS.
as "_rāsū_, which is the weasel of Tartary" (Erskine). _Rāsū_
is an Indian name for the squirrel _Sciurus indicus_. The
_kīsh_, with which Bābur's _nūl_ is compared, is explained by
de C. as _belette_, weasel, and by Steingass as a fur-bearing
animal; the fur-bearing weasel is (_Mustelidae_) _putorius
ermina_, the ermine-weasel (Blanford, p. 165), which thus
seems to be Bābur's _kīsh_. The alternative name Bābur gives
for his _nūl_, _i.e._ _mūsh-i-khūrma_, is, in India, that of
_Sciurus palmarum_, the palm-squirrel (G. of I. i, 227); this
then, it seems that Bābur's _nūl_ is. Erskine took _nūl_ here
to be the mongoose (_Herpestes mūngūs_) (p. 318); and
Blanford, perhaps partly on Erskine's warrant, gives
_mūsh-i-khūrma_ as a name of the lesser _mungūs_ of Bengal. I
gather that the name _nawal_ is not exclusively confined even
now to the (_mungūs_.)
[1763] If this be a tree-mouse and not a squirrel, it may be
_Vandeleuria oleracea_ (G. of I. i, 228).
[1764] The notes to this section are restricted to what serves
to identify the birds Bābur mentions, though temptation is
great to add something to this from the mass of interesting
circumstance scattered in the many writings of observers and
lovers of birds. I have thought it useful to indicate to what
language a bird's name belongs.
[1765] Persian, _gul_; English, eyes.
[1766] _qūlāch_ (Zenker, p. 720); Pers. trs. (217 f. 192_b_)
_yak qad-i-adm_; de Courteille, _brasse_ (fathom). These three
are expressions of the measure from finger-tip to finger-tip
of a man's extended arms, which should be his height, a fathom
(6 feet).
[1767] _qānāt_, of which here "primaries" appears to be the
correct rendering, since Jerdon says (ii, 506) of the bird
that its "wings are striated black and white, primaries and
tail deep chestnut".
[1768] The _qīrghāwal_, which is of the pheasant species, when
pursued, will take several flights immediately after each
other, though none long; peacocks, it seems, soon get tired
and take to running (Erskine).
[1769] Ar. _barrāq_, as on f. 278_b_ last line where the Elph.
MS. has _barrāq_, marked with the _tashdīd_.
[1770] This was, presumably, just when Bābur was writing the
passage.
[1771] This sentence is in Arabic.
[1772] A Persian note, partially expunged from the text of the
Elph. MS. is to the effect that 4 or 5 other kinds of parrot
are heard of which the revered author did not see.
[1773] Erskine suggests that this may be the _loory_
(_Loriculus vernalis_, Indian loriquet).
[1774] The birds Bābur classes under the name _shārak_ seem to
include what Oates and Blanford (whom I follow as they give
the results of earlier workers) class under _Sturnus_,
_Eulabes_ and _Calornis_, starling, grackle and mīna, and
tree-stare (_Fauna of British India_, Oates, vols. i and ii,
Blanford, vols. iii and iv).
[1775] Turkī, _qabā_; Ilminsky, p. 361, _tang_ (_tund_?).
[1776] E. D. Ross's _Polyglot List of Birds_, p. 314,
_Chighīr-chīq_, Northern swallow; Elph. MS. f. 230_b_
interlined _jil_ (Steingass lark). The description of the bird
allows it to be _Sturnus humii_, the Himālayan starling
(Oates, i, 520).
[1777] Elph. and Ḥai. MSS. (Sans. and Bengālī) _p:ndūī_; two
good MSS. of the Pers. trs. (I.O. 217 and 218) _p:ndāwalī_;
Ilminsky (p. 361) _mīnā_; Erskine (_Mems._ p. 319)
_pindāwelī_, but without his customary translation of an
Indian name. The three forms shewn above can all mean "having
protuberance or lump" (_pinḍā_) and refer to the bird's
wattle. But the word of the presumably well-informed scribes
of I.O. 217 and 218 can refer to the bird's sagacity in speech
and be _panḍāwalī_, possessed of wisdom. With the same
spelling, the word can translate into the epithet _religiosa_,
given to the wattled _mīnā_ by Linnæus. This epithet Mr.
Leonard Wray informs me has been explained to him as due to
the frequenting of temples by the birds; and that in Malāya
they are found living in cotes near Chinese temples.—An
alternative name (one also connecting with _religiosa_)
allowed by the form of the word is _bīnḍā-walī_. H. _bīnḍā_ is
a mark on the forehead, made as a preparative to devotion by
Hindus, or in Sans. and _Bengālī_, is the spot of paint made
on an elephant's trunk; the meaning would thus be "having a
mark". Cf. Jerdon and Oates _s.n._ _Eulabes religiosa_.
[1778] _Eulabes intermedia_, the Indian grackle or hill-mīna.
Here the Pers. trs. adds that people call it _mīna_.
[1779] _Calornis chalybeius_, the glossy starling or
tree-stare, which never descends to the ground.
[1780] _Sturnopastor contra_, the pied mīna.
[1781] Part of the following passage about the _lūja_ (var.
_lūkha_, _lūcha_) is _verbatim_ with part of that on f. 135;
both were written about 934-5 AH. as is shewn by Shaikh Zain
(Index _s.n._) and by inference from references in the text
(Index _s.n._ B.N. date of composition). _See_ Appendix N.
[1782] Lit. mountain-partridge. There is ground for
understanding that one of the birds known in the region as
_monals_ is meant. _See_ Appendix N.
[1783] Sans. _chakora_; Ar. _durrāj_; P. _kabg_; T. _kīklīk_.
[1784] Here, probably, southern Afghānistān.
[1785] _Caccabis chukūr_ (Scully, Shaw's Vocabulary) or _C.
pallescens_ (Hume, quoted under No. 126 E. D. Ross' _Polyglot
List_).
[1786] "In some parts of the country (_i.e._ India before 1841
AD.), tippets used to be made of the beautiful black,
white-spotted feathers of the lower plumage (of the _durrāj_),
and were in much request, but they are rarely procurable now"
(_Bengal Sporting Magazine_ for 1841, quoted by Jerdon, ii,
561).
[1787] A broad collar of red passes round the whole neck
(Jerdon, ii, 558).
[1788] Ar. _durrāj_ means one who repeats what he hears, a
tell-tale.
[1789] Various translations have been made of this passage, "I
have milk and sugar" (Erskine), "_J'ai du lait, un peu de
sucre_" (de Courteille), but with short _sh:r_, it might be
read in more than one way ignoring milk and sugar. See Jerdon,
ii, 558 and Hobson Jobson _s.n._ Black-partridge.
[1790] Flower-faced, _Trapogon melanocephala_, the horned
(_sing_)-monal. It is described by Jahāngīr (_Memoirs_, R. and
B., ii, 220) under the names [H. and P.] _phūl-paikār_ and
Kashmīrī, _sonlū_.
[1791] _Gallus sonneratii_, the grey jungle-fowl.
[1792] Perhaps _Bambusicola fytchii_, the western
bambu-partridge. For _chīl_ see E. D. Ross, _l.c._ No. 127.
[1793] Jahāngīr (_l.c._) describes, under the Kashmīrī name
_pūṯ_, what may be this bird. It seems to be _Gallus
ferrugineus_, the red jungle-fowl (Blanford, iv, 75).
[1794] Jahāngīr helps to identify the bird by mentioning its
elongated tail-feathers,—seasonal only.
[1795] The migrant quail will be _Coturnix communis_, the grey
quail, 8 inches long; what it is compared with seems likely to
be the bush-quail, which is non-migrant and shorter.
[1796] Perhaps _Perdicula argunda_, the rock bush-quail, which
flies in small coveys.
[1797] Perhaps _Coturnix coromandelica_, the black-breasted or
rain quail, 7 inches long.
[1798] Perhaps _Motacilla citreola_, a yellow wag-tail which
summers in Central Asia (Oates, ii, 298). If so, its Kābul
name may refer to its flashing colour. Cf. E. D. Ross, _l.c._
No. 301; de Courteille's _Dictionary_ which gives _qārcha_,
wag-tail, and Zenker's which fixes the colour.
[1799] _Eupodotis edwardsii_; Turkī, _tūghdār_ or _tūghdīrī_.
[1800] Erskine noting (Mems. p. 321), that the bustard is
common in the Dakkan where it is bigger than a turkey, says it
is called _tūghdār_ and suggests that this is a corruption of
_tūghdāq_. The uses of both words are shewn by Bābur, here,
and in the next following, account of the _charz_. Cf. G. of
I. i, 260 and E. D. Ross _l.c._ Nos. 36, 40.