The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)
is all the lamp the people have; it burns like a candle and is very
remarkable. The flying-squirrel[800] is found in these mountains, an
animal larger than a bat and having a curtain (_parda_), like a bat's
wing, between its arms and legs. People often brought one in; it is said
to fly, downward from one tree to another, as far as a _giz_ flies;[801]
I myself have never seen one fly. Once we put one to a tree; it
clambered up directly and got away, but, when people went after it, it
spread its wings and came down, without hurt, as if it had flown.
Another of the curiosities of the Nijr-aū mountains is the _lūkha_
(var. _lūja_) bird, called also _bū-qalamūn_ (chameleon) because,
between head and tail, it has four or five changing colours,
resplendent like a pigeon's throat.[802] It is about as large as the
_kabg-i-darī_ and seems to be the _kabg-i-darī_ of Hindūstān.[803]
People tell this wonderful thing about it:—When the birds, at [Sidenote:
Fol. 135b.] the on-set of winter, descend to the hill-skirts, if they
come over a vineyard, they can fly no further and are taken.[804] There
is a kind of rat in Nijr-aū, known as the musk-rat, which smells of
musk; I however have never seen it.[805]
Panjhīr (Panj-sher) is another _tūmān_; it lies close to Kāfiristān,
along the Panjhīr road, and is the thoroughfare of Kāfir highwaymen who
also, being so near, take tax of it. They have gone through it, killing
a mass of persons, and doing very evil deeds, since I came this last
time and conquered Hindūstān (932 AH.-1526 AD.).[806]
Another is the _tūmān_ of Ghūr-bund. In those countries they call a
_kūtal_ (_koh_?) a _bund_;[807] they go towards Ghūr by this pass
(_kūtal_); apparently it is for this reason that they have called (the
_tūmān_?) Ghūr-bund. The Hazāra hold the heads of its valleys.[808] It
has few villages and little revenue can be raised from it. There are
said to be mines of silver and lapis lazuli in its mountains.
Again, there are the villages on the skirts of the (Hindū-kush)
mountains,[809] with Mīta-kacha and Parwān at their head, and
Dūr-nāma[810] at their foot, 12 or 13 in all. They are fruit-bearing
villages, and they grow cheering wines, those of Khwāja Khāwand Sa`īd
being reputed the strongest roundabouts. The villages all lie on the
foot-hills; some pay taxes but not all are taxable because they lie so
far back in the mountains.
Between the foot-hills and the Bārān-water are two detached stretches of
level land, one known as _Kurrat-tāziyān_,[811] the other as
_Dasht-i-shaikh_ (Shaikh's-plain). As the green grass of the millet[812]
grows well there, they are the resort of Turks and [Sidenote: Fol. 136.]
(Mughūl) clans (_aīmāq_).
Tulips of many colours cover these foot-hills; I once counted them up;
it came out at 32 or 33 different sorts. We named one the Rose-scented,
because its perfume was a little like that of the red rose; it grows by
itself on Shaikh's-plain, here and nowhere else. The Hundred-leaved
tulip is another; this grows, also by itself, at the outlet of the
Ghūr-bund narrows, on the hill-skirt below Parwān. A low hill known as
Khwāja Reg-i-rawān (Khwāja-of-the-running-sand), divides the afore-named
two pieces of level land; it has, from top to foot, a strip of sand from
which people say the sound of nagarets and tambours issues in the
heats.[813]
Again, there are the villages depending on Kābul itself. South-west from
the town are great snow mountains[814] where snow falls on snow, and
where few may be the years when, falling, it does not light on last
year's snow. It is fetched, 12 miles may-be, from these mountains, to
cool the drinking water when ice-houses in Kābul are empty. Like the
Bāmiān mountains, these are fastnesses. Out of them issue the Harmand
(Halmand), Sind, Dūghāba of Qūndūz, and Balkh-āb,[815] so that in a
single day, a man might drink of the water of each of these four rivers.
It is on the skirt of one of these ranges (Pamghān) that most of the
villages dependent on Kābul lie.[816] Masses of grapes ripen in their
vineyards and they grow every sort of fruit in abundance. No-one of them
equals Istālīf or Astar-ghach; these must be the [Sidenote: Fol. 136b.]
two which Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā used to call his Khurāsān and Samarkand.
Pamghān is another of the best, not ranking in fruit and grapes with
those two others, but beyond comparison with them in climate. The
Pamghān mountains are a snowy range. Few villages match Istālīf, with
vineyards and fine orchards on both sides of its great torrent, with
waters needing no ice, cold and, mostly, pure. Of its Great garden
Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā had taken forcible possession; I took it over, after
paying its price to the owners. There is a pleasant halting-place
outside it, under great planes, green, shady and beautiful. A one-mill
stream, having trees on both banks, flows constantly through the middle
of the garden; formerly its course was zig-zag and irregular; I had it
made straight and orderly; so the place became very beautiful. Between
the village and the valley-bottom, from 4 to 6 miles down the slope, is
a spring, known as Khwāja Sih-yārān (Three-friends), round which three
sorts of tree grow. A group of planes gives pleasant shade above it;
holm-oak [Sidenote: Fol. 137.] (_quercus bīlūt_) grows in masses on the
slope at its sides,—these two oaklands (_bīlūtistān_) excepted, no
holm-oak grows in the mountains of western Kābul,—and the Judas-tree
(_arghwān_)[817] is much cultivated in front of it, that is towards the
level ground,—cultivated there and nowhere else. People say the three
different sorts of tree were a gift made by three saints,[818] whence
its name. I ordered that the spring should be enclosed in mortared
stone-work, 10 by 10, and that a symmetrical, right-angled platform
should be built on each of its sides, so as to overlook the whole field
of Judas-trees. If, the world over, there is a place to match this when
the _arghwāns_ are in full bloom, I do not know it. The yellow _arghwān_
grows plentifully there also, the red and the yellow flowering at the
same time.[819]
In order to bring water to a large round seat which I had built on the
hillside and planted round with willows, I had a channel dug across the
slope from a half-mill stream, constantly flowing in a valley to the
south-west of Sih-yārān. The date of cutting this channel was found in
_jūī-khūsh_ (kindly channel).[820]
Another of the _tūmāns_ of Kābul is Luhūgur (mod. Logar). Its one large
village is Chīrkh from which were his Reverence Maulānā Ya`qūb and
Mullā-zāda `Us̤mān.[821] Khwāja Aḥmad [Sidenote: Fol. 137b.] and Khwāja
Yūnas were from Sajāwand, another of its villages. Chīrkh has many
gardens, but there are none in any other village of Luhūgur. Its people
are Aūghān-shāl, a term common in Kābul, seeming to be a
mispronouncement of Aūghān-sha`ār.[822]
Again, there is the _wilāyat_, or, as some say, _tūmān_ of Ghaznī, said
to have been[823] the capital of Sabuk-tīgīn, Sl. Maḥmūd and their
descendants. Many write it Ghaznīn. It is said also to have been the
seat of government of Shihābu'd-dīn _Ghūrī_,[824] styled Mu`iz̤z̤u'd-dīn
in the _T̤abaqāt-i-nāṣirī_ and also some of the histories of Hind.
Ghaznī is known also as _Zābulistān_; it belongs to the Third climate.
Some hold that Qandahār is a part of it. It lies 14 _yīghāch_ (south-)
west of Kābul; those leaving it at dawn, may reach Kābul between the Two
Prayers (_i.e._ in the afternoon); whereas the 13 _yīghāch_ between
Adīnapūr and Kābul can never be done in one day, because of the
difficulties of the road.
Ghaznī has little cultivated land. Its torrent, a four-mill or five-mill
stream may-be, makes the town habitable and fertilizes four or five
villages; three or four others are cultivated from under-ground
water-courses (_kārez_). Ghaznī grapes are better than those of Kābul;
its melons are more abundant; its apples [Sidenote: Fol. 138.] are very
good, and are carried to Hindūstān. Agriculture is very laborious in
Ghaznī because, whatever the quality of the soil, it must be newly
top-dressed every year; it gives a better return, however, than Kābul.
Ghaznī grows madder; the entire crop goes to Hindūstān and yields
excellent profit to the growers. In the open-country of Ghaznī dwell
Hazāra and Afghāns. Compared with Kābul, it is always a cheap place. Its
people hold to the Ḥanafī faith, are good, orthodox Muṣalmāns, many keep
a three months' fast,[825] and their wives and children live modestly
secluded.
One of the eminent men of Ghaznī was Mullā `Abdu'r-raḥmān, a learned man
and always a learner (_dars_), a most orthodox, pious and virtuous
person; he left this world the same year as Nāṣir Mīrzā (921 AH.-1515
AD.). Sl. Maḥmūd's tomb is in the suburb called Rauẓa,[826] from which
the best grapes come; there also are the tombs of his descendants, Sl.
Mas`ūd and Sl. Ibrāhīm. Ghaznī has many blessed tombs. The year[827] I
took Kābul and Ghaznī, over-ran Kohāt, the plain of Bannū and lands of
the Afghāns, and went on to Ghaznī by way of Dūkī (Dūgī) and Āb-istāda,
people told me there was a tomb, in a village of Ghaznī, which moved
when a benediction on the Prophet was [Sidenote: Fol. 138b.] pronounced
over it. We went to see it. In the end I discovered that the movement
was a trick, presumably of the servants at the tomb, who had put a sort
of platform above it which moved when pushed, so that, to those on it,
the tomb seemed to move, just as the shore does to those passing in a
boat. I ordered the scaffold destroyed and a dome built over the tomb;
also I forbad the servants, with threats, ever to bring about the
movement again.
Ghaznī is a very humble place; strange indeed it is that rulers in whose
hands were Hindūstān and Khurāsānāt,[828] should have chosen it for
their capital. In the Sulṯān's (Maḥmūd's) time there may have been three
or four dams in the country; one he made, some three _yīghāch_ (18 m.?)
up the Ghaznī-water to the north; it was about 40-50 _qārī_ (yards) high
and some 300 long; through it the stored waters were let out as
required.[829] It was destroyed by `Alāu'u'd-dīn _Jahān-soz Ghūrī_ when
he conquered the country (550 AH.-1152 AD.), burned and ruined the tombs
of several descendants of Sl. Maḥmūd, sacked and burned the town, in
short, left undone no tittle of murder and rapine. Since [Sidenote: Fol.
139.] that time, the Sulṯān's dam has lain in ruins, but, through God's
favour, there is hope that it may become of use again, by means of the
money which was sent, in Khwāja Kalān's hand, in the year Hindūstān was
conquered (932 AH.-1526 AD.).[830] The Sakhandam is another, 2 or 3
_yīghāch_ (12-18 m.), may-be, on the east of the town; it has long been
in ruins, indeed is past repair. There is a dam in working order at
Sar-i-dih (Village-head).
In books it is written that there is in Ghaznī a spring such that, if
dirt and foul matter be thrown into it, a tempest gets up instantly,
with a blizzard of rain and wind. It has been seen said also in one of
the histories that Sabuk-tīgīn, when besieged by the Rāī (Jāī-pāl) of
Hind, ordered dirt and foulness to be thrown into the spring, by this
aroused, in an instant, a tempest with blizzard of rain and snow, and,
by this device, drove off his foe.[831] Though we made many enquiries,
no intimation of the spring's existence was given us.
In these countries Ghaznī and Khwārizm are noted for cold, in the same
way that Sulṯānīā and Tabrīz are in the two `Irāqs and Aẕarbāījān.
Zurmut is another _tūmān_, some 12-13 _yīghāch_ south of Kābul and 7-8
south-east of Ghaznī.[832] Its _dārogha's_ head-quarters are [Sidenote:
Fol. 139b.] in Gīrdīz; there most houses are three or four storeys high.
It does not want for strength, and gave Nāṣir Mīrzā trouble when it went