Pagan practices or neglect of Musalmān observances amongst
Mughūls.
[458] _i.e._ of his advisors and himself.
[459] _Cf._ f. 34.
[460] _circa_ 933 AH. All the revolts chronicled by Bābur as
made against himself were under Mughūl leadership. Long Ḥasan,
Taṃbal and `Alī-dost were all Mughūls. The worst was that of
914 AH. (1518 AD.) in which Qulī _Chūnāq_ disgraced himself
(T.R. p. 357).
[461] _Chūnāq_ may indicate the loss of one ear.
[462] _Būqāq_, amongst other meanings, has that of _one who
lies in ambush_.
[463] This remark has interest because it shews that (as Bābur
planned to write more than is now with the B.N. MSS.) the
first gap in the book (914 AH. to 925 AH.) is accidental. His
own last illness is the probable cause of this gap. _Cf._ JRAS
1905, p. 744. Two other passages referring to unchronicled
matters are one about the Bāgh-i-ṣafā (f. 224), and one about
Sl. `Alī T̤aghāī (f. 242).
[464] I surmise Aīlāīsh to be a local name of the Qarā-daryā
affluent of the Sīr.
[465] _aīkī aūch naubat chāpqūlāb bāsh chīqārghalī qūīmās._ I
cannot feel so sure as Mr. E. and M. de C. were that the man's
head held fast, especially as for it to fall would make the
better story.
[466] Tūqā appears to have been the son of a T̤aghāī, perhaps
of Sherīm; his name may imply blood-relationship.
[467] For the verb _awīmāq_, to trepan, _see_ f. 67 note 5.
[468] The Fr. map of 1904 shews a hill suiting Bābur's
location of this Hill of Pleasure.
[469] A place near Kābul bears the same name; in both the name
is explained by a legend that there Earth opened a refuge for
forty menaced daughters.
[470] Elph. MS. f. 47b; W.-i-B. I.O. 215 f. 53 and 217 f. 43;
Mems. p. 70.
[471] From Andijān to Aūsh is a little over 33 miles. Taṃbal's
road was east of Bābur's and placed him between Andijān and
Aūzkīnt where was the force protecting his family.
[472] mod. Mazy, on the main Aūsh-Kāshghar road.
[473] _āb-duzd_; de C. i, 144, _prise d'eau_.
[474] This simile seems the fruit of experience in Hindūstān.
_See_ f. 333, concerning Chānderi.
[475] These two Mughūls rebelled in 914 AH. with Sl. Qulī
_Chūnāq_ (T.R. _s.n._).
[476] _awīdī._ The head of Captain Dow, fractured at Chunār by
a stone flung at it, was trepanned (_Saiyār-i-muta`akhirīn_,
p. 577 and Irvine l .c. p. 283). Yār-`alī was alive in 910 AH.
He seems to be the father of the great Bairām Khān-i-khānān of
Akbar's reign.
[477] _chasht-gāh_; midway between sunrise and noon.
[478] _ṯaurī_; because providing prisoners for exchange.
[479] _shakh tūtūlūr īdī_, perhaps a palisade.
[480] _i.e._ from Ḥiṣār where he had placed him in 903 AH.
[481] _qūba yūzlūq_ (f. 6b and note 4). The Turkmān features
would be a maternal inheritance.
[482] He is "Saifī Maulānā `Arūzī" of Rieu's Pers. Cat. p.
525. _Cf._ Ḥ.S. ii, 341. His book, _`Arūz-i-saifī_ has been
translated by Blochmann and by Ranking.
[483] _namāz aūtār īdī._ I understand some irony from this (de
Meynard's Dict. _s.n._ _aūtmāq_).
[484] The _maṯla`_ of poems serve as an index of first lines.
[485] _Cf._ f. 30.
[486] _Cf._ f. 37b.
[487] _i.e._ scout and in times of peace, huntsman. On the
margin of the Elph. Codex here stands a note, mutilated in
rebinding;—_Sl. Aḥmad pidr-i-Qūch Beg ast * * *
pidr-i-Sher-afgan u Sher-afgan * * * u Sl. Ḥusain Khān * * *
Qūch Beg ast. Hamesha * * * dar khāna Shaham Khān * * *_.
[488] _pītīldī_; W.-i-B. _navishta shud_, words indicating the
use by Bābur of a written record.
[489] _Cf._ f. 6b and note and f. 17 and note.
[490] _tūlūk_; _i.e._ other food than grain. Fruit, fresh or
preserved, being a principal constituent of food in Central
Asia, _tūlūk_ will include several, but chiefly melons. "Les
melons constituent presque seuls vers le fin d'été, la
nourriture des classes pauvres" (Th. Radloff. l.c. p. 343).
[491] _Cf._ f. 6b and note.
[492] _tūlkī_ var. _tūlkū_, the yellow fox. Following this
word the Ḥai. MS. has _u dar kamīn dūr_ instead of _u rangīn
dūr_.
[493] _bī ḥadd_; with which I.O. 215 agrees but I.O. 217 adds
_farbih_, fat, which is right in fact (f. 2b) but less
pertinent here than an unlimited quantity.
[494] Here a pun on _`ajab_ may be read.
[495] _Cf._ f. 15, note to T̤aghāī.
[496] Apparently not the usual Kīndīr-līk pass but one n.w. of
Kāsān.
[497] A ride of at least 40 miles, followed by one of 20 to
Kāsān.
[498] _Cf._ f. 72 and f. 72b. Tīlba would seem to have left
Taṃbal.
[499] _Taṃbalnīng qarāsī._
[500] _i.e._ the Other (Mid-afternoon) Prayer.
[501] _ātīnīng būīnīnī qātīb._ _Qātmāq_ has also the
here-appropriate meaning of _to stiffen_.
[502] _aīlīk qūshmāq_, _i.e._ Bābur's men with the Kāsān
garrison. But the two W.-i-B. write merely _dast burd_ and
_dast kardan_.
[503] The meaning of _Ghazna_ here is uncertain. The Second
W.-i-B. renders it by ar. _qaryat_ but up to this point Bābur
has not used _qaryat_ for _village_. Ghazna-namangān cannot be
modern Namangān. It was 2 m. from Archīān where Taṃbal was,
and Bābur went to Bīshkhārān to be between Taṃbal and Machamī,
coming from the south. Archīān and Ghazna-namangān seem both
to have been n. or n.w. of Bīshkārān (see maps).
It may be mentioned that at Archīān, in 909 AH. the two
Chaghatāī Khāns and Bābur were defeated by Shaibānī.
[504] _bīzlār._ The double plural is rare with Bābur; he
writes _bīz_, we, when action is taken in common; he rarely
uses _mīn_, I, with autocratic force; his phrasing is largely
impersonal, _e.g._ with rare exceptions, he writes the
impersonal passive verb.
[505] _bāshlīghlār._ Teufel was of opinion that this word is
not used as a noun in the B.N. In this he is mistaken; it is
so used frequently, as here, in apposition. _See_ ZDMG,
xxxvii, art. Bābur und Abū`l-faẓl.
[506] _Cf._ f. 54 foot.
[507] _Cf._ f. 20. She may have come from Samarkand and `Alī's
household or from Kesh and the Tarkhān households.
[508] _Cf._ f. 26 l. 2 for the same phrase.
[509] He is the author of the _Shaibānī-nāma_.
[510] _dāng_ and _fils_ (_infra_) are small copper coins.
[511] _Cf._ f. 25 l. 1 and note 1.
[512] Probably the poet again; he had left Harāt and was in
Samarkand (Sh. N. Vambéry, p. 34 l. 14).
[513] From what follows, this Mughūl advance seems a sequel to
a Tarkhān invitation.
[514] By omitting the word _Mīr_ the Turkī text has caused
confusion between this father and son (Index _s.nn._).
[515] _bīz khūd kharāb bū mu`āmla aīdūk._ These words have
been understood earlier, as referring to the abnormal state of
Bābur's mind described under Sec. _r_. They better suit the
affairs of Samarkand because Bābur is able to resolve on
action and also because he here writes _bīz_, we, and not
_mīn_, I, as in Sec. _r_.
[516] For _būlghār_, rendezvous, _see_ also f. 78 l. 2 fr. ft.
[517] 25 m. only; the halts were due probably to belated
arrivals.
[518] Some of his ties would be those of old acquaintance in
Ḥiṣār with `Alī's father's begs, now with him in Samarkand.
[519] Point to point, some 90 m. but further by road.
[520] _Bū waqi` būlghāch_, manifestly ironical.
[521] Sangzār to Aūrā-tīpā, by way of the hills, some 50
miles.
[522] The Sh. N. Vambéry, p. 60, confirms this.
[523] _Cf._ f. 74b.
[524] Macham and Awīghūr, presumably.
[525] _gūzlār tūz tūtī_, _i.e._ he was blinded for some
treachery to his hosts.
[526] Muḥ. Ṣāliḥ's well-informed account of this episode has
much interest, filling out and, as by Shaibānī's Boswell,
balancing Bābur's. Bābur is obscure about what country was to
be given to `Alī. Pāyanda-ḥasan paraphrases his brief
words;—Shaibānī was to be as a father to `Alī and when he had
taken `Alī's father's _wilāyāt_, he was to give a country to
`Alī. It has been thought that the gift to `Alī was to follow
Shaibānī's recovery of his own ancestral camping-ground
(_yūrt_) but this is negatived, I think, by the word,
_wilāyāt_, cultivated land.
[527] Elp. MS. f. 57b; W.-i-B. I.O. 215 f. 63b and I.O. 217 f.
52; Mems. p. 82.
Two contemporary works here supplement the B.N.; (1) the
(_Tawārikh-i-guzīda_) _Naṣrat-nāma_, dated 908 AH. (B.M. Turkī
Or. 3222) of which Berezin's _Shaibāni-nāma_ is an abridgment;
(2) Muḥ. Ṣāliḥ Mīrzā's _Shaibānī-nāma_ (Vambéry trs. cap. xix
_et seq._). The Ḥ.S. (Bomb. ed. p. 302, and Tehran ed. p. 384)
is also useful.
[528] _i.e._ on his right. The Ḥ.S. ii, 302 represents that
`Alī was well-received. After Shaibāq had had Zuhra's
overtures, he sent an envoy to `Alī and Yaḥya; the first was
not won over but the second fell in with his mother's scheme.
This difference of view explains why `Alī slipped away while
Yaḥya was engaged in the Friday Mosque. It seems likely that
mother and son alike expected their Aūzbeg blood to stand them
in good stead with Shaibāq.
[529] He tried vainly to get the town defended. "Would to God
Bābur Mīrzā were here!" he is reported as saying, by Muḥ.
Ṣāliḥ.
[530] Perhaps it is for the play of words on `Alī and `Alī's
life (_jān_) that this man makes his sole appearance here.
[531] _i.e._ rich man or merchant, but _Bī_ (_infra_) is an
equivalent of Beg.
[532] Muḥ. Ṣāliḥ, invoking curses on such a mother, mentions
that Zuhra was given to a person of her own sort.
[533] The Sh. N. and _Naṣrat-nāma_ attempt to lift the blame
of `Alī's death from Shaibāq; the second saying that he fell
into the Kohik-water when drunk.
[534] Harāt might be his destination but the Ḥ.S. names Makka.
Some dismissals towards Khurāsān may imply pilgrimage to
Meshhed.
[535] Used also by Bābur's daughter, Gul-badan (l.c. f. 31).
[536] Cut off by alien lands and weary travel.
[537] The Pers. annotator of the Elph. Codex has changed Alāī
to _wīlāyat_, and _dābān_ (pass) to _yān_, side. For the
difficult route _see_ Schuyler, i, 275, Kostenko, i, 129 and
Rickmers, JRGS. 1907, art. Fan Valley.
[538] Amongst Turks and Mughūls, gifts were made by nines.
[539] Ḥiṣār was his earlier home.
[540] Many of these will have been climbed in order to get
over places impassable at the river's level.
[541] Schuyler quotes a legend of the lake. He and Kostenko
make it larger.
[542] The second occasion was when he crossed from Sūkh for
Kābul in 910 AH. (fol. 120).
[543] This name appears to indicate a Command of 10,000
(Bretschneider's _Mediæval Researches_, i, 112).
[544] It seems likely that the cloth was soiled. _Cf._ f. 25
and Hughes Dict. of Islām _s.n._ Eating.
[545] As, of the quoted speech, one word only, of three, is
Turkī, others may have been dreamed. Shaikh Maṣlaḥat's tomb is
in Khujand where Bābur had found refuge in 903 AH.; it had
been circumambulated by Tīmūr in 790 AH. (1390 AD.) and is
still honoured.
This account of a dream compares well for naturalness with
that in the seemingly-spurious passage, entered with the Ḥai.
MS. on f. 118. For examination of the passage _see_ JRAS, Jan.
1911, and App. D.
[546] He was made a Tarkhān by diploma of Shaibānī (Ḥ.S. ii,
306, l. 2).
[547] Here the Ḥai. MS. begins to use the word _Shaibāq_ in
place of its previously uniform _Shaibānī_. As has been noted
(f. 5b n. 2), the Elph. MS. writes _Shaibāq_. It may be
therefore that a scribe has changed the earlier part of the
Ḥai. MS. and that Bābur wrote _Shaibāq_. From this point my
text will follow the double authority of the Elph. and Ḥai.
MSS.
[548] In 875 AH. (1470 AD.). Ḥusain was then 32 years old.
Bābur might have compared his taking of Samarkand with Tīmūr's
capture of Qarshī, also with 240 followers (Z̤.N. i, 127).
Firishta (lith. ed. p. 196) ascribes his omission to do so to
reluctance to rank himself with his great ancestor.
[549] This arrival shews that Shaibānī expected to stay in
Samarkand. He had been occupying Turkistān under The Chaghatāī
Khān.
[550] `Alī-sher died Jan. 3rd. 1501. It is not clear to what
disturbances Bābur refers. He himself was at ease till after
April 20th. 1502 and his defeat at Sar-i-pul. Possibly the
reference is to the quarrels between Binā'ī and `Alī-sher.
_Cf._ Sām Mīrzā's Anthology, trs. S. de Saçy, _Notices et
Extraits_ iv, 287 _et seq._
[551] I surmise a double play-of-words in this verse. One is
on two rhyming words, _ghala_ and _mallah_ and is illustrated
by rendering them as _oat_ and _coat_. The other is on pointed
and unpointed letters, _i.e._ _ghala_ and _`ala_. We cannot
find however a Persian word _`ala_, meaning garment.
[552] Bābur's refrain is _ghūsīdūr_, his rhymes _būl_,
_(buyur)ūl_ and _tūl_. Binā'ī makes _būlghūsīdūr_ his refrain
but his rhymes are not true _viz._ _yīr_, _(sa)mar_ and _lār_.
[553] Shawwāl 906 AH. began April 20th. 1501.
[554] From the _Bū-stān_, Graf ed. p. 55, l. 246.
[555] Sīkīz Yīldūz. _See_ Chardin's _Voyages_, v, 136 and
Table; also Stanley Lane Poole's _Bābur_, p. 56.
[556] In 1791 AD. Muḥ. Effendi shot 482 yards from a Turkish
bow, before the R. Tox. S.; not a good shot, he declared.
Longer ones are on record. _See_ Payne-Gallwey's _Cross-bow_
and AQR. 1911, H. Beveridge's _Oriental Cross-bows_.
[557] In the margin of the Elph. Codex, here, stands a Persian
verse which appears more likely to be Humāyūn's than Bābur's.
It is as follows:
Were the Mughūl race angels, they would be bad;
Written in gold, the name Mughūl would be bad;
Pluck not an ear from the Mughūl's corn-land,
What is sown with Mughūl seed will be bad.
This verse is written into the text of the First W.-i-B. (I.O.
215 f. 72) and is introduced by a scribe's statement that it
is by _ān Ḥaẓrat_, much as notes known to be Humāyūn's are
elsewhere attested in the Elph. Codex. It is not in the Ḥai.
and Kehr's MSS. nor with, at least many, good copies of the
Second W.-i-B.
[558] This subterranean water-course, issuing in a flowing
well (Erskine) gave its name to a bastion (Ḥ.S. ii, 300).
[559] _nāwak_, a diminutive of _nāo_, a tube. It is described,
in a MS. of Bābur's time, by Muḥ. Budhā'ī, and, in a second of
later date, by Amīnu'd-dīn (AQR 1911, H.B.'s _Oriental
Cross-bows_).
[560] Kostenko, i, 344, would make the rounds 9 m.
[561] _bīr yūz ātliqnīng ātinī nāwak aūqī bila yakhshī atīm._
This has been read by Erskine as though _būz āt_, pale horse,
and not _yūz ātlīq_, Centurion, were written. De. C.
translates by Centurion and a marginal note of the Elph. Codex
explains _yūz ātlīq_ by _ṣad aspagī_.
[562] The Sh. N. gives the reverse side of the picture, the
plenty enjoyed by the besiegers.
[563] He may have been attached to the tomb of Khwāja
`Abdu'l-lāh _Anṣārī_ in Harāt.
[564] The brusque entry here and elsewhere of _e.g._ Taṃbal's
affairs, allows the inference that Bābur was quoting from
perhaps a news-writer's, contemporary records. For a different
view of Taṃbal, the Sh. N. cap. xxxiii should be read.
[565] Five-villages, on the main Khujand-Tāshkīnt road.
[566] _turk_, as on f. 28 of Khusrau Shāh.
[567] Elph. MS. f. 68b; W.-i-B. I.O. 215 f. 78 and 217 f. 61b;
Mems. p. 97.
The Kehr-Ilminsky text shews, in this year, a good example of
its Persification and of Dr. Ilminsky's dealings with his
difficult archetype by the help of the Memoirs.
[568] _tāshlāb._ The Sh. N. places these desertions as after
four months of siege.
[569] It strikes one as strange to find Long Ḥasan described,
as here, in terms of his younger brother. The singularity may
be due to the fact that Ḥusain was with Bābur and may have
invited Ḥasan. It may be noted here that Ḥusain seems likely
to be that father-in-law of `Umar Shaikh mentioned on f. 12b
and 13b.
[570] This laudatory comment I find nowhere but in the Ḥai.
Codex.
[571] There is some uncertainty about the names of those who
left.
[572] The Sh. N. is interesting here as giving an eye-witness'
account of the surrender of the town and of the part played in
the surrender by Khān-zāda's marriage (cap. xxxix).
[573] The first seems likely to be a relation of Niẕāmu'd-dīn
`Alī Khalīfa; the second was Mole-marked, a foster-sister. The
party numbered some 100 persons of whom Abū'l-makāram was one
(Ḥ.S. ii, 310).
[574] Bābur's brevity is misleading; his sister was not
captured but married with her own and her mother's consent
before attempt to leave the town was made. _Cf._ Gul-badan's
H.N. f. 3b and Sh. N. Vambéry, p. 145.
[575] The route taken avoided the main road for Dīzak; it can
be traced by the physical features, mentioned by Bābur, on the
Fr. map of 1904. The Sh. N. says the night was extraordinarily
dark. Departure in blinding darkness and by unusual ways shews
distrust of Shaibāq's safe-conduct suggesting that Yaḥyā's
fate was in the minds of the fugitives.
[576] The texts differ as to whether the last two lines are
prose or verse. All four are in Turkī, but I surmise a
clerical error in the refrain of the third, where _būlūb_ is
written for _būldī_.
[577] The second was in 908 AH. (f. 18_b_); the third in 914
AH. (f. 216 _b_); the fourth is not described in the B.N.; it
followed Bābur's defeat at Ghaj-diwān in 918 AH. (Erskine's
_History of India_, i, 325). He had a fifth, but of a
different kind, when he survived poison in 933 AH. (f. 305).
[578] Ḥai. MS. _qāqāsrāq_; Elph. MS. _yānasrāq_.
[579] _ātūn_, one who instructs in reading, writing and
embroidery. _Cf._ Gulbadan's H.N. f. 26. The distance walked
may have been 70 or 80 m.
[580] She was the wife of the then Governor of Aūrā-tīpā, Muḥ.
Ḥusain _Dūghlāt_.
[581] It may be noted here that in speaking of these elder
women Bābur uses the honorific plural, a form of rare
occurrence except for such women, for saintly persons and
exceptionally for The supreme Khān. For his father he has
never used it.
[582] This name has several variants. The village lies, in a
valley-bottom, on the Aq-sū and on a road. _See_ Kostenko, i,
119.
[583] She had been divorced from Shaibānī in order to allow
him to make legal marriage with her niece, Khān-zāda.
[584] Amongst the variants of this name, I select the modern
one. Macha is the upper valley of the Zar-afshān.
[585] Tīmūr took Dihlī in 801 AH. (Dec. 1398), _i.e._ 103
solar and 106 lunar years earlier. The ancient dame would then
have been under 5 years old. It is not surprising therefore
that in repeating her story Bābur should use a tense
betokening hear-say matter (_bārib īkān dūr_).
[586] The anecdote here following, has been analysed in JRAS
1908, p. 87, in order to show warrant for the opinion that
parts of the Kehr-Ilminsky text are retranslations from the
Persian W.-i-B.
[587] Amongst those thus leaving seem to have been Qaṃbar-`alī
(f. 99b).
[588] _Cf._ f. 107 foot.
[589] The Sh. N. speaks of the cold in that winter (Vambéry,
p. 160). It was unusual for the Sīr to freeze in this part of
its course (Sh. N. p. 172) where it is extremely rapid
(Kostenko, i, 213).
[590] _Cf._ f. 4b.
[591] Point to point, some 50 miles.
[592] _Āhangarān-julgasī_, a name narrowed on maps to Angren
(valley).
[593] _Faut shūd Nuyān._ The numerical value of these words is
907. Bābur when writing, looks back 26 years to the death of
this friend.
[594] Āb-burdan village is on the Zar-afshān; the pass is
11,200 ft. above the sea. Bābur's boundaries still hold good
and the spring still flows. _See_ Ujfalvy _l.c._ i. 14;
Kostenko, i, 119 and 193; Rickmers, JRGS 1907, p. 358.
[595] From the _Bū-stān_ (Graf's ed. Vienna 1858, p. 561). The
last couplet is also in the _Gulistān_ (Platts' ed. p. 72).
The Bombay lith. ed. of the _Bū-stān_ explains (p. 39) that
the "We" of the third couplet means Jamshīd and his
predecessors who have rested by his fountain.
[596] _nīma._ The First W.-i-B. (I.O. 215 f. 81 l. 8) writes
_tawārīkh_, annals.
[597] This may be the Khwāja Hijrī of the A.N. (index _s.n._);
and Badāyūnī's Ḥasan _Hijrī_, Bib. Ind. iii, 385; and Ethé's
Pers. Cat. No. 793; and Bod. Cat. No. 189.
[598] The Ḥai. MS. points in the last line as though punning
on Khān and Jān, but appears to be wrong.
[599] For an account of the waste of crops, the Sh. N. should
be seen (p. 162 and 180).
[600] I think this refers to last year's move (f. 94 foot).
[601] In other words, the T. preposition, meaning E. in, at,
_etc._ may be written with t or d, as _ta(tā)_ or as _da(dā)_.
Also the one meaning E. towards, may be _gha_, _qa_, or _ka_
(with long or short vowel).
[602] _dīm_, a word found difficult. It may be a derivative of
root _de_, tell, and a noun with the meaning of English tale
(number). The First W.-i-B. renders it by _san_, and by _san_,
Abū'l-ghāzī expresses what Bābur's _dīm_ expresses, the
numbering of troops. It occurs thrice in the B.N. (here, on f.
183b and on f. 264b). In the Elphinstone Codex it has been
written-over into _Ivīm_, once resembles _vīm_ more than _dīm_
and once is omitted. The L. and E. _Memoirs_ (p. 303) inserts
what seems a gloss, saying that a whip or bow is used in the
count, presumably held by the teller to 'keep his place' in
the march past. The _Siyāsat-nāma_ (Schefer, trs. p. 22) names
the whip as used in numbering an army.
[603] The acclamation of the standards is depicted in B.M.
W.-i-B. Or. 3714 f. 128b. One cloth is shewn tied to the off
fore-leg of a live cow, above the knee, Bābur's word being
_aūrtā aīlīk_ (middle-hand).
[604] The libation was of fermented mares'-milk.
[605] _lit._ their one way.
[606] _Cf._ T.R. p. 308.
[607] Elph. MS. f. 74; W.-i-B. I.O. 215 f. 83 and 217 f. 66;
Mems. p. 104.
[608] It may be noted that Bābur calls his mother's brothers,
not _ṯaghāī_ but _dādā_ father. I have not met with an
instance of his saying 'My ṯaghāī' as he says 'My dādā.' _Cf._
index _s.n._ _taghāī_.
[609] _kūrūnūsh qīlīb_, reflective from _kūrmak_, to see.
[610] A rider's metaphor.
[611] As touching the misnomer, 'Mughūl dynasty' for the
Tīmūrid rulers in Hindūstān, it may be noted that here, as
Bābur is speaking to a Chaghatāī Mughūl, his 'Turk' is left to
apply to himself.
[612] Gulistān, cap. viii, Maxim 12 (Platts' ed. p. 147).
[613] This backward count is to 890 AH. when Aḥmad fled from
cultivated lands (T.R. p. 113).
[614] It becomes clear that Aḥmad had already been asked to
come to Tāshkīnt.
[615] _Cf._ f. 96b for his first departure without help.
[616] Yagha (Yaghma) is not on the Fr. map of 1904, but
suitably located is Turbat (Tomb) to which roads converge.
[617] Elph. MS. _tūshkūcha_; Ḥai. MS. _yūkūnchā_. The
importance Aḥmad attached to ceremony can be inferred by the
details given (f. 103) of his meeting with Maḥmūd.
[618] _kūrūshkāīlār._ _Cf._ Redhouse who gives no support for
reading the verb _kūrmak_ as meaning _to embrace_.
[619] _būrk_, a tall felt cap (Redhouse). In the adjective
applied to the cap there are several variants. The Ḥai. MS.
writes _muftūl_, solid or twisted. The Elph. MS. has
_muftūn-lūq_ which has been understood by Mr. Erskine to mean,
gold-embroidered.
[620] The wording suggests that the decoration is in
chain-stitch, pricked up and down through the stuff.
[621] _tāsh chantāī._ These words have been taken to mean
whet-stone (_bilgū-tāsh_). I have found no authority for
reading _tāsh_ as whet-stone. Moreover to allow 'bag of the
stone' to be read would require _tāsh (nīng) chantāī-sī_ in
the text.
[622] lit. bag-like things. Some will have held spare
bow-strings and archers' rings, and other articles of
'repairing kit.' With the gifts, it seems probable that the
_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.
[685] Maḥmūd's sons under whom Bāqī had served.
[686] Uncles of all degrees are included as elder brethren,
cousins of all degrees, as younger ones.
[687] Presumably the ferries; perhaps the one on the main road
from the north-east which crosses the river at Fort Murgh-āb.
[688] Nine deaths, perhaps where the Amū is split into nine
channels at the place where Mīrzā Khān's son Sulaimān later
met his rebel grandson Shāh-rukh (_T̤abaqāt-i-akbarī_, Elliot
& Dowson, v, 392, and A.N. Bib. Ind., 3rd ed., 441).
Tūqūz-aūlūm is too far up the river to be Arnold's "shorn and
parcelled Oxus".
[689] Shaibāq himself had gone down from Samarkand in 908 AH.
and in 909 AH. and so permanently located his troops as to
have sent their families to them. In 909 AH. he drove Khusrau
into the mountains of Badakhshān, but did not occupy Qūndūz;
thither Khusrau returned and there stayed till now, when
Shaibāq again came south (fol. 123). See Sh. N. cap. lviii _et
seq._
[690] From Taṃbal, to put down whom he had quitted his army
near Balkh (Sh. N. cap. lix).
[691] This, one of the many Red-rivers, flows from near
Kāhmard and joins the Andar-āb water near Dūshī.
[692] A _garī_ is twenty-four minutes.
[693] Qorān, _Surat_ iii, verse 25; Sale's Qorān, ed. 1825, i,
56.
[694] Cf. f. 82.
[695] _viz._ Bāī-sanghar, bowstrung, and Mas`ūd, blinded.
[696] Muḥ. Ṣāliḥ is florid over the rubies of Badakhshān he
says Bābur took from Khusrau, but Ḥaidar says Bābur not only
had Khusrau's property, treasure, and horses returned to him,
but refused all gifts Khusrau offered. "This is one trait out
of a thousand in the Emperor's character." Ḥaidar mentions,
too, the then lack of necessaries under which Bābur suffered
(Sh. N., cap. lxiii, and T.R. p. 176).
[697] Cf. T. R. p. 134 n. and 374 n.
[698] _Jība_, so often used to describe the quilted corselet,
seems to have here a wider meaning, since the _jība-khāna_
contained both _joshan_ and _kūhah_, _i.e._ coats-of-mail and
horse-mail with accoutrements. It can have been only from this
source that Bābur's men obtained the horse-mail of f. 127.
[699] He succeeded his father, Aūlūgh Beg _Kābulī_, in 907
AH.; his youth led to the usurpation of his authority by
Sherīm Ẕikr, one of his begs; but the other begs put Sherīm to
death. During the subsequent confusions Muḥ. Muqīm _Arghūn_,
in 908 AH., got possession of Kābul and married a sister of
`Abdu'r-razzāq. Things were in this state when Bābur entered
the country in 910 AH. (Erskine).
[700] var. Ūpīān, a few miles north of Chārikār.
[701] Suhail (Canopus) is a most conspicuous star in
Afghānistān; it gives its name to the south, which is never
called Janūb but Suhail; the rising of Suhail marks one of
their seasons (Erskine). The honour attaching to this star is
due to its seeming to rise out of Arabia Felix.
[702] The lines are in the Preface to the _Anwār-i-suhailī_
(Lights of Canopus).
[703] "Die Kirghis-qazzāq drücken die Sonnen-höhe in Pikenaus"
(von Schwarz, p. 124).
[704] Presumably, dark with shade, as in _qarā-yīghāch_, the
hard-wood elm (f. 47b and note to _narwān_).
[705] _i.e._ Sayyid Muḥammad `Alī, the door-ward. These
_būlāks_ seem likely to have been groups of 1,000 fighting-men
(Turki _Mīng_).
[706] In-the-water and Water-head.
[707] Walī went from his defeat to Khwāst; wrote to Maḥmūd
_Aūzbeg_ in Qūndūz to ask protection; was fetched to Qūndūz by
Muḥ. Ṣāliḥ, the author of the _Shaibānī-nāma_, and forwarded
from Qūndūz to Samarkand (Sh. N. cap. lxiii). Cf. f. 29b.
[708] _i.e._ where justice was administered, at this time,
outside Bābur's tent.
[709] They would pass Ajar and make for the main road over the
Dandān-shikan Pass.
[710] The clansmen may have obeyed Aḥmad's orders in thus
holding up the families.
[711] The name may be from Turkī _tāq_, a horse-shoe, but I.O.
215 f. 102 writes Persian _naqīb_, the servant who announces
arriving guests.
[712] Here, as immediately below, when mentioning the
Chār-bāgh and the tomb of Qūtlūq-qadam, Bābur uses names
acquired by the places at a subsequent date. In 910 AH. the
Taster was alive; the Chār-bāgh was bought by Bābur in 911
AH., and Qūtlūq-qadam fought at Kānwāha in 933 AH.
[713] The Kūcha-bāgh is still a garden about 4 miles from
Kābul on the north-west and divided from it by a low
hill-pass. There is still a bridge on the way (Erskine).
[714] Presumably that on which the Bālā-ḥiṣār stood, the
glacis of a few lines further.
[715] Cf. f. 130.
[716] One of Muqīm's wives was a Tīmūrid, Bābur's
first-cousin, the daughter of Aūlūgh Beg _Kābulī_; another was
Bībī Zarīf Khātūn, the mother of that Māh-chūchūq, whose anger
at her marriage to Bābur's faithful Qāsim Kūkūldāsh has filled
some pages of history (Gulbadan's H.N. _s.n._ Māh-chūchūq and
Erskine's B. and H. i, 348).
[717] Some 9 m. north of Kābul on the road to Āq-sarāī.
[718] The Ḥai. MS. (only) writes First Rabī but the Second
better suits the near approach of winter.
[719] Elph. MS. fol. 97; W.-i-B. I.O. 215 f. 102b and 217 f.
85; Mems. p. 136. Useful books of the early 19th century, many
of them referring to the _Bābur-nāma_, are Conolly's
_Travels_, Wood's _Journey_, Elphinstone's _Caubul_, Burnes'
_Cabool_, Masson's _Narrative_, Lord's and Leech's articles in
JASB 1838 and in Burnes' _Reports_ (India Office Library),
Broadfoot's _Report_ in RGS Supp. Papers vol. I.
[720] f. 1b where Farghāna is said to be on the limit of
cultivation.
[721] f. 131b. To find these _tūmāns_ here classed with what
was not part of Kābul suggest a clerical omission of "beyond"
or "east of" (Lamghānāt). It may be more correct to write
Lāmghānāt, since the first syllable may be _lām_, fort. The
modern form Laghmān is not used in the _Bābur-nāma_, nor, it
may be added is Paghmān for Pamghān.
[722] It will be observed that Bābur limits the name
Afghānistān to the countries inhabited by Afghān tribesmen;
they are chiefly those south of the road from Kābul to
Pashāwar (Erskine). See Vigne, p. 102, for a boundary between
the Afghāns and Khurāsān.
[723] Al-birūnī's _Indika_ writes of both Turk and Hindū-shāhī
Kings of Kābul. See Raverty's _Notes_ p. 62 and Stein's _Shāhī
Kings of Kābul_. The mountain is 7592 ft. above the sea, some
1800 ft. therefore above the town.
[724] The Kābul-river enters the Chār-dih plain by the
Dih-i-yaq`ūb narrows, and leaves it by those of Dūrrīn. Cf.
_S.A. War_, Plan p. 288 and Plan of action at Chār-āsiyā
(Four-mills), the second shewing an off-take which may be Wais
Ātāka's canal. See Vigne, p. 163 and Raverty's _Notes_ pp. 69
and 689.
[725] This, the Bālā-jūī (upper-canal) was a four-mill stream
and in Masson's time, as now, supplied water to the gardens
round Bābur's tomb. Masson found in Kābul honoured descendants
of Wais Ātāka (ii, 240).
[726] But for a, perhaps negligible, shortening of its first
vowel, this form of the name would describe the normal end of
an irrigation canal, a little pool, but other forms with other
meanings are open to choice, _e.g._ small hamlet (Pers.
_kul_), or some compound containing Pers. _gul_, a rose, in
its plain or metaphorical senses. Jarrett's _Āyīn-i-akbarī_
writes Gul-kīnah, little rose (?). Masson (ii, 236) mentions a
similar pleasure-resort, Sanjī-tāq.
[727] The original ode, with which the parody agrees in rhyme
and refrain, is in the _Dīwān, s.l. Dāl_ (Brockhaus ed. 1854,
i, 62 and lith. ed. p. 96). See Wilberforce Clarke's literal
translation i, 286 (H. B.). A marginal note to the Ḥaidarābād
Codex gives what appears to be a variant of one of the rhymes
of the parody.
[728] _aūlūgh kūl_; some 3 m. round in Erskine's time; mapped
as a swamp in _S.A. War_ p. 288.
[729] A marginal note to the Ḥai. Codex explains this name to
be an abbreviation of Khwāja Shamsū'd-dīn _Jān-bāz_ (or
_Jahān-bāz_; Masson, ii, 279 and iii, 93).
[730] _i.e_. the place made holy by an impress of saintly
foot-steps.
[731] Two eagles or, Two poles, used for punishment. Vigne's
illustration (p. 161) clearly shows the spur and the detached
rock. Erskine (p. 137 n.) says that `Uqābain seems to be the
hill, known in his day as `Āshiqān-i-`ārifān, which connects
with Bābur Bādshāh. See Raverty's _Notes_ p. 68.
[732] During most of the year this wind rushes through the
Hindū-kush (Parwān)-pass; it checks the migration of the birds
(f. 142), and it may be the cause of the deposit of the
Running-sands (Burnes, p. 158). Cf. Wood, p. 124.
[733] He was Badī`u'z-zamān's _Ṣadr_ before serving Bābur; he
died in 918 AH. (1512 AD.), in the battle of Kūl-i-malik where
`Ubaidu'l-lāh _Aūzbeg_ defeated Bābur. He may be identical
with Mīr Ḥusain the Riddler of f. 181, but seems not to be
Mullā Muḥ. _Badakhshī_, also a Riddler, because the
_Ḥabību's-siyār_ (ii, 343 and 344) gives this man a separate
notice. Those interested in enigmas can find one made by
T̤ālib on the name Yaḥya (Ḥ.S. ii, 344). Sharafu'd-dīn `Alī
_Yazdī_, the author of the _Z̤afar-nāma_, wrote a book about a
novel kind of these puzzles (T.R. p. 84).
[734] The original couplet is as follows:—
_Bakhūr dar arg-i Kābul mai, bagardān kāsa pāy dar pāy,
Kah ham koh ast, u ham daryā, u ham shahr ast, u ham ṣaḥrā'._
What T̤ālib's words may be inferred to conceal is the opinion
that like Badī`u'z-zamān and like the meaning of his name,
Kābul is the Wonder-of-the-world. (Cf. M. Garçin de Tassy's
_Rhétorique_ [p. 165], for _ces combinaisons énigmatiques_.)
[735] All MSS. do not mention Kāshghar.
[736] Khīta (Cathay) is Northern China; Chīn (_infra_) is
China; Rūm is Turkey and particularly the provinces near
Trebizond (Erskine).
[737] 300% to 400% (Erskine).
[738] Persian _sinjid_, Brandis, _elæagnus hortensis_; Erskine
(Mems. p. 138) jujube, presumably the _zizyphus jujuba_ of
Speede, Supplement p. 86. Turkī _yāngāq_, walnut, has several
variants, of which the most marked is _yānghkāq_. For a good
account of Kābul fruits _see_ Masson, ii, 230.
[739] a kind of plum (?). It seems unlikely to be a cherry
since Bābur does not mention cherries as good in his old
dominions, and Firminger (p. 244) makes against it as
introduced from India. Steingass explains _alū-bālū_ by
"sour-cherry, an armarylla"; if sour, is it the Morello
cherry?
[740] The sugar-cane was seen in abundance in Lan-po (Lamghān)
by a Chinese pilgrim (Beale, p. 90); Bābur's introduction of
it may have been into his own garden only in Nīngnahār (f.
132b).
[741] _i.e._ the seeds of _pinus Gerardiana_.
[742] _rawāshlār._ The green leaf-stalks (_chūkrī_) of _ribes
rheum_ are taken into Kābul in mid-April from the
Pamghān-hills; a week later they are followed by the blanched
and tended _rawāsh_ (Masson, ii, 7). _See_ Gul-badan's H.N.
trs. p. 188, Vigne, p. 100 and 107, Masson, ii, 230, Conolly,
i, 213.
[743] a large green fruit, shaped something like a citron;
also a large sort of cucumber (Erskine).
[744] The _ṣāḥibī_, a grape praised by Bābur amongst
Samarkandī fruits, grows in Koh-dāman; another well-known
grape of Kābul is the long stoneless _ḥusainī_, brought by
Afghān traders into Hindūstān in round, flat boxes of poplar
wood (Vigne, p. 172).
[745] An allusion, presumably, to the renouncement of wine
made by Bābur and some of his followers in 933 AH. (1527 AD.
f. 312). He may have had `Umar _Khayyām's_ quatrain in mind,
"Wine's power is known to wine-bibbers alone" (Whinfield's 2nd
ed. 1901, No. 164).
[746] _pūstīn_, usually of sheep-skin. For the wide range of
temperature at Kābul in 24 hours, _see_ Ency. Brtt. art.
Afghānistān. The winters also vary much in severity (Burnes,
p. 273).
[747] Index _s.n._ As he fought at Kānwāha, he will have been
buried after March 1527 AD.; this entry therefore will have
been made later. The Curriers'-gate is the later Lahor-gate
(Masson, ii, 259).
[748] Index _s.n._
[749] For lists of the Hindū-kush passes _see_ Leech's Report
VII; Yule's _Introductory Essay_ to Wood's _Journey_ 2nd ed.;
PRGS 1879, Markham's art. p. 121.
The highest _cols_ on the passes here enumerated by Bābur
are,—Khawāk 11,640 ft.—T̤ūl, height not known,—Pārandī 15,984
ft.—Bāj-gāh (Toll-place) 12,000 ft.—Walīān (Saints) 15,100
ft.—Chahār-dār (Four-doors) 18,900 ft. and Shibr-tū 9800 ft.
In considering the labour of their ascent and descent, the
general high level, north and south of them, should be borne
in mind; _e.g._ Chārikār (Chār-yak-kār) stands 5200 ft. and
Kābul itself at 5780 ft. above the sea.
[750] _i.e._ the hollow, long, and small-bāzār roads
respectively. Panjhīr is explained by Hindūs to be Panj-sher,
the five lion-sons of Pandu (Masson, iii, 168).
[751] Shibr is a Hazāra district between the head of the
Ghūr-bund valley and Bāmīān. It does not seem to be correct to
omit the _tū_ from the name of the pass. Persian _tū_, turn,
twist (syn. _pīch_) occurs in other names of local passes; to
read it here as a _turn_ agrees with what is said of Shibr-tū
pass as not crossing but turning the Hindū-kush (Cunningham).
Lord uses the same wording about the Ḥājī-ghāt (var. -kāk
etc.) traverse of the same spur, which "turns the extremity of
the Hindū-kush". _See_ Cunningham's _Ancient Geography_, i,
25; Lord's _Ghūr-bund_ (JASB 1838 p. 528), Masson, iii, 169
and Leech's _Report_ VII.
[752] Perhaps through Jālmīsh into Saighān.
[753] _i.e._ they are closed.
[754] It was unknown in Mr. Erskine's day (Mems. p. 140).
Several of the routes in Raverty's _Notes_ (p. 92 etc.) allow
it to be located as on the Īrī-āb, near to or identical with
Bāghzān, 35 _kurohs_ (70 m.) s.s.e. of Kābul.
[755] Farmūl, about the situation of which Mr. Erskine was in
doubt, is now marked in maps, Ūrghūn being its principal
village.
[756] 15 miles below Atak (Erskine). Mr. Erskine notes that he
found no warrant, previous to Abū'l-faẓl's, for calling the
Indus the Nīl-āb, and that to find one would solve an ancient
geographical difficulty. This difficulty, my husband suggests,
was Alexander's supposition that the Indus was the Nile. In
books grouping round the _Bābur-nāma_, the name Nīl-āb is not
applied to the Indus, but to the ferry-station on that river,
said to owe its name to a spring of azure water on its eastern
side. (Cf. Afẓal Khān _Khattak_, R.'s _Notes_ p. 447.)
I find the name Nīl-āb applied to the Kābul-river:—1. to its
Arghandī affluent (Cunningham, p. 17, Map); 2. through its
boatman class, the Nīl-ābīs of Lālpūra, Jalālābād and Kūnār
(G. of I. 1907, art. Kābul); 3. inferentially to it as a
tributary of the Indus (D'Herbélot); 4. to it near its
confluence with the grey, silt-laden Indus, as blue by
contrast (Sayyid Ghulām-i-muḥammad, R.'s _Notes_ p. 34). (For
Nīl-āb (Naulibis?) in Ghūr-bund _see_ Cunningham, p. 32 and
Masson, iii, 169.)
[757] By one of two routes perhaps,—either by the
Khaibar-Nīngnahār-Jagdālīk road, or along the north bank of
the Kābul-river, through Goshṭa to the crossing where, in
1879, the 10th Hussars met with disaster. _See_ _S.A. War_,
Map 2 and p. 63; Leech's _Reports_ II and IV (Fords of the
Indus); and R.'s _Notes_ p. 44.
[758] Hāru, Leech's Harroon, apparently, 10 m. above Atak. The
text might be read to mean that both rivers were forded near
their confluence, but, finding no warrant for supposing the
Kābul-river fordable below Jalālābād, I have guided the
translation accordingly; this may be wrong and may conceal a
change in the river.
[759] Known also as Dhān-kot and as Mu`az̤z̤am-nagar
(_Ma`āṣiru'l-`umrā_ i, 249 and A.N. trs. H.B. index _s.n._
Dhān-kot). It was on the east bank of the Indus, probably near
modern Kālā-bāgh, and was washed away not before 956 AH. (1549
AD. H. Beveridge).
[760] Chaupāra seems, from f. 148b, to be the Chapari of
Survey Map 1889. Bābur's _Dasht_ is modern Dāman.
[761] _aīmāq_, used usually of Mughūls, I think. It may be
noted that Lieutenant Leech compiled a vocabulary of the
tongue of the Mughūl Aīmāq in Qandahār and Harāt (JASB 1838,
p. 785).
[762] The _Āyīn-i-akbarī_ account of Kābul both uses and
supplements the _Bābur-nāma_.
[763] _viz._ `Alī-shang, Alangār and Mandrāwar (the Lamghānāt
proper), Nīngnahār (with its _bulūk_, Kāma),
Kūnār-with-Nūr-gal, (and the two _bulūks_ of Nūr-valley and
Chaghān-sarāī).
[764] _See_ Appendix E, _On Nagarahāra_.
[765] The name Adīnapūr is held to be descended from ancient
Udyānapūra (Garden-town); its ancestral form however was
applied to Nagarahāra, apparently, in the Bārān-Sūrkh-rūd
_dū-āb_, and not to Bābur's _dārogha's_ seat. The Sūrkh-rūd's
deltaic mouth was a land of gardens; when Masson visited
Adīnapūr he went from Bālā-bāgh (High-garden); this appears to
stand where Bābur locates his Bāgh-i-wafā, but he was shown a
garden he took to be this one of Bābur's, a mile higher up the
Sūrkh-rūd. A later ruler made the Chār-bāgh of maps. It may be
mentioned that Bālā-bāgh has become in some maps Rozābād
(Garden-town). _See_ Masson, i, 182 and iii, 186; R.'s
_Notes_; and Wilson's _Ariana Antiqua_, Masson's art.
[766] One of these _tangī_ is now a literary asset in Mr.
Kipling's _My Lord the Elephant_. Bābur's 13 y. represent some
82 miles; on f. 137b the Kābul-Ghaznī road of 14 y. represents
some 85; in each case the _yīghāch_ works out at over six
miles (Index _s.n._ _yīghāch_ and Vigne, p. 454). Sayyid
Ghulām-i-muḥammad traces this route minutely (R.'s _Notes_ pp.
57, 59).
[767] Masson was shewn "Chaghatai castles", attributed to
Bābur (iii, 174).
[768] Dark-turn, perhaps, as in Shibr-tū, Jāl-tū, _etc._ (f.
130b and note to Shibr-tū).
[769] f. 145 where the change is described in identical words,
as seen south of the Jagdālīk-pass. The Bādām-chashma pass
appears to be a traverse of the eastern rampart of the
Tīzīn-valley.
[770] Appendix E, _On Nagarahāra_.
[771] No record exists of the actual laying-out of the garden;
the work may have been put in hand during the Mahmand
expedition of 914 AH. (f. 216); the name given to it suggests
a gathering there of loyalists when the stress was over of the
bad Mughūl rebellion of that year (f. 216b where the narrative
breaks off abruptly in 914 AH. and is followed by a gap down
to 925 AH.-1519 AD.).
[772] No annals of 930 AH. are known to exist; from Ṣafar 926
AH. to 932 AH. (Jan. 1520-Nov. 1525 AD.) there is a lacuna.
Accounts of the expedition are given by Khāfī Khān, i, 47 and
Firishta, lith. ed. p. 202.
[773] Presumably to his son, Humāyūn, then governor in
Badakhshān; Bukhārā also was under Bābur's rule.
[774] Here, _qārī_, yards. The dimensions 10 by 10, are those
enjoined for places of ablution.
[775] Presumably those of the _tūqūz-rūd_, _supra_. Cf.
Appendix E, _On Nagarahāra_.
[776] White-mountain; Pushtū, Spīn-ghur (or ghar).
[777] _i.e._ the Lamghānāt proper. The range is variously
named; in (Persian) Siyāh-koh (Black-mountain), which like
Turkī Qarā-tāgh may mean non-snowy; by Tājīks, Bāgh-i-ātāka
(Foster-father's garden); by Afghāns, Kanda-ghur, and by
Lamghānīs Koh-i-būlān,—Kanda and Būlān both being
ferry-stations below it (Masson, iii, 189; also the Times Nov.
20th 1912 for a cognate illustration of diverse naming).
[778] A comment made here by Mr. Erskine on changes of name is
still appropriate, but some seeming changes may well be due to
varied selection of land-marks. Of the three routes next
described in the text, one crosses as for Mandrāwar; the
second, as for `Alī-shang, a little below the outfall of the
Tīzīn-water; the third may take off from the route, between
Kābul and Tag-aū, marked in Col. Tanner's map (PRGS 1881 p.
180). Cf. R's Route 11; and for Aūlūgh-nūr, Appendix F, _On
the name Nūr_.
[779] The name of this pass has several variants. Its second
component, whatever its form, is usually taken to mean _pass_,
but to read it here as pass would be redundant, since Bābur
writes "pass (_kūtal_) of Bād-i-pīch". Pich occurs as a place
name both east (Pīch) and west (Pīchghān) of the _kūtal_, but
what would suit the bitter and even fatal winds of the pass
would be to read the name as Whirling-wind (_bād-i-pīch_).
Another explanation suggests itself from finding a
considerable number of pass-names such as Shibr-tū, Jāi-tū,
Qarā-tū, in which _tū_ is a synonym of _pīch_, turn, twist;
thus Bād-i-pīch may be the local form of Bād-tū, Windy-turn.
[780] _See_ Masson, iii, 197 and 289. Both in Pashāī and
Lamghānī, _lām_ means fort.
[781] _See_ Appendix F, _On the name Dara-i-nūr_.
[782] _ghair mukarrar._ Bābur may allude to the remarkable
change men have wrought in the valley-bottom (Appendix F, for
Col. Tanner's account of the valley).
[783] f. 154.
[784] _diospyrus lotus_, the European date-plum, supposed to
be one of the fruits eaten by the Lotophagi. It is purple, has
bloom and is of the size of a pigeon's egg or a cherry. See
Watts' _Economic Products of India_; Brandis' _Forest Trees_,
Illustrations; and Speede's _Indian Hand-book_.
[785] As in Lombardy, perhaps; in Luhūgur vines are clipped
into standards; in most other places in Afghānistān they are
planted in deep trenches and allowed to run over the
intervening ridges or over wooden framework. In the narrow
Khūlm-valley they are trained up poplars so as to secure them
the maximum of sun. _See_ Wood's _Report_ VI p. 27; Bellew's
_Afghānistān_ p. I75 and _Mems_. p. 142 note.
[786] Appendix G, _On the names of two Nūrī wines_.
[787] This practice Bābur viewed with disgust, the hog being
an impure animal according to Muḥammadan Law (Erskine).
[788] The _Khazīnatu'l-asfiyā_ (ii, 293) explains how it came
about that this saint, one honoured in Kashmīr, was buried in
Khutlān. He died in Hazāra (Paklī) and there the Paklī Sulṯān
wished to have him buried, but his disciples, for some
unspecified reason, wished to bury him in Khutlān. In order to
decide the matter they invited the Sultān to remove the bier
with the corpse upon it. It could not be stirred from its
place. When, however, a single one of the disciples tried to
move it, he alone was able to lift it, and to bear it away on
his head. Hence the burial in Khutlān. The death occurred in
786 AH. (1384 AD.). A point of interest in this legend is
that, like the one to follow, concerning dead women, it shews
belief in the living activities of the dead.
[789] The MSS. vary between 920 and 925 AH.—neither date seems
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.
[846] While here _dasht_ (plain) represents the eastern skirt
of the Mehtar Sulaimān range, _dūkī_ or _dūgī_ (desert) seems
to stand for the hill tracts on the west of it, and not, as on
f. 152, for the place there specified.
[847] Mems. p. 152, "A narrow place is large to the
narrow-minded"; _Méms._ i, 311, "Ce qui n'est pas trop large,
ne reste pas vide." Literally, "So long as heights are not
equal, there is no vis-a-vis," or, if _tāng_ be read for
_tīng_, "No dawn, no noon," _i.e._ no effect without a cause.
[848] I have not lighted on this name in botanical books or
explained by dictionaries. Perhaps it is a Cis-oxanian name
for the _sax-aol_ of Transoxania. As its uses are enumerated
by some travellers, it might be _Haloxylon ammodendron_,
_ta-ghas etc._ and _sax-aol_ (Aitchison, p. 102).
[849] f. 135b note to Ghūr-bund.
[850] I understand that wild-goats, wild-sheep and deer
(_āhū_) were not localized, but that the dun-sheep migrated
through. Antelope (_āhū_) was scarce in Elphinstone's time.
[851] _qīzīl kīyik_ which, taken with its alternative name,
_arqārghalcha_, allows it to be the dun-sheep of Wood's
_Journey_ p. 241. From its second name it may be _Ovis amnon_
(_Raos_), or _O. argalī_.
[852] _tusqāwal_, var. _tutqāwal_, _tus̱aqāwal_ and
_tūshqāwal_, a word which has given trouble to scribes and
translators. As a sporting-term it is equivalent to
_shikār-i-nihilam_; in one or other of its forms I find it
explained as _Weg-hüter_, _Fahnen-hüter_, _Zahl-meister_,
_Schlucht_, _Gefahrlicher-weg_ and _Schmaler-weg_. It recurs
in the B.N. on f. 197b l. 5 and l. 6 and there might mean
either a narrow road or a _Weg-hüter_. If its Turkī root be
_tūs_, the act of stopping, all the above meanings can follow,
but there may be two separate roots, the second, _tūsh_, the
act of descent (JRAS 1900 p. 137, H. Beveridge's art. _On the
word nihilam_).
[853] _qūshlīk_, _aītlīk_. Elphinstone writes (i, 191) of the
excellent greyhounds and hawking birds of the region; here the
bird may be the _charkh_, which works with the dogs, fastening
on the head of the game (Von Schwarz, p. 117, for the same use
of eagles).
[854] An antelope resembling the usual one of Hindūstān is
common south of Ghaznī (Vigne, p. 110); what is not found may
be some classes of wild-sheep, frequent further north, at
higher elevation, and in places more familiar to Bābur.
[855] The Parwān or Hindū-kush pass, concerning the winds of
which _see_ f. 128.
[856] _tūrnā u qarqara_; the second of which is the Hindī
_būglā_, heron, _egret ardea gazetta_, the furnisher of the
aigrette of commerce.
[857] The _aūqār_ is _ardea cinerea_, the grey heron; the
_qarqara_ is _ardea gazetta_, the egret. _Qūṯān_ is explained
in the Elph. Codex (f. 110) by _khawāsil_, goldfinch, but the
context concerns large birds; Scully (Shaw's Voc.) has
_qodan_, water-hen, which suits better.
[858] _giz_, the short-flight arrow.
[859] a small, round-headed nail with which a whip-handle is
decorated (Vambéry). Such a stud would keep the cord from
slipping through the fingers and would not check the
arrow-release.
[860] It has been understood (Mems. p. 158 and _Méms._ i, 313)
that the arrow was flung by hand but if this were so,
something heavier than the _giz_ would carry the cord better,
since it certainly would be difficult to direct a missile so
light as an arrow without the added energy of the bow. The
arrow itself will often have found its billet in the
closely-flying flock; the cord would retrieve the bird. The
verb used in the text is _aītmāq_, the one common to express
the discharge of arrows _etc._
[861] For Tīmūrids who may have immigrated the fowlers _see_
Raverty's _Notes_ p. 579 and his Appendix p. 22.
[862] _milwāh_; this has been read by all earlier translators,
and also by the Persian annotator of the Elph. Codex, to mean
_shākh_, bough. For decoy-ducks _see_ Bellew's _Notes on
Afghānistān_ p. 404.
[863] _qūlān qūyirūghī._ Amongst the many plants used to drug
fish I have not found this one mentioned. _Khār-zāhra_ and
_khār-fāq_ approach it in verbal meaning; the first describes
colocynth, the second, wild rue. See Watts' _Economic Products
of India_ iii, 366 and Bellew's _Notes_ pp. 182, 471 and 478.
[864] Much trouble would have been spared to himself and his
translators, if Bābur had known a lobster-pot.
[865] The fish, it is to be inferred, came down the fall into
the pond.
[866] Burnes and Vigne describe a fall 20 miles from Kābul, at
"Tangī Gharoi", [below where the Tag-aū joins the
Bārān-water,] to which in their day, Kābulīs went out for the
amusement of catching fish as they try to leap up the fall.
Were these migrants seeking upper waters or were they captives
in a fish-pond?
[867] Elph. MS. f. 111; W.-i-B. I.O. 215 f. 116b and 217 f.
97b; Mems. p. 155; _Méms._ i, 318.
[868] _mihmān-beglār_, an expression first used by Bābur here,
and due, presumably, to accessions from Khusrau Shāh's
following. A parallel case is given in Max Müller's _Science
of Language_ i, 348 ed. 1871, "Turkmān tribes ... call
themselves, not subjects, but guests of the Uzbeg Khāns."
[869] _tiyūl-dīk_ in all the Turkī MSS. Ilminsky, de
Courteille and Zenker, _yitūl-dīk_, Turkī, a fief.
[870] _Wilāyat khūd hech bīrīlmādī_; W.-i-B. 215 f. 116b,
_Wilāyat dāda na shuda_ and 217 f. 97b, _Wilāyat khūd hech
dāda na shud_. By this I understand that he kept the lands of
Kābul itself in his own hands. He mentions (f. 350) and
Gul-badan mentions (H.N. f. 40b) his resolve so to keep Kābul.
I think he kept not only the fort but all lands constituting
the Kābul _tūmān_ (f. 135b and note).
[871] _Saifī dūr, qalamī aīmās_, _i.e._ tax is taken by force,
not paid on a written assessment.
[872] _khar-wār_, about 700 lbs Averdupois (Erskine). Cf.
_Āyīn-i-akbarī_ (Jarrett, ii, 394).
[873] Niẕāmu'd-dīn Aḥmad and Badāyūnī both mention this script
and say that in it Bābur transcribed a copy of the Qorān for
presentation to Makka. Badāyūnī says it was unknown in his
day, the reign of Akbar (_T̤abaqāt-i-akbarī_, lith. ed. p.
193, and _Muntakhabu't-tawārīkh_ Bib. Ind. ed. iii, 273).
[874] Bābur's route, taken with one given by Raverty (_Notes_
p. 691), allows these Hazāras, about whose location Mr.
Erskine was uncertain, to be located between the Takht-pass
(Arghandī-Maidān-Unai road), on their east, and the Sang-lākh
mountains, on their west.
[875] The Takht-pass, one on which from times immemorial, toll
(_nirkh_) has been taken.
[876] _khāṯir-khwāh chāpīlmādī_, which perhaps implies mutual
discontent, Bābur's with his gains, the Hazāras' with their
losses. As the second Persian translation omits the negative,
the Memoirs does the same.
[877] Bhīra being in Shāhpūr, this Khān's _daryā_ will be the
Jehlam.
[878] Bābur uses Persian _dasht_ and Hindī _dūkī_, plain and
hill, for the tracts east and west of Mehtar Sulaimān. The
first, _dasht_, stands for Dāman (skirt) and Dara-i-jāt, the
second, _dūkī_, indefinitely for the broken lands west of the
main range, but also, in one instance for the Dūkī [Dūgī]
district of Qandahār, as will be noted.
[879] f. 132. The Jagdālīk-pass for centuries has separated
the districts of Kābul and Nīngnahār. Forster (_Travels_ ii,
68), making the journey the reverse way, was sensible of the
climatic change some 3m. east of Gandamak. Cf. Wood's _Report_
I. p. 6.
[880] These are they whose families Nāṣir Mīrzā shepherded out
of Kābul later (f. 154, f. 155).
[881] Bird's-dome, opposite the mouth of the Kūnār-water
(_S.A. War_, Map p. 64).
[882] This word is variously pointed and is uncertain. Mr.
Erskine adopted "Pekhi", but, on the whole, it may be best to
read, here and on f. 146, Ar. _fajj_ or pers. _paj_, mountain
or pass. To do so shews the guide to be one located in the
Khaibar-pass, a _Fajjī_ or _Pajī_.
[883] mod. Jām-rūd (Jām-torrent), presumably.
[884] G. of I. xx, 125 and Cunningham's _Ancient History_ i,
80. Bābur saw the place in 925 AH. (f. 232b).
[885] Cunningham, p. 29. Four ancient sites, not far removed
from one another, bear this name, Bīgrām, _viz._ those near
Hūpīān, Kābul, Jalālābād and Pashāwar.
[886] Cunningham, i, 79.
[887] Perhaps a native of Kamarī on the Indus, but _kamarī_ is
a word of diverse application (index _s.n._).
[888] The annals of this campaign to the eastward shew that
Bābur was little of a free agent; that many acts of his own
were merciful; that he sets down the barbarity of others as it
was, according to his plan of writing (f. 86); and that he had
with him undisciplined robbers of Khusrau Shāh's former
following. He cannot be taken as having power to command or
control the acts of those, his guest-begs and their following,
who dictated his movements in this disastrous journey, one
worse than a defeat, says Ḥaidar Mīrzā.
[889] For the route here _see_ Masson, i, 117 and Colquhoun's
_With the Kuram Field-force_ p. 48.
[890] The Ḥai. MS. writes this Dilah-zāk.
[891] _i.e._ raised a force in Bābur's name. He took advantage
of this _farmān_ in 911 AH. to kill Bāqī _Chagkānīānī_ (f.
159b-160).
[892] Of the Yūsuf-zāī and Ranjīt-sīngh, Masson says, (i, 141)
"The miserable, hunted wretches threw themselves on the
ground, and placing a blade or tuft of grass in their mouths,
cried out, "I am your cow." This act and explanation, which
would have saved them from an orthodox Hindū, had no effect
with the infuriated Sikhs." This form of supplication is at
least as old as the days of Firdausī (Erskine, p. 159 n.). The
_Bahār-i-`ajam_ is quoted by Vullers as saying that in India,
suppliants take straw in the mouth to indicate that they are
blanched and yellow from fear.
[893] This barbarous custom has always prevailed amongst the
Tartar conquerors of Asia (Erskine). For examples under Timūr
_see_ Raverty's _Notes_ p. 137.
[894] For a good description of the road from Kohāt to Thāl
_see_ Bellew's _Mission_ p. 104.
[895] F. 88b has the same phrase about the doubtful courage of
one Sayyidī Qarā.
[896] Not to the mod. town of Bannū, [that having been begun
only in 1848 AD.] but wherever their wrong road brought them
out into the Bannū amphitheatre. The Survey Map of 1868, No.
15, shews the physical features of the wrong route.
[897] Perhaps he connived at recovery of cattle by those
raided already.
[898] Tāq is the Tank of Maps; Bāzār was s.w. of it. Tank for
Tāq looks to be a variant due to nasal utterance (Vigne, p.
77, p. 203 and Map; and, as bearing on the nasal, _in loco_,
Appendix E).
[899] If return had been made after over-running Bannū, it
would have been made by the Tochī-valley and so through
Farmūl; if after over-running the Plain, Bābur's details shew
that the westward turn was meant to be by the Gūmāl-valley and
one of two routes out of it, still to Farmūl; but the extended
march southward to near Dara-i-Ghazī Khān made the westward
turn be taken through the valley opening at Sakhī-sawār.
[900] This will mean, none of the artificial runlets familiar
where Bābur had lived before getting to know Hindūstān.
[901] _sauda-āt_, perhaps, pack-ponies, perhaps, bred for sale
and not for own use. Burnes observes that in 1837 Lūhānī
merchants carried precisely the same articles of trade as in
Bābur's day, 332 years earlier (_Report_ IX p. 99).
[902] Mr. Erskine thought it probable that the first of these
routes went through Kanigūram, and the second through the
Ghwālirī-pass and along the Gūmāl. _Birk_, fastness, would
seem an appropriate name for Kanigūram, but, if Bābur meant to
go to Ghaznī, he would be off the ordinary Gūmāl-Ghaznī route
in going through Farmūl (Aūrgūn). Raverty's _Notes_ give much
useful detail about these routes, drawn from native sources.
For Barak (Birk) _see_ _Notes_ pp. 88, 89; Vigne, p. 102.
[903] From this it would seem that the alternative roads were
approached by one in common.
[904] _tūmshūq_, a bird's bill, used here, as in Selsey-bill,
for the naze (nose), or snout, the last spur, of a range.
[905] Here these words may be common nouns.
[906] Nū-roz, the feast of the old Persian New-year (Erskine);
it is the day on which the Sun enters Aries.
[907] In the [Turkī] Elph. and Ḥai. MSS. and in some Persian
ones, there is a space left here as though to indicate a known
omission.
[908] _kamarī_, sometimes a cattle-enclosure, which may serve
as a _sangur_. The word may stand in one place of its
_Bābur-nāma_ uses for Gum-rāhī (R.'s _Notes_ _s.n._
Gum-rāhān).
[909] Index _s.n._
[910] Vigne, p. 241.
[911] This name can be translated "He turns not back" or "He
stops not".
[912] _i.e._ five from Bīlah.
[913] Raverty gives the saint's name as Pīr Kānūn (Ar.
_kānūn_, listened to). It is the well-known Sakhī-sarwār,
honoured hy Hindūs and Muḥammadans. (G. of I., xxi, 390; R.'s
_Notes_ p. 11 and p. 12 and JASB 1855; Calcutta Review 1875,
Macauliffe's art. _On the fair at Sakhi-sarwar_; Leech's
_Report_ VII, for the route; _Khazīnatu 'l-asfiyā_ iv, 245.)
[914] This seems to be the sub-district of Qandahār, Dūkī or
Dūgī.
[915] _khar-gāh_, a folding tent on lattice frame-work,
perhaps a _khibitka_.
[916] It may be more correct to write Kāh-mard, as the Ḥai.
MS. does and to understand in the name a reference to the
grass(_kāh_)-yielding capacity of the place.
[917] f. 121.
[918] This may mean, what irrigation has not used.
[919] Mr. Erskine notes that the description would lead us to
imagine a flock of flamingoes. Masson found the lake filled
with red-legged, white fowl (i, 262); these and also what
Bābur saw, may have been the China-goose which has body and
neck white, head and tail russet (Bellew's _Mission_ p. 402).
Broadfoot seems to have visited the lake when migrants were
few, and through this to have been led to adverse comment on
Bābur's accuracy (p. 350).
[920] The usual dryness of the bed may have resulted from the
irrigation of much land some 12 miles from Ghaznī.
[921] This is the Luhūgur (Logar) water, knee-deep in winter
at the ford but spreading in flood with the spring-rains.
Bābur, not being able to cross it for the direct roads into
Kābul, kept on along its left bank, crossing it eventually at
the Kamarī of maps, s.e. of Kābul.
[922] This disastrous expedition, full of privation and loss,
had occupied some four months (T.R. p. 201).
[923] f. 145b.
[924] f. 133b and Appendix F.
[925] They were located in Mandrāwar in 926 AH. (f. 251).
[926] This was done, manifestly, with the design of drawing
after the families their fighting men, then away with Bābur.
[927] f. 163. Shaibāq Khān besieged Chīn Ṣufī, Sl. Ḥusain
Mīrzā's man in Khwārizm (T. R. p. 204; _Shaibānī-nāma_,
Vambéry, Table of Contents and note 89).
[928] Survey Map 1889, Sadda. The Rāgh-water flows n.w. into
the Oxus (Amū).
[929] _birk_, a mountain stronghold; cf. f. 149b note to Birk
(Barak).
[930] They were thus driven on from the Bārān-water (f. 154b).
[931] f. 126b.
[932] Ḥiṣār, presumably.
[933] Here "His Honour" translates Bābur's clearly ironical
honorific plural.
[934] These two sulṯāns, almost always mentioned in alliance,
may be Tīmūrids by maternal descent (Index _s.nn._). So far I
have found no direct statement of their parentage. My husband
has shewn me what may be one indication of it, _viz._ that two
of the uncles of Shaibāq Khān (whose kinsmen the sulṯāns seem
to be), Qūj-kūnjī and Sīūnjak, were sons of a daughter of the
Tīmūrid Aūlūgh Beg _Samarkandī_ (Ḥ.S. ii, 318). _See_
Vambéry's _Bukhārā_ p. 248 note.
[935] For the deaths of Taṃbal and Maḥmūd, mentioned in the
above summary of Shaibāq Khān's actions, _see_ the
_Shaibānī-nāma_, Vambéry, p. 323.
[936] Ḥ.S. ii, 323, for Khusrau Shāh's character and death.
[937] f. 124.
[938] Khwāja-of-the-rhubarb, presumably a shrine near
rhubarb-grounds (f. 129b).
[939] _yakshī bārdīlār_, lit. went well, a common expression
in the _Bābur-nāma_, of which the reverse statement is
_yamānlīk bīla bārdī_ (f. 163). Some Persian MSS. make the
Mughūls disloyal but this is not only in opposition to the
Turkī text, it is a redundant statement since if disloyal,
they are included in Bābur's previous statement, as being
Khusrau Shāh's retainers. What might call for comment in
Mughūls would be loyalty to Bābur.
[940] Elph. MS. f. 121b: W.-i-B. I.O. 215 f. 126 and 217 f.
106b; Mems. p. 169.
[941] _tāgh-dāmanasī_, presumably the Koh-dāman, and the
garden will thus be the one of f. 136b.
[942] If these heirs were descendants of Aūlūgh Beg M. one
would be at hand in `Abdu'r-razzāq, then a boy, and another, a
daughter, was the wife of Muqīm _Arghūn_. As Mr. Erskine
notes, Musalmāns are most scrupulous not to bury their dead in
ground gained by violence or wrong.
[943] The news of Aḥmad's death was belated; he died some 13
months earlier, in the end of 909 AH. and in Eastern
Turkistān. Perhaps details now arrived.
[944] _i.e._ the fortieth day of mourning, when alms are
given.
[945] Of those arriving, the first would find her
step-daughter dead, the second her sister, the third, his late
wife's sister (T. R. p. 196).
[946] This will be the earthquake felt in Agra on Ṣafar 3rd
911 AH. (July 5th 1505 AD. Erskine's _History of India_ i, 229
note). Cf. Elliot and Dowson, iv, 465 and v, 99.
[947] Raverty's _Notes_ p. 690.
[948] _bīr kitta tāsh ātīmī_; var. _bāsh ātīmī_. If _tāsh_ be
right, the reference will probably be to the throw of a
catapult.
[949] Here almost certainly, a drummer, because there were two
tambours and because also Bābur uses _`aūdī_ & _ghachakī_ for
the other meanings of _ṯambourchi_, lutanist and guitarist.
The word has found its way, as _tambourgi_, into Childe
Harold's Pilgrimage (Canto ii, lxxii. H. B.).
[950] Kābul-Ghaznī road (R.'s _Notes_ index _s.n._).
[951] var. Yārī. Tāzī is on the Ghaznī-Qalāt-i-ghilzāī road
(R.'s _Notes_, Appendix p. 46).
[952] _i.e._ in Kābul and in the Trans-Himalayan country.
[953] These will be those against Bābur's suzerainty done by
their defence of Qalāt for Muqīm.
[954] _tabaqa_, dynasty. By using this word Bābur shews
recognition of high birth. It is noticeable that he usually
writes of an Arghūn chief either simply as "Beg" or without a
title. This does not appear to imply admission of equality,
since he styles even his brothers and sisters Mīrzā and Begīm;
nor does it shew familiarity of intercourse, since none seems
to have existed between him and Ẕū'n-nūn or Muqīm. That he did
not admit equality is shewn on f. 208. The T.R. styles
Ẕū'n-nūn "Mīrzā", a title by which, as also by Shāh, his
descendants are found styled (A.-i-a. Blochmann, _s.n._).
[955] Turkī _khachar_ is a camel or mule used for carrying
personal effects. The word has been read by some scribes as
_khanjar_, dagger.
[956] In 910 AH. he had induced Bābur to come to Kābul instead
of going into Khurāsān (Ḥ.S. iii, 319); in the same year he
dictated the march to Kohāt, and the rest of that disastrous
travel. His real name was not Bāqī but Muḥammad Bāqir (Ḥ.S.
iii, 311).
[957] These transit or custom duties are so called because the
dutiable articles are stamped with a _ṯamghā_, a wooden stamp.
[958] Perhaps this word is an equivalent of Persian _goshī_, a
tax on cattle and beasts of burden.
[959] Bāqī was one only and not the head of the Lords of the
Gate.
[960] The choice of the number nine, links on presumably to
the mystic value attached to it _e.g._ Tarkhāns had nine
privileges; gifts were made by nines.
[961] It is near Ḥasan-abdāl (A.-i-A. Jarrett, ii, 324).
[962] For the _farmān_, f. 146b; for Gujūrs, G. of I.
[963] var. Khwesh. Its water flows into the Ghūr-bund stream;
it seems to be the Dara-i-Turkmān of Stanford and the Survey
Maps both of which mark Janglīk. For Hazāra turbulence, f.
135b and note.
[964] The repetition of _aūq_ in this sentence can hardly be
accidental.
[965] _ṯaur_ [_dara_], which I take to be Turkī, round,
complete.
[966] Three MSS. of the Turkī text write _bīr sīmīzlūq tīwah_;
but the two Persian translations have _yak shuturlūq farbīh_,
a _shuturlūq_ being a baggage-camel with little hair
(Erskine).
[967] _brochettes_, meat cut into large mouthfuls, spitted and
roasted.
[968] Perhaps he was officially an announcer; the word means
also bearer of good news.
[969] _yīlāng_, without mail, as in the common phrase _yīgīt
yīlāng_, a bare brave.
[970] _aūpchīn_, of horse and man (f. 113b and note).
[971] Manifestly Bābur means that he twice actually helped to
collect the booty.
[972] This is that part of a horse covered by the two
side-pieces of a Turkī saddle, from which the side-arch
springs on either side (Shaw).
[973] _Bārān-nīng ayāghī._ Except the river I have found
nothing called Bārān; the village marked Baian on the French
Map would suit the position; it is n.e. of Chār-yak-kār (f.
184b note).
[974] _i.e._ prepared to fight.
[975] For the Hazāra (Turkī, Mīng) on the Mīrzā's road _see_
Raverty's routes from Ghaznī to the north. An account given by
the _Tārīkh-i-rashīdī_ (p. 196) of Jahāngīr's doings is
confused; its parenthetical "(at the same time)" can hardly be
correct. Jahāngīr left Ghaznī now, (911 AH.), as Bābur left
Kābul in 912 AH. without knowledge of Ḥusain's death (911
AH.). Bābur had heard it (f. 183b) before Jahāngīr joined him
(912 AH.); after their meeting they went on together to Herī.
The petition of which the T. R. speaks as made by Jahāngīr to
Bābur, that he might go into Khurāsān and help the Bāī-qarā
Mīrzās must have been made after the meeting of the two at
Ṣaf-hill (f. 184b).
[976] The plurals _they_ and _their_ of the preceding sentence
stand no doubt for the Mīrzā, Yūsuf and Buhlūl who all had
such punishment due as would lead them to hear threat in
Qāsim's words now when all were within Bābur's pounce.
[977] These are the _aīmāqs_ from which the fighting-men went
east with Bābur in 910 AH. and the families in which Nāṣir
shepherded across Hindu-kush (f. 154 and f. 155).
[978] _yamānlīk bīla bārdī_; cf. f. 156b and n. for its
opposite, _yakhshī bārdīlār_; and T. R. p. 196.
[979] One might be of mail, the other of wadded cloth.
[980] Chīn Ṣūfī was Ḥusain _Bāī-qarā's_ man (T.R. p. 204). His
arduous defence, faithfulness and abandonment recall the
instance of a later time when also a long road stretched
between the man and the help that failed him. But the Mīrzā
was old, his military strength was, admittedly, sapped by
ease; hence his elder Khartum, his neglect of his Gordon.
It should be noted that no mention of the page's fatal arrow
is made by the _Shaibānī-nāma_ (Vambéry, p. 442), or by the
_Tārīkh-i-rashīdī_ (p. 204). Chīn Ṣūfī's death was on the 21st
of the Second Rabī 911 AH. (Aug. 22nd 1505 AD.).
[981] This may be the "Baboulei" of the French Map of 1904, on
the Herī-Kushk-Marūchāq road.
[982] Elph. MS. f. 127; W.-i-B. I.O. 215 f. 132 and 217 f.
111b; Mems. p. 175; _Méms._ i, 364.
That Bābur should have given his laborious account of the
Court of Herī seems due both to loyalty to a great Tīmūrid,
seated in Tīmūr Beg's place (f. 122b), and to his own
interest, as a man-of-letters and connoisseur in excellence,
in that ruler's galaxy of talent. His account here opening is
not complete; its sources are various; they include the
_Ḥabību's-siyār_ and what he will have learned himself in Herī
or from members of the Bāī-qarā family, knowledgeable women
some of them, who were with him in Hindūstān. The narrow scope
of my notes shews that they attempt no more than to indicate
further sources of information and to clear up a few
obscurities.
[983] Tīmūr's youngest son, d. 850 AH. (1446 AD.). Cf. Ḥ.S.
iii, 203. The use in this sentence of Amīr and not Beg as
Tīmūr's title is, up to this point, unique in the
_Bābur-nāma_; it may be a scribe's error.
[984] Fīrūza's paternal line of descent was as
follows:—Fīrūza, daughter of Sl. Ḥusain _Qānjūt_, son of Ākā
Begīm, daughter of Tīmūr. Her maternal descent was:—Fīrūza, d.
of Qūtlūq-sulṯān Begīm, d. of Mīrān-shāh, s. of Tīmūr. She
died Muḥ. 24th 874 AH. (July 25th 1489 AD. Ḥ.S. iii, 218).
[985] "No-one in the world had such parentage", writes
Khwānd-amīr, after detailing the Tīmūrid, Chīngīz-khānid, and
other noted strains meeting in Ḥusain _Bāī-qarā_ (Ḥ.S. iii,
204).
[986] The Elph. MS. gives the Begīm no name; Badī`u'l-jamāl is
correct (Ḥ.S. iii, 242). The curious "Badka" needs
explanation. It seems probable that Bābur left one of his
blanks for later filling-in; the natural run of his sentence
here is "Ākā B. and Badī`u'l-jamāl B." and not the detail,
which follows in its due place, about the marriage with Aḥmad.
[987] _Dīwān bāshīdā ḥāṣir būlmās aīdī_; the sense of which
may be that Bāī-qarā did not sit where the premier retainer
usually sat at the head of the Court (Pers. trs.
_sar-i-dīwān_).
[988] From this Wais and Sl. Ḥusain M.'s daughter Sulṯānīm (f.
167b) were descended the Bāī-qarā Mīrzās who gave Akbar so
much trouble.
[989] As this man might be mistaken for Bābur's uncle (_q.v._)
of the same name, it may be well to set down his parentage. He
was a s. of Mīrzā Sayyidī Aḥmad, s. of Mīrān-shāh, s. of Tīmūr
(Ḥ.S. iii, 217, 241). I have not found mention elsewhere of
"Aḥmad s. of Mīrān-shāh"; the _sayyidī_ in his style points to
a sayyida mother. He was Governor of Herī for a time, for Sl.
H.M.; `Alī-sher has notices of him and of his son, Kīchīk
Mīrzā (_Journal Asiatique_ xvii, 293, M. Belin's art. where
may be seen notices of many other men mentioned by Bābur).
[990] He collected and thus preserved `Alī-sher's earlier
poems (Rieu's Pers. Cat. p. 294). Mu'inu'd-dīn al Zamji writes
respectfully of his being worthy of credence in some Egyptian
matters with which he became acquainted in twice passing
through that country on his Pilgrimage (_Journal Asiatique_
xvi, 476, de Meynard's article).
[991] Kīchīk M.'s quatrain is a mere plagiarism of Jāmī's
which I am indebted to my husband for locating as in the
_Dīwān_ I.O. MS. 47 p. 47; B.M. Add. 7774 p. 290; and Add.
7775 p. 285. M. Belin interprets the verse as an expression of
the rise of the average good man to mystical rapture, not as
his lapse from abstinence to indulgence (l.c. xvii, 296 and
notes).
[992] Elph. MS. _younger_ but Ḥai. MS. _older_ in which it is
supported by the "also" (_ham_) of the sentence.
[993] modern Astrakhan. Ḥusain's guerilla wars were those
through which he cut his way to the throne of Herī. This begīm
was married first to Pīr Budāgh Sl. (Ḥ.S. iii, 242); he dying,
she was married by Aḥmad, presumably by levirate custom
(_yīnkālīk_; f. 12 and note). By Aḥmad she had a daughter,
styled Khān-zāda Begīm whose affairs find comment on f. 206
and Ḥ.S. iii, 359. (The details of this note negative a
suggestion of mine that Badka was the Rābī`a-sulṯān of f. 168
(Gul-badan, App. _s. nn._).)
[994] This is a felt wide-awake worn by travellers in hot
weather (Shaw); the Turkmān bonnet (Erskine).
[995] Ḥai. MS. _yamānlīk_, badly, but Elph. MS. _namāyan_,
whence Erskine's _showy_.
[996] This was a proof that he was then a Shī`a (Erskine).
[997] The word _perform_ may be excused in speaking of
Musalmān prayers because they involve ceremonial bendings and
prostrations (Erskine).
[998] If Bābur's 40 include rule in Herī only, it over-states,
since Yādgār died in 875 AH. and Ḥusain in 911 AH. while the
intervening 36 years include the 5 or 6 temperate ones. If the
40 count from 861 AH. when Ḥusain began to rule in Merv, it
under-states. It is a round number, apparently.
[999] Relying on the Ilminsky text, Dr. Rieu was led into the
mistake of writing that Bābur gave Ḥusain the wrong pen-name,
_i.e._ Ḥusain, and not Ḥusainī (Turk. Cat. p. 256).
[1000] Daulat-shāh says that as he is not able to enumerate
all Ḥusain's feats-of-arms, he, Turkmān fashion, offers a gift
of Nine. The Nine differ from those of Bābur's list in some
dates; they are also records of victory only (Browne, p. 521;
_Not. et Extr._ iv, 262, de Saçy's article).
[1001] Wolves'-water, a river and its town at the s.e. corner
of the Caspian, the ancient boundary between Russia and
Persia. The name varies a good deal in MSS.
[1002] The battle was at Tarshīz; Abū-sa`īd was ruling in
Herī; Daulat-shāh (l.c. p. 523) gives 90 and 10,000 as the
numbers of the opposed forces!
[1003] f. 26b and note; Ḥ.S. iii, 209; Daulat-shāh p. 523.
[1004] The loser was the last Shāhrukhī ruler. Chanārān
(variants) is near Abīward, Anwārī's birth-place (Ḥ.S. iii,
218; D.S. p. 527).
[1005] f. 85. D.S. (p. 540) and the Ḥ.S. (iii, 223) dwell on
Ḥusain's speed through three continuous days and nights.
[1006] f. 26; Ḥ.S. iii, 227; D.S. p. 532.
[1007] Abū-sa`īd's son by a Badakhshī Begīm (T.R. p. 108); he
became his father's Governor in Badakhshān and married Ḥusain
_Bāī-qarā's_ daughter Begīm Sultān at a date after 873 AH. (f.
168 and note; Ḥ.S. iii, 196, 229, 234-37; D.S. p. 535).
[1008] f. 152.
[1009] Abā-bikr was defeated and put to death at the end of
Rajah 884 AH.-Oct. 1479 AD. after flight before Ḥusain across
the Gurgān-water (Ḥ.S. iii, 196 and 237 but D.S. p. 539, Ṣafar
885 AH.).
[1010] f. 41, Pul-i-chirāgh; for Halwā-spring, Ḥ.S. iii, 283
and Rieu's Pers. Cat. p. 443.
[1011] f. 33 (p. 57) and f. 57b.
[1012] In commenting thus Bābur will have had in mind what he
best knew, Ḥusain's futile movements at Qūndūz and Ḥiṣār.
[1013] _qālīb aīdī_; if _qālīb_ be taken as Turkī, survived or
remained, it would not apply here since many of Ḥusain's
children predeceased him; Ar. _qālab_ would suit, meaning
_begotten_, _born_.
There are discrepancies between Bābur's details here and
Khwānd-amīr's scattered through the _Ḥabību's-siyār_,
concerning Ḥusain's family.
[1014] _bī ḥuẓūrī_, which may mean aversion due to Khadīja
Begīm's malevolence.
[1015] Some of the several goings into `Irāq chronicled by
Bābur point to refuge taken with Tīmūrids, descendants of
Khalīl and `Umar, sons of Mirān-shāh (Lane-Poole's _Muhammadan
Dynasties_, Table of the Timūrids).
[1016] He died before his father (Ḥ.S. iii, 327).
[1017] He will have been killed previous to Ramẓān 3rd 918 AH.
(Nov. 12th, 1512 AD.), the date of the battle of Ghaj-dawān
when Nijm S̱ānī died.
[1018] The _bund_ here may not imply that both were in prison,
but that they were bound in close company, allowing Ismā`īl, a
fervent Shī`a, to convert the Mīrzā.
[1019] The _bātmān_ is a Turkish weight of 13lbs (Meninsky) or
15lbs (Wollaston). The weight seems likely to refer to the
strength demanded for rounding the bow (_kamān guroha-sī_)
_i.e._ as much strength as to lift 40 _bātmāns_. Rounding or
bending might stand for stringing or drawing. The meaning can
hardly be one of the weight of the cross-bow itself. Erskine
read _gūrdehieh_ for _guroha_ (p. 180) and translated by
"double-stringed bow"; de Courteille (i, 373) read
_guirdhiyeh, arrondi, circulaire_, in this following Ilminsky
who may have followed Erskine. The Elph. and Ḥai. MSS. and the
first W.-i-B. (I.O. 215 f. 113b) have _kamān guroha-sī_; the
second W.-i-B. omits the passage, in the MSS. I have seen.
[1020] _yakhshīlār bārīb tūr_; lit. good things went (on); cf.
f. 156b and note.
[1021] Badī`u'z-zamān's son, drowned at Chausa in 946 AH.
(1539 AD.) A.N. (H. Beveridge, i, 344).
[1022] Qalāt-i-nādirī, in Khurāsān, the birth-place of Nādir
Shāh (T.R. p. 209).
[1023] _bīr gīna qīz_, which on f. 86b can fitly be read to
mean daughterling, _Töchterchen, fillette_, but here and
_i.a._ f. 168, must have another meaning than diminutive and
may be an equivalent of German _Stück_ and mean _one only_.
Gul-badan gives an account of Shād's manly pursuits (H.N. f.
25b).
[1024] He was the son of Mahdī Sl. (f. 320b) and the father of
`Āqil Sl. _Aūzbeg_ (A.N. index _s.n._). Several matters
suggest that these men were of the Shabān Aūzbegs who
intermarried with Ḥusain _Bāī-qarā's_ family and some of whom
went to Bābur in Hindūstān. One such matter is that Kābul was
the refuge of dispossessed Harātīs, after the Aūzbeg conquest;
that there `Āqil married Shād _Bāī-qarā_ and that `Ādil went
on to Bābur. Moreover Khāfī Khān makes a statement which (if
correct) would allow `Ādil's father Mahdī to be a grandson of
Ḥusain _Bāī-qarā_; this statement is that when Bābur defeated
the Aūzbegs in 916 AH. (1510 AD.), he freed from their
captivity two sons (descendants) of his paternal uncle, named
Mahdī Sl. and Sulṯān Mīrzā. [Leaving the authenticity of the
statement aside for a moment, it will be observed that this
incident is of the same date and place as another well-vouched
for, namely that Bābur then and there killed Mahdī Sl.
_Aūzbeg_ and Ḥamza Sl. _Aūzbeg_ after defeating them.] What
makes in favour of Khāfī Khān's correctness is, not only that
Bābur's foe Mahdī is not known to have had a son `Ādil, but
also that his "Sulṯān Mīrzā" is not a style so certainly
suiting Ḥamza as it does a Shabān sulṯān, one whose father was
a Shabān sulṯān, and whose mother was a Mīrzā's daughter.
Moreover this point of identification is pressed by the
correctness, according to oriental statement of relationship,
of Khāfī Khān's "paternal uncle" (of Bābur), because this
precisely suits Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā with whose family these
Shabān sulṯāns allied themselves. On the other hand it must be
said that Khāfī Khān's statement is not in the English text of
the _Tārīkh-i-rashīdī_, the book on which he mostly relies at
this period, nor is it in my husband's MS. [a copy from the
Rampūr Codex]; and to this must be added the verbal objection
that a modicum of rhetoric allows a death to be described both
in Turkī and Persian, as a release from the captivity of a
sinner's own acts (f. 160). Still Khāfī Khān may be right; his
statement may yet be found in some other MS. of the T. R. or
some different source; it is one a scribe copying the T. R.
might be led to omit by reason of its coincidences. The
killing and the release may both be right; `Ādil's Mahdī may
be the Shabān sulṯān inference makes him seem. This little
_crux_ presses home the need of much attention to the
_lacunae_ in the _Bābur-nāma_, since in them are lost some
exits and some entries of Bābur's _dramatis personae_,
pertinently, mention of the death of Mahdī with Ḥamza in 916
AH., and possibly also that of `Ādil's Mahdī's release.
[1025] A _chār-ṯāq_ may be a large tent rising into four domes
or having four porches.
[1026] Ḥ.S. iii, 367.
[1027] This phrase, common but not always selected, suggests
unwillingness to leave the paternal roof.
[1028] Abū'l-ghāzī's _History of the Mughūls_, Désmaisons, p.
207.
[1029] The appointment was made in 933 AH. (1527 AD.) and
seems to have been held still in 934 AH. (ff. 329, 332).
[1030] This grandson may have been a child travelling with his
father's household, perhaps Aūlūgh Mīrzā, the oldest son of
Muḥammad Sulṯān Mīrzā (A. A. Blochmann, p. 461). No mention is
made here of Sulṯānīm Begīm's marriage with `Abdu'l-bāqī Mīrzā
(f. 175).
[1031] Abū'l-qāsim Bābur _Shāhrukhī_ presumably.
[1032] The time may have been 902 AH. when Mas`ūd took his
sister Bega Begīm to Herī for her marriage with Ḥaidar (Ḥ.S.
iii, 260).
[1033] Khwāja Aḥmad _Yāsawī_, known as Khwāja Ātā, founder of
the Yāsawī religious order.
[1034] Not finding mention of a daughter of Abū-sa`id named
Rābī`a-sulṯān, I think she may be the daughter styled Āq Begīm
who is No. 3 in Gul-badan's guest-list for the Mystic Feast.
[1035] This man I take to be Ḥusain's grandfather and not
brother, both because `Abdu'l-lāh was of Ḥusain's and his
brother's generation, and also because of the absence here of
Bābur's usual defining words "elder brother" (of Sl. Ḥusain
Mīrzā). In this I have to differ from Dr. Rieu (Pers. Cat. p.
152).
[1036] So-named after his ancestor Sayyid Barka whose body was
exhumed from Andikhūd for reburial in Samarkand, by Tīmūr's
wish and there laid in such a position that Tīmūr's body was
at its feet (_Z̤afar-nāma_ ii, 719; Ḥ.S. iii, 82). (For the
above interesting detail I am indebted to my husband.)
[1037] _Qīzīl-bāsh_, Persians wearing red badges or caps to
distinguish them as Persians.
[1038] Yādgār-i-farrukh _Mīrān-shāhī_ (Ḥ.S. iii, 327). He may
have been one of those Mīrān-shāhīs of `Irāq from whom came
Ākā's and Sulṯānīm's husbands, Aḥmad and `Abdu'l-bāqī (ff.
164, 175_b_).
[1039] This should be four (f. 169_b_). The Ḥ.S. (iii, 327)
also names three only when giving Pāpā Āghācha's daughters
(the omission linking it with the B.N.), but elsewhere (iii,
229) it gives an account of a fourth girl's marriage; this
fourth is needed to make up the total of 11 daughters. Bābur's
and Khwānd-amīr's details of Pāpā Āghācha's quartette are
defective; the following may be a more correct list:—(1) Begīm
Sulṯān (a frequent title), married to Abā-bikr _Mīrān-shāhī_
(who died 884 AH.) and seeming too old to be the one [No. 3]
who married Mas`ūd (Ḥ.S. iii, 229); (2) Sulṯān-nizhād, married
to Iskandar _Bāī-qarā_; (3) Sa`ādat-bakht also known as Begīm
Sulṯān, married to Mas'ūd _Mīrān-shāhī_ (Ḥ.S. iii, 327); (4)
Manauwar-sulṯān, married to a son of Aūlūgh Beg _Kābulī_ (Ḥ.S.
iii, 327).
[1040] This "after" seems to contradict the statement (f. 58)
that Mas`ūd was made to kneel as a son-in-law (_kūyādlīk-kā
yūkūndūrūb_) at a date previous to his blinding, but the
seeming contradiction may be explained by considering the
following details; he left Herī hastily (f. 58), went to
Khusrau Shāh and was blinded by him,—all in the last two
months of 903 AH. (1498 AD.), after the kneeling on Ẕū'l-qa`da
3rd, (June 23rd) in the Ravens'-garden. Here what Bābur says
is that the Begīm was given (_bīrīb_) after the blinding, the
inference allowed being that though Mas`ūd had kneeled before
the blinding, she had remained in her father's house till his
return after the blinding.
[1041] The first W.-i-B. writes "Apāq Begīm" (I.O. 215 f. 136)
which would allow Sayyid Mīrzā to be a kinsman of Apāq Begīm,
wife of Ḥusain _Bāī-qarā_.
[1042] This brief summary conveys the impression that the
Begīm went on her pilgrimage shortly after Mas`ūd's death (913
AH. ?), but may be wrong:—After Mas`ūd's murder, by one Bīmāsh
Mīrzā, _dārogha_ of Sarakhs, at Shaibāq Khān's order, she was
married by Bīmāsh M. (Ḥ.S. iii, 278). How long after this she
went to Makka is not said; it was about 934 AH. when Bābur
heard of her as there.
[1043] This clause is in the Ḥai. MS. but not in the Elph. MS.
(f. 131), or Kehr's (Ilminsky, p. 210), or in either Persian
translation. The boy may have been 17 or 18.
[1044] This appears a mistake (f. 168 foot, and note on Pāpā's
daughters).
[1045] f. 171b.
[1046] 933 AH.-1527 AD. (f. 329).
[1047] Presumably this was a _yīnkālīk_ marriage; it differs
from some of those chronicled and also from a levirate
marriage in not being made with a childless wife. (Cf. index
_s.n._ _yīnkālīk_.)
[1048] Khwānd-amīr says that Bega Begīm was jealous, died of
grief at her divorce, and was buried in a College, of her own
erection, in 893 AH. (1488 AD. ḤS. iii, 245).
[1049] _Gulistān_ Cap. II, Story 31 (Platts, p. 114).
[1050] _i.e._ did not get ready to ride off if her husband
were beaten by her brother (f. 11 and note to Ḥabība).
[1051] Khadīja Begī Āghā (Ḥ.S. ii, 230 and iii, 327); she
would be promoted probably after Shāh-i-gharīb's birth.
[1052] He was a son of Badī`u'z-zamān.
[1053] It is singular that this honoured woman's parentage is
not mentioned; if it be right on f. 168b (_q.v._ with note) to
read Sayyid Mīrzā of Apāq Begīm, she may be a sayyida of
Andikhūd.
[1054] As Bābur left Kābul on Ṣafar 1st (Nov. 17th 1525 AD.),
the Begīm must have arrived in Muḥarram 932 AH. (Oct. 18th to
Nov. 17th).
[1055] f. 333. As Chandīrī was besieged in Rabī`u'l-ākhar 934
AH. this passage shews that, as a minimum estimate, what
remains of Bābur's composed narrative (_i.e._ down to f. 216b)
was written after that date (Jan. 1528).
[1056] _Chār-shambalār._ Mention of another inhabitant of this
place with the odd name, Wednesday (Chār-shamba), is made on
f. 42b.
[1057] Mole-marked Lady; most MSS. style her Bī but Ḥ.S. iii,
327, writes Bībī; it varies also by calling her a Turk. She
was a purchased slave of Shahr-bānū's and was given to the
Mīrzā by Shahr-bānū at the time of her own marriage with him.
[1058] As noted already, f. 168b enumerates three only.
[1059] The three were almost certainly Badī`u'z-zamān, Ḥaidar,
son of a Tīmūrid mother, and Muz̤affar-i-ḥusain, born after
his mother had been legally married.
[1060] Seven sons predeceased him:—Farrukh, Shāh-i-gharīb,
Muḥ. Ma`ṣūm, Ḥaidar, Ibrāhīm-i-ḥusain, Muḥ. Ḥusain and
Abū-turāb. So too five daughters:—Āq, Bega, Āghā, Kīchīk and
Fāṯima-sulṯān Begīms. So too four wives:—Bega-sulṯān and Chūlī
Begīms, Zubaida and Laṯīf-sulṯān Āghāchas (Ḥ.S. iii, 327).
[1061] Chākū, a Barlās, as was Tīmūr, was one of Tīmūr's noted
men.
At this point some hand not the scribe's has entered on the
margin of the Ḥai. MS. the descendants of Muḥ. Barandūq down
into Akbar's reign:—Muḥ. Farīdūn, bin Muḥ. Qulī Khān, bin
Mīrzā `Alī, bin Muḥ. Barandūq _Barlās_. Of these Farīdūn and
Muḥ. Qulī are amīrs of the _Āyīn-i-akbarī_ list (Blochmann,
pp. 341, 342; Ḥ.S. iii, 233).
[1062] Enforced marches of Mughūls and other nomads are
mentioned also on f. 154b and f. 155.
[1063] Ḥ.S. iii, 228, 233, 235.
[1064] _beg kīshī_, beg-person.
[1065] Khwānd-amīr says he died a natural death (Ḥ.S. iii,
235).
[1066] f. 21. For a fuller account of Nawā'i, _J. Asiatique_
xvii, 175, M. Belin's article.
[1067] _i.e._ when he was poor and a beg's dependant. He went
back to Herī at Sl. Ḥusain M.'s request in 873 AH.
[1068] Niẕāmī's (Rieu's Pers. Cat. s.n.).
[1069] Farīdu'd-dīn-`at̤t̤ar's (Rieu l.c. and Ency. Br.).
[1070] _Gharā'ibu'ṣ-ṣighar_, _Nawādiru'sh-shahāb_,
_Badā'i`u'l-wasaṯ_ and _Fawā'idu'l-kibr_.
[1071] Every Persian poet has a _takhalluṣ_ (pen-name) which
he introduces into the last couplet of each ode (Erskine).