32
See Āyīn-i-akbarī, Jarrett, p. 44.
33
The Ḥai. MS. and a good many of the W. – i-B. MSS. here write Aūtrār. [Aūtrār like Tarāz was at some time of its existence known as Yāngī (New).] Tarāz seems to have stood near the modern Auliya-ātā; Ālmālīgh, – a Metropolitan see of the Nestorian Church in the 14th. century, – to have been the old capital of Kuldja, and Ālmātū (var. Ālmātī) to have been where Vernoe (Vierny) now is. Ālmālīgh and Ālmātū owed their names to the apple (ālmā). Cf. Bretschneider’s Mediæval Geography p. 140 and T.R. (Elias and Ross) s. nn.
34
Mughūl u Aūzbeg jihatdīn. I take this, the first offered opportunity of mentioning (1) that in transliterating Turkī words I follow Turkī lettering because I am not competent to choose amongst systems which e. g. here, reproduce Aūzbeg as Ūzbeg, Özbeg and Euzbeg; and (2) that style being part of an autobiography, I am compelled, in pressing back the Memoirs on Bābur’s Turkī mould, to retract from the wording of the western scholars, Erskine and de Courteille. Of this compulsion Bābur’s bald phrase Mughūl u Aūzbeg jihatdīn provides an illustration. Each earlier translator has expressed his meaning with more finish than he himself; ‘Abdu’r-raḥīm, by az jihat ‘ubūr-i (Mughūl u) Aūzbeg, improves on Bābur, since the three towns lay in the tideway of nomad passage (‘ubūr) east and west; Erskine writes “in consequence of the incursions” etc. and de C. “grace aux ravages commis” etc.
35
Schuyler (ii, 54) gives the extreme length of the valley as about 160 miles and its width, at its widest, as 65 miles.
36
Following a manifestly clerical error in the Second W. – i-B. the Akbar-nāma and the Mems. are without the seasonal limitation, “in winter.” Bābur here excludes from winter routes one he knew well, the Kīndīrlīk Pass; on the other hand Kostenko says that this is open all the year round. Does this contradiction indicate climatic change? (Cf. f. 54b and note; A.N. Bib. Ind. ed. i, 85 (H. Beveridge i, 221) and, for an account of the passes round Farghāna, Kostenko’s Turkistān Region, Tables of Contents.)
37
Var. Banākat, Banākas̤, Fīākat, Fanākand. Of this place Dr. Rieu writes (Pers. cat. i, 79) that it was also called Shāsh and, in modern times, Tāshkīnt. Bābur does not identify Fanākat with the Tāshkīnt of his day but he identifies it with Shāhrukhiya (cf. Index s. nn.) and distinguishes between Tāshkīnt-Shāsh and Fanākat-Shāhrukhiya. It may be therefore that Dr. Rieu’s Tāshkīnt-Fanākat was Old Tāshkīnt, – (Does Fanā-kīnt mean Old Village?) some 14 miles nearer to the Saiḥūn than the Tāshkīnt of Bābur’s day or our own.
38
hech daryā qātīlmās. A gloss of dīgar (other) in the Second W. – i-B. has led Mr. Erskine to understand “meeting with no other river in its course.” I understand Bābur to contrast the destination of the Saiḥūn which he [erroneously] says sinks into the sands, with the outfall of e. g. the Amū into the Sea of Aral.
Cf. First W. – i-B. I.O. MS. 215 f. 2; Second W. – i-B. I.O. MS. 217 f. 1b and Ouseley’s Ibn Haukal p. 232-244; also Schuyler and Kostenko l. c.
39
Bābur’s geographical unit in Central Asia is the township or, with more verbal accuracy, the village i. e. the fortified, inhabited and cultivated oasis. Of frontiers he says nothing.
40
i. e. they are given away or taken. Bābur’s interest in fruits was not a matter of taste or amusement but of food. Melons, for instance, fresh or stored, form during some months the staple food of Turkistānīs. Cf. T.R. p. 303 and (in Kāshmīr) 425; Timkowski’s Travels of the Russian Mission i, 419 and Th. Radloff’s Réceuils d’Itinéraires p. 343.
N.B. At this point two folios of the Elphinstone Codex are missing.
41
Either a kind of melon or the pear. For local abundance of pears see Āyīn-i-akbarī, Blochmann p. 6; Kostenko and Von Schwarz.
42
qūrghān, i. e. the walled town within which was the citadel (ark).
43
Tūqūz tarnau sū kīrār, bū ‘ajab tūr kīm bīr yīrdīn ham chīqmās. Second W. – i-B. I.O. 217 f. 2, nuh jū’ī āb dar qila‘ dar mī āyid u īn ‘ajab ast kah hama az yak jā ham na mī bar āyid. (Cf. Mems. p. 2 and Méms. i, 2.) I understand Bābur to mean that all the water entering w
1
Cf. Cap. II, PROBLEMS OF THE MUTILATED BABUR-NAMA and
2
The suggestion, implied by my use of this word, that Babur may have definitely closed his autobiography (as Timur did under other circumstances) is due to the existence of a compelling cause
3
Cf. p. 83 and n. and Add. Note, P. 83 for further emendation of a contradiction effected by some malign influence in the note (p. 83) between parts of that note, and between it and Babur’s account of his not-drinking in Herat.
4
Teufel held its title to be
5
It stands on the reverse of the frontal page of the Haidarabad Codex; it is Timur-pulad’s name for the Codex he purchased in Bukhara, and it is thence brought on by Kehr (with Ilminski), and Klaproth (Cap. III); it is used by Khwafi Khan (d.
6
That Babur left a complete record much indicates beyond his own persistence and literary bias,
7
App. H, xxx.
8
p. 446, n. 6. Babur’s order for the cairn would fit into the lost record of the first month of the year (p. 445).
9
Parts of the Babur-nama sent to Babur’s sons are not included here.
10
The standard of comparison is the 382 fols. of the Haidarabad Codex.
11
This MS. is not to be confused with one Erskine misunderstood Humayun to have copied (
12
For precise limits of the original annotation
13
14
Here speaks the man reared in touch with European classics; (pure) Turki though it uses no relatives (Radloff) is lucid. Cf. Cap. IV The Memoirs of Babur.
15
For