it to lie, as Khān Yūrtī did, in a curve of the river.
389
tīrīsīnī sūīūb. The verb sūīmāk, to despoil, seems to exclude the common plan of stoning the fruit. Cf. f. 3b, dānasīnī alīp, taking out the stones.
390
Mīn Samarkandtā aūl (or auwal) aīchkāndā Bukhārā chāghīrlār nī aīchār aīdīm. These words have been understood to refer to Bābur’s initial drinking of wine but this reading is negatived by his statement (f. 189) that he first drank wine in Harāt in 912 AH. I understand his meaning to be that the wine he drank in Samarkand was Bukhārā wine. The time cannot have been earlier than 917 AH. The two words aūl aīchkāndā, I read as parallel to aūl (bāghrī qarā) (f. 280) ‘that drinking,’ ‘that bird,’ i. e. of those other countries, not of Hindūstān where he wrote.
It may be noted that Bābur’s word for wine, chāghīr, may not always represent wine of the grape but may include wine of the apple and pear (cider and perry), and other fruits. Cider, its name seeming to be a descendant of chāghīr, was introduced into England by Crusaders, its manufacture having been learned from Turks in Palestine.
391
48 m. 3 fur. by way of the Aītmāk Pass (mod. Takhta Qarachi), and, Réclus (vi, 256) Buz-gala-khāna, Goat-house.
392
The name Aītmāk, to build, appears to be due to the stone quarries on the range. The pass-head is 34 m. from Samarkand and 3000 ft. above it. See Kostenko ii, 115 and Schuyler ii, 61 for details of the route.
393
The description of this hall is difficult to translate. Clavijo (Markham 124) throws light on the small recesses. Cf. Z̤.N. i, 781 and 300 and Schuyler ii, 68.
394
The Tāq-i-kisrī, below Bāghdād, is 105 ft. high, 84 ft. span and 150 ft. in depth (Erskine).
395
Cf. f. 46. Bābur does not mention that Tīmūr’s father was buried at Kesh. Clavijo (Markham p. 123) says it was Tīmūr’s first intention to be buried near his father, in Kesh.
396
Abū’l-fidā (Reinaud II, ii, 21) says that Nasaf is the Arabic and Nakhshab the local name for Qarshī. Ibn Haukal (Ouseley p. 260) writes Nakhshab.
397
This word has been translated burial-place and cimetière but Qarshī means castle, or royal-residence. The Z̤.N. (i, 111) says that Qarshī is an equivalent for Ar. qaṣr, palace, and was so called, from one built there by Qublāī Khān (d. 1294 AD.). Perhaps Bābur’s word is connected with Gūrkhān, the title of sovereigns in Khutan, and means great or royal-house, i. e. palace.
398
94 m. 6-1/2 fur. via Jām (Kostenko i, 115.)
400
some 34 m. (Kostenko i, 196). Schuyler mentions that he heard in Qarā-kūl a tradition that the district, in bye-gone days, was fertilized from the Sīr.
402
By abjad the words ‘Abbās kasht yield 853. The date of the murder was Ramẓān 9, 853 AH. (Oct. 27th. 1449 AD.).
403
This couplet is quoted in the Rauẓatu’ṣ-ṣafā (lith. ed. vi, f. 234 foot) and in the Ḥ.S. ii, 44. It is said, in the R.Ṣ. to be by Niz̤āmī and to refer to the killing by Shīrūya of his father, Khusrau Parwīz in 7 AH. (628 AD.). The Ḥ.S. says that ‘Abdu’l-lat̤īf constantly repeated the couplet, after he had murdered his father. [See also Daulat Shāh (Browne p. 356 and p. 366.) H.B.]
404
By abjad, Bābā Ḥusain kasht yields 854. The death was on Rabi‘ I, 26, 854 AH. (May 9th. 1450 AD.). See R.Ṣ. vi, 235 for an account of this death.
405
This overstates the time; dates shew 1 yr. 1 mth. and a few days.
406
i. e. The Khān of the Mughūls, Bābur’s uncle.
407
Elph. MS. aūrmaghāīlār, might not turn; Ḥai. and Kehr’s MSS. (sar bā bād) bīrmāghāīlār, might not give. Both metaphors seem drawn from the protective habit of man and beast of turning the back to a storm-wind.
408
i. e. betwixt two waters, the Miyān-i-dū-āb of India. Here, it is the most fertile triangle of land in Turkistān (Réclus, vi, 199), enclosed by the eastern mountains, the Nārīn and the Qarā-sū; Rabāt̤ik-aūrchīnī, its alternative name, means Small Station sub-district. From the uses of aūrchīn I infer that it describes a district in which there is no considerable head-quarters fort.
409
i. e. his own, Qūtlūq-nigār Khānīm and hers, Aīsān-daulat Begīm, with perhaps other widows of his father, probably Shāh Sult̤ān Begīm.
410
Cf. f. 16 for almost verbatim statements.
411
Blacksmith’s Dale. Ahangarān appears corrupted in modern maps to Angren. See Ḥ.S. ii, 293 for Khwānd-amīr’s wording of this episode.
412
Cf. f. 1b and Kostenko i, 101.
413
i. e. Khān Uncle (Mother’s brother).
414
n. w. of the Sang ferry over the Sīr.
415
perhaps, messenger of good tidings.
416
This man’s family connections are interesting. He was ‘Alī-shukr Beg Bahārlū’s grandson, nephew therefore of Pāshā Begīm; through his son, Saif-‘alī Beg, he was the grandfather of Bairām Khān-i-khānān and thus the g.g.f. of ‘Abdu’r-raḥīm Mīrzā, the translator of the Second Wāqi‘āt-i-bāburī. See Firishta lith. ed. p. 250.
417
Bābur’s (step-)grandmother, co-widow with Aīsān-daulat of Yūnas Khān and mother of Aḥmad and Maḥmud Chaghatāī.
418
Here the narrative picks up the thread of Khusrau Shāh’s affairs, dropped on f. 44.
419
mīng tūmān fulūs, i. e. a thousand sets-of-ten-thousand small copper coins. Mr. Erskine (Mems. p. 61) here has a note on coins. As here the tūmān does not seem to be a coin but a number, I do not reproduce it, valuable as it is per se.
420
ārīqlār; this the annotator of the Elph. MS. has changed to āshlīq, provisions, corn.
421
Samān-chī may mean Keeper of the Goods. Tīngrī-bīrdī, Theodore, is the purely Turkī form of the Khudāī-bīrdī, already met with several times in the B.N.
422
Bast (Bost) is on the left bank of the Halmand.
424
known as Kābulī. He was a son of Abū-sa‘īd and thus an uncle
