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.
796
Bartavelle’s Greek-partridge, tetrao- or perdrix-rufus [f. 279 and Mems. p. 320 n.].
797
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.
798
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).
799
Index s. n. Bābur-nāma, date of composition; also f. 131.
800
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).
801
So too when, because of them, Leech and Lord turned back, re infectâ.
802
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).
803
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.
804
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.
805
Presumably this is the grass of the millet, the growth before the ear, on which grazing is allowed (Elphinstone, i, 400; Burnes, p. 237).
806
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.
807
West might be more exact, since some of the group are a little north, others a little south of the latitude of Kābul.
808
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).
809
The Pamghān range. These are the villages every traveller celebrates. Masson’s and Vigne’s illustrations depict them well.
810
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).
811
Khwāja Maudūd of Chisht, Khwāja Khāwand Sa‘īd and the Khwāja of the Running-sands (Elph. MS. f. 104b, marginal note).
812
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).
813
The numerical value of these words gives 925 (Erskine). F. 246b et seq. for the expedition.
814
f. 178. I.O. MS. No. 724, Haft-iqlīm f. 135 (Ethé, p. 402); Rieu, pp. 21a, 1058b.
815
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.
816
aīkān dūr. Sabuk-tīgīn, d. 387 AH. -997 AD., was the father of Sl. Maḥmūd Ghaznawī, d. 421 AH. -1030 AD.
818
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).
819
The Garden; the tombs of more eminent Muṣalmāns are generally in gardens (Erskine). See Vigne’s illustrations, pp. 133, 266.
820
i. e. the year now in writing. The account of the expedition, Bābur’s first into Hindūstān, begins on f. 145.
821
i. e. the countries groupable as Khurāsān.
822
For picture and account of the dam, see Vigne, pp. 138, 202.
824
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.
825
R.’s Notes s. n. Zurmut.
826
The question of the origin of the Farmūlī has been written of by several writers; perhaps they were Turks of Persia, Turks and Tājīks.
827
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.
828
Between Nijr-aū and Tag-aū (Masson, iii, 165). Mr. Erskine notes
