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round. From the town side of the mountain three smallish springs issue, two near Kul-kīna; Khwāja Shamū’s722 tomb is at the head of one; Khwāja Khiẓr’s Qadam-gāh723 at the head of another, and the third is at a place known as Khwāja Raushānāī, over against Khwāja ‘Abdu’ṣ-ṣamad. On a detached rock of a spur of Shāh-of-Kābul, known as ‘Uqābain,724 stands the citadel of Kābul with the great walled-town at its north end, lying high in excellent air, and overlooking the large pool already mentioned, and also three meadows, namely, Siyāh-sang (Black-rock), Sūng-qūrghān (Fort-back), and Chālāk (Highwayman?), – a most beautiful outlook when the meadows are green. The north-wind does not fail Kābul in the heats; people call it the Parwān-wind725; it makes a delightful temperature in the windowed houses on the northern part of the citadel. In praise of the citadel of Kābul, Mullā Muḥammad T̤ālib Mu‘ammāī (the Riddler)726

      used to recite this couplet, composed on Badī‘u’z-zamān Mīrzā’s name: —

      Drink wine in the castle of Kābul and send the cup round without pause;

      For Kābul is mountain, is river, is city, is lowland in one.727

      (b. Kābul as a trading-town.)

      Just as ‘Arabs call every place outside ‘Arab (Arabia), ‘Ajam, so Hindūstānīs call every place outside Hindūstān, Khurāsān. There are two trade-marts on the land-route between Hindūstān and Khurāsān; one is Kābul, the other, Qandahār. To Kābul caravans come from Kāshghar,728 Farghāna,Turkistān, Samarkand, Bukhārā, Balkh, Ḥiṣār and Badakhshān. To Qandahār they come from Khurāsān. Kābul is an excellent trading-centre; if merchants went to Khīta or to Rūm,729 they might make no higher profit. Down to Kābul every year come 7, 8, or 10,000 horses and up to it, from Hindūstān, come every year caravans of 10, 15 or 20,000 heads-of-houses, bringing slaves (barda), white cloth, sugar-candy, refined and common sugars, and aromatic roots. Many a trader is not content with a profit of 30 or 40 on 10.730 In Kābul can be had the products of Khurāsān, Rūm, ‘Irāq and Chīn (China); while it is Hindūstān’s own market.

      (c. Products and climate of Kābul.)

      In the country of Kābul, there are hot and cold districts close to one another. In one day, a man may go out of the town of Kābul to where snow never falls, or he may go, in two sidereal hours, to where it never thaws, unless when the heats are such that it cannot possibly lie.

      Fruits of hot and cold climates are to be had in the districts near the town. Amongst those of the cold climate, there are had in the town the grape, pomegranate, apricot, apple, quince, pear, peach, plum, sinjid, almond and walnut.731 I had cuttings of the ālū-bālū732 brought there and planted; they grew and have done well. Of fruits of the hot climate people bring into the town; – from the Lamghānāt, the orange, citron, amlūk (diospyrus lotus), and sugar-cane; this last I had had brought and planted there;733– from Nijr-au (Nijr-water), they bring the jīl-ghūza,734 and, from the hill-tracts, much honey. Bee-hives are in use; it is only from towards Ghaznī, that no honey comes.

      The rhubarb735 of the Kābul district is good, its quinces and plums very good, so too its badrang;736 it grows an excellent grape, known as the water-grape.737 Kābul wines are heady, those of the Khwāja Khāwand Sa‘īd hill-skirt being famous for their strength; at this time however I can only repeat the praise of others about them: —738

      The flavour of the wine a drinker knows;

      What chance have sober men to know it?

      Kābul is not fertile in grain, a four or five-fold return is reckoned good there; nor are its melons first-rate, but they are not altogether bad when grown from Khurāsān seed.

      It has a very pleasant climate; if the world has another so pleasant, it is not known. Even in the heats, one cannot sleep at night without a fur-coat.739 Although the snow in most places lies deep in winter, the cold is not excessive; whereas in Samarkand and Tabrīz, both, like Kābul, noted for their pleasant climate, the cold is extreme.

      (d. Meadows of Kābul.)

      There are good meadows on the four sides of Kābul. An excellent one, Sūng-qūrghān, is some 4 miles (2 kuroh) to the north-east; it has grass fit for horses and few mosquitos. To the north-west is the Chālāk meadow, some 2 miles (1 shar‘ī) away, a large one but in it mosquitos greatly trouble the horses. On the west is the Dūrrīn, in fact there are two, Tīpa and Qūsh-nādir (var. nāwar), – if two are counted here, there would be five in all. Each of these is about 2 miles from the town; both are small, have grass good for horses, and no mosquitos; Kābul has no others so good. On the east is the Siyāh-sang meadow with Qūtlūq-qadam’s tomb740 between it and the Currier’s-gate; it is not worth much because, in the heats, it swarms with mosquitos. Kamarī741 meadow adjoins it; counting this in, the meadows of Kābul would be six, but they are always spoken of as four.

      (e. Mountain-passes into Kābul.)

      The country of Kābul is a fastness hard for a foreign foe to make his way into.

      The Hindū-kush mountains, which separate Kābul from Balkh, Qūndūz and Badakhshān, are crossed by seven roads.742 Three of these lead out of Panjhīr (Panj-sher), viz. Khawāk, the uppermost, T̤ūl, the next lower, and Bāzārak.743 Of the passes on them, the one on the T̤ūl road is the best, but the road itself is rather the longest whence, seemingly, it is called T̤ūl. Bāzārak is the most direct; like T̤ūl, it leads over into Sar-i-āb; as it passes through Pārandī, local people call its main pass, the Pārandī. Another road leads up through Parwān; it has seven minor passes, known as Haft-bacha (Seven-younglings), between Parwān and its main pass (Bāj-gāh). It is joined at its main pass by two roads from Andar-āb, which go on to Parwān by it. This is a road full of difficulties. Out of Ghūr-bund, again, three roads lead over. The one next to Parwān, known as the Yāngī-yūl pass (New-road), goes through Wālīān to Khinjan; next above this is the Qīpchāq road, crossing to where the water of Andar-āb meets the Sūrkh-āb (Qīzīl-sū); this also is an excellent road; and the third leads over the Shibr-tū pass;744 those crossing by this in the heats take their way by Bāmīān and Saighān, but those crossing by it in winter, go on by Āb-dara (Water-valley).745 Shibr-tū excepted, all the Hindū-kush roads are closed for three or four months in winter,746 because no road through a valley-bottom is passable when the waters are high. If any-one thinks to cross the Hindū-kush at that time, over the mountains instead of through a valley-bottom, his journey is hard indeed. The time to cross is during the three or four autumn months when the snow is less and the waters are low. Whether on the mountains or in the valley-bottoms, Kāfir highwaymen are not few.

      The road from Kābul into Khurāsān passes through Qandahār; it is quite level, without a pass.

      Four roads lead into

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<p>722</p>

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).

<p>723</p>

i. e. the place made holy by an impress of saintly foot-steps.

<p>724</p>

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.

<p>725</p>

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.

<p>726</p>

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).

<p>727</p>

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.)

<p>728</p>

All MSS. do not mention Kāshghar.

<p>729</p>

Khīta (Cathay) is Northern China; Chīn (infra) is China; Rūm is Turkey and particularly the provinces near Trebizond (Erskine).

<p>730</p>

300 % to 400 % (Erskine).

<p>731</p>

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.

<p>732</p>

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?

<p>733</p>

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).

<p>734</p>

i. e. the seeds of pinus Gerardiana.

<p>735</p>

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.

<p>736</p>

a large green fruit, shaped something like a citron; also a large sort of cucumber (Erskine).

<p>737</p>

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).

<p>738</p>

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).

<p>739</p>

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).

<p>740</p>

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).

<p>741</p>

Index s. n.

<p>742</p>

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.

<p>743</p>

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).

<p>744</p>

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 from the name of the pass. Persian , 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.

<p>745</p>

Perhaps through Jālmīsh into Saighān.

<p>746</p>

i. e. they are closed.