LITMIR.BIZ

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empty. Like the Bāmiān mountains, these are fastnesses. Out of them issue the Harmand (Halmand), Sind, Dūghāba of Qūndūz, and Balkh-āb,808 so that in a single day, a man might drink of the water of each of these four rivers.

      It is on the skirt of one of these ranges (Pamghān) that most of the villages dependent on Kābul lie.809 Masses of grapes ripen in their vineyards and they grow every sort of fruit in abundance. No-one of them equals Istālīf or Astarghach; these must be the two which Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā used to call his Khurāsān and Samarkand. Pamghān is another of the best, not ranking in fruit and grapes with those two others, but beyond comparison with them in climate. The Pamghān mountains are a snowy range. Few villages match Istālīf, with vineyards and fine orchards on both sides of its great torrent, with waters needing no ice, cold and, mostly, pure. Of its Great garden Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā had taken forcible possession; I took it over, after paying its price to the owners. There is a pleasant halting-place outside it, under great planes, green, shady and beautiful. A one-mill stream, having trees on both banks, flows constantly through the middle of the garden; formerly its course was zig-zag and irregular; I had it made straight and orderly; so the place became very beautiful. Between the village and the valley-bottom, from 4 to 6 miles down the slope, is a spring, known as Khwāja Sih-yārān (Three-friends), round which three sorts of tree grow. A group of planes gives pleasant shade above it; holm-oak (quercus bīlūt) grows in masses on the slope at its sides, – these two oaklands (bīlūtistān) excepted, no holm-oak grows in the mountains of western Kābul, – and the Judas-tree (arghwān)810 is much cultivated in front of it, that is towards the level ground, – cultivated there and nowhere else. People say the three different sorts of tree were a gift made by three saints,811 whence its name. I ordered that the spring should be enclosed in mortared stone-work, 10 by 10, and that a symmetrical, right-angled platform should be built on each of its sides, so as to overlook the whole field of Judas-trees. If, the world over, there is a place to match this when the arghwāns are in full bloom, I do not know it. The yellow arghwān grows plentifully there also, the red and the yellow flowering at the same time.812

      In order to bring water to a large round seat which I had built on the hillside and planted round with willows, I had a channel dug across the slope from a half-mill stream, constantly flowing in a valley to the south-west of Sih-yārān. The date of cutting this channel was found in jūī-khūsh (kindly channel).813

      Another of the tūmāns of Kābul is Luhūgur (mod. Logar). Its one large village is Chīrkh from which were his Reverence Maulānā Ya‘qūb and Mullā-zāda ‘Us̤mān.814 Khwāja Aḥmad and Khwāja Yūnas were from Sajāwand, another of its villages. Chīrkh has many gardens, but there are none in any other village of Luhūgur. Its people are Aūghān-shāl, a term common in Kābul, seeming to be a mispronouncement of Aūghān-sha‘ār.815

      Again, there is the wilāyat, or, as some say, tūmān of Ghaznī, said to have been816 the capital of Sabuk-tīgīn, Sl. Maḥmūd and their descendants. Many write it Ghaznīn. It is said also to have been the seat of government of Shihābu’d-dīn Ghūrī,817 styled Mu‘iz̤z̤u’d-dīn in the T̤abaqāt-i-nāṣirī and also some of the histories of Hind.

      Ghaznī is known also as Zābulistān; it belongs to the Third climate. Some hold that Qandahār is a part of it. It lies 14 yīghāch (south-) west of Kābul; those leaving it at dawn, may reach Kābul between the Two Prayers (i. e. in the afternoon); whereas the 13 yīghāch between Adīnapūr and Kābul can never be done in one day, because of the difficulties of the road.

      Ghaznī has little cultivated land. Its torrent, a four-mill or five-mill stream may-be, makes the town habitable and fertilizes four or five villages; three or four others are cultivated from under-ground water-courses (kārez). Ghaznī grapes are better than those of Kābul; its melons are more abundant; its apples are very good, and are carried to Hindūstān. Agriculture is very laborious in Ghaznī because, whatever the quality of the soil, it must be newly top-dressed every year; it gives a better return, however, than Kābul. Ghaznī grows madder; the entire crop goes to Hindūstān and yields excellent profit to the growers. In the open-country of Ghaznī dwell Hazāra and Afghāns. Compared with Kābul, it is always a cheap place. Its people hold to the Ḥanafī faith, are good, orthodox Muṣalmāns, many keep a three months’ fast,818 and their wives and children live modestly secluded.

      One of the eminent men of Ghaznī was Mullā ‘Abdu’r-raḥmān, a learned man and always a learner (dars), a most orthodox, pious and virtuous person; he left this world the same year as Nāṣir Mīrzā (921 AH. -1515 AD.). Sl. Maḥmūd’s tomb is in the suburb called Rauẓa,819 from which the best grapes come; there also are the tombs of his descendants, Sl. Mas‘ūd and Sl. Ibrāhīm. Ghaznī has many blessed tombs. The year820 I took Kābul and Ghaznī, over-ran Kohāt, the plain of Bannū and lands of the Afghāns, and went on to Ghaznī by way of Dūkī (Dūgī) and Āb-istāda, people told me there was a tomb, in a village of Ghaznī, which moved when a benediction on the Prophet was pronounced over it. We went to see it. In the end I discovered that the movement was a trick, presumably of the servants at the tomb, who had put a sort of platform above it which moved when pushed, so that, to those on it, the tomb seemed to move, just as the shore does to those passing in a boat. I ordered the scaffold destroyed and a dome built over the tomb; also I forbad the servants, with threats, ever to bring about the movement again.

      Ghaznī is a very humble place; strange indeed it is that rulers in whose hands were Hindūstān and Khurāsānāt,821 should have chosen it for their capital. In the Sult̤ān’s (Maḥmūd’s) time there may have been three or four dams in the country; one he made, some three yīghāch (18 m.?) up the Ghaznī-water to the north; it was about 40-50 qārī (yards) high and some 300 long; through it the stored waters were let out as required.822 It was destroyed by ‘Alāu’u’d-dīn Jahān-soz Ghūrī when he conquered the country (550 AH. -1152 AD.), burned and ruined the tombs of several descendants of Sl. Maḥmūd, sacked and burned the town, in short, left undone no tittle of murder and rapine. Since that time, the Sult̤ān’s dam has lain in ruins, but, through God’s favour, there is hope that it may become of use again, by means of the money which was sent, in Khwāja Kalān’s hand, in the year Hindūstān was conquered (932 AH. -1526 AD.).823 The Sakhandam is another, 2 or 3 yīghāch (12-18 m.), may-be, on the east of the town; it has long been in ruins, indeed is past repair. There is a dam in working order at Sar-i-dih (Village-head).

      In books it is written that there is in Ghaznī a spring such that, if dirt and foul matter be thrown into it, a tempest gets up instantly, with a blizzard of rain and wind. It has been seen said also in one of the histories that Sabuk-tīgīn, when besieged by the Rāī (Jāī-pāl) of Hind, ordered dirt and foulness to be thrown into the spring, by this aroused, in an instant, a tempest with blizzard of rain and snow, and, by this device, drove off his foe.824 Though we made many enquiries, no intimation of the spring’s existence was given us.

      In these countries Ghaznī and Khwārizm are noted for cold, in the same way that Sult̤ānīā and Tabrīz are in the two ‘Irāqs and Aẕarbāījān.

      Zurmut is another tūmān, some 12-13 yīghāch south of Kābul and 7-8 south-east of Ghaznī.825

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