LITMIR.BIZ

862

tiyūl-dīk in all the Turkī MSS. Ilminsky, de Courteille and Zenker, yitūl-dīk, Turkī, a fief.

863

Wilāyat khūd hech bīrīlmādī; W. – i-B. 215 f. 116b, Wilāyat dāda na shuda and 217 f. 97b, Wilāyat khūd hech dāda na shud. By this I understand that he kept the lands of Kābul itself in his own hands. He mentions (f. 350) and Gul-badan mentions (H.N. f. 40b) his resolve so to keep Kābul. I think he kept not only the fort but all lands constituting the Kābul tūmān (f. 135b and note).

864

Saifī dūr, qalamī aīmās, i. e. tax is taken by force, not paid on a written assessment.

865

khar-wār, about 700 lbs Averdupois (Erskine). Cf. Āyīn-i-akbarī (Jarrett, ii, 394).

866

Niz̤āmu’d-dīn Aḥmad and Badāyūnī both mention this script and say that in it Bābur transcribed a copy of the Qorān for presentation to Makka. Badāyūnī says it was unknown in his day, the reign of Akbar (T̤abaqāt-i-akbarī, lith. ed. p. 193, and Muntakhabu’t-tawārīkh Bib. Ind. ed. iii, 273).

867

Bābur’s route, taken with one given by Raverty (Notes p. 691), allows these Hazāras, about whose location Mr. Erskine was uncertain, to be located between the Takht-pass (Arghandī-Maidān-Unai road), on their east, and the Sang-lākh mountains, on their west.

868

The Takht-pass, one on which from times immemorial, toll (nirkh) has been taken.

869

khāt̤ir-khwāh chāpīlmādī, which perhaps implies mutual discontent, Bābur’s with his gains, the Hazāras’ with their losses. As the second Persian translation omits the negative, the Memoirs does the same.

870

Bhīra being in Shāhpūr, this Khān’s daryā will be the Jehlam.

871

Bābur uses Persian dasht and Hindī dūkī, plain and hill, for the tracts east and west of Mehtar Sulaimān. The first, dasht, stands for Dāman (skirt) and Dara-i-jāt, the second, dūkī, indefinitely for the broken lands west of the main range, but also, in one instance for the Dūkī [Dūgī] district of Qandahār, as will be noted.

872

f. 132. The Jagdālīk-pass for centuries has separated the districts of Kābul and Nīngnahār. Forster (Travels ii, 68), making the journey the reverse way, was sensible of the climatic change some 3m. east of Gandamak. Cf. Wood’s Report I. p. 6.

873

These are they whose families Nāṣir Mīrzā shepherded out of Kābul later (f. 154, f. 155).

874

Bird’s-dome, opposite the mouth of the Kūnār-water (S.A. War, Map p. 64).

875

This word is variously pointed and is uncertain. Mr. Erskine adopted “Pekhi”, but, on the whole, it may be best to read, here and on f. 146, Ar. fajj or pers. paj, mountain or pass. To do so shews the guide to be one located in the Khaibar-pass, a Fajjī or Pajī.

876

mod. Jām-rūd (Jām-torrent), presumably.

877

G. of I. xx, 125 and Cunningham’s Ancient History i, 80. Bābur saw the place in 925 AH. (f. 232b).

878

Cunningham, p. 29. Four ancient sites, not far removed from one another, bear this name, Bīgrām, viz. those near Hūpīān, Kābul, Jalālābād and Pashāwar.

879

Cunningham, i, 79.

880

Perhaps a native of Kamarī on the Indus, but kamarī is a word of diverse application (index s. n.).

881

The annals of this campaign to the eastward shew that Bābur was little of a free agent; that many acts of his own were merciful; that he sets down the barbarity of others as it was, according to his plan of writing (f. 86); and that he had with him undisciplined robbers of Khusrau Shāh’s former following. He cannot be taken as having power to command or control the acts of those, his guest-begs and their following, who dictated his movements in this disastrous journey, one worse than a defeat, says Ḥaidar Mīrzā.

882

For the route here see Masson, i, 117 and Colquhoun’s With the Kuram Field-force p. 48.

883

The Ḥai. MS. writes this Dilah-zāk.

884

i. e. raised a force in Bābur’s name. He took advantage of this farmān in 911 AH. to kill Bāqī Chagkānīānī (f. 159b-160).

885

Of the Yūsuf-zāī and Ranjīt-sīngh, Masson says, (i, 141) “The miserable, hunted wretches threw themselves on the ground, and placing a blade or tuft of grass in their mouths, cried out, “I am your cow.” This act and explanation, which would have saved them from an orthodox Hindū, had no effect with the infuriated Sikhs.” This form of supplication is at least as old as the days of Firdausī (Erskine, p. 159 n.). The Bahār-i-‘ajam is quoted by Vullers as saying that in India, suppliants take straw in the mouth to indicate that they are blanched and yellow from fear.

886

This barbarous custom has always prevailed amongst the Tartar conquerors of Asia (Erskine). For examples under ‘ see Raverty’s Notes p. 137.

887

For a good description of the road from Kohāt to Thāl see Bellew’s Mission p. 104.

888

F. 88b has the same phrase about the doubtful courage of one Sayyidī Qarā.

889

Not to the mod. town of Bannū, [that having been begun only in 1848 AD.] but wherever their wrong road brought them out into the Bannū amphitheatre. The Survey Map of 1868, No. 15, shews the physical features of the wrong route.

890

Perhaps he connived at recovery of cattle by those raided already.

891

Tāq is the Tank of Maps; Bāzār was s.w. of it. Tank for Tāq looks to be a variant due to nasal utterance (Vigne, p. 77, p. 203 and Map; and, as bearing on the nasal, in loco, Appendix E).

892

If return had been made after over-running Bannū, it would have been made by the Tochī-valley and so through Farmūl; if after over-running the Plain, Bābur’s details shew that the westward turn was meant to be by the Gūmāl-valley and one of two routes out of it, still to Farmūl; but the extended march southward to near Dara-i-Ghazī Khān made the westward turn be taken through the valley opening at Sakhī-sawār.

893

This will mean, none of the artificial runlets familiar where Bābur had lived before getting to know Hindūstān.

894

sauda-āt, perhaps, pack-ponies, perhaps, bred for sale and not for own use. Burnes observes that in 1837 Lūhānī merchants carried precisely the same articles of trade as in Bābur’s day, 332 years earlier (Report IX p. 99).

895

Mr. Erskine thought it probable that the first of these routes went through Kanigūram, and the second through the Ghwālirī-

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