The Bābur-nāma. Babur

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СКАЧАТЬ (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 Kābul from the Hindūstān side; one by rather a low pass through the Khaibar mountains, another by way of Bangash, another by way of Naghr (var. Naghz),747 and another through Farmūl;748 the passes being low also in the three last-named. These СКАЧАТЬ