Название: The Bābur-nāma
Автор: Babur
Издательство: Public Domain
Жанр: Зарубежная классика
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(h. Bannū and the ‘Īsa-khail country.)
The Bannū lands lie, a dead level, immediately outside the Bangash and Naghr hills, these being to their north. The Bangash torrent (the Kūrām) comes down into Bannū and fertilizes its lands. South(-east) of them are Chaupāra and the water of Sind; to their east is Dīn-kot; (south-)west is the Plain (Dasht), known also as Bāzār and Tāq.891 The Bannū lands are cultivated by the Kurānī, Kīwī, Sūr, ‘Īsa-khail and Nīā-zāī of the Afghān tribesmen.
After dismounting in Bannū, we heard that the tribesmen in the Plain (Dasht) were for resisting and were entrenching themselves on a hill to the north. A force headed by Jahāngīr Mīrzā, went against what seemed to be the Kīwī sangur, took it at once, made general slaughter, cut off and brought in many heads. Much white cloth fell into (their) hands. In Bannū also a pillar of heads was set up. After the sangur had been taken, the Kīwī head-man, Shādī Khān, came to my presence, with grass between his teeth, and did me obeisance. I pardoned all the prisoners.
After we had over-run Kohāt, it had been decided that Bangash and Bannū should be over-run, and return to Kābul made through Naghr or through Farmūl. But when Bannū had been over-run, persons knowing the country represented that the Plain was close by, with its good roads and many people; so it was settled to over-run the Plain and to return to Kābul afterwards by way of Farmūl.892
Marching next day, we dismounted at an ‘Īsa-khail village on that same water (the Kūrām) but, as the villagers had gone into the Chaupāra hills on hearing of us, we left it and dismounted on the skirt of Chaupāra. Our foragers went from there into the hills, destroyed the ‘Īsa-khail sangur and came back with sheep, herds and cloth. That night the ‘Īsa-khail made an attack on us but, as good watch was kept all through these operations, they could do nothing. So cautious were we that at night our right and left, centre and van were just in the way they had dismounted, each according to its place in battle, each prepared for its own post, with men on foot all round the camp, at an arrow’s distance from the tents. Every night the army was posted in this way and every night three or four of my household made the rounds with torches, each in his turn. I for my part made the round once each night. Those not at their posts had their noses slit and were led round through the army. Jahāngīr Mīrzā was the right wing, with Bāqī Chaghānīānī, Sherīm T̤aghāī, Sayyid Ḥusain Akbar, and other begs. Mīrzā Khān was the left wing, with ‘Abdu’r-razzāq Mīrzā, Qāsīm Beg and other begs. In the centre there were no great begs, all were household-begs. Sayyid Qāsim Lord-of-the-gate, was the van, with Bābā Aūghūlī, Allāh-bīrdī (var. Allāh-qulī Purān), and some other begs. The army was in six divisions, each of which had its day and night on guard.
Marching from that hill-skirt, our faces set west, we dismounted on a waterless plain (qūl) between Bannū and the Plain. The soldiers got water here for themselves, their herds and so on, by digging down, from one to one-and-a-half yards, into the dry water-course, when water came. Not here only did this happen for all the rivers of Hindūstān have the peculiarity that water is safe to be found by digging down from one to one-and-a-half yards in their beds. It is a wonderful provision of God that where, except for the great rivers, there are no running-waters,893 water should be so placed within reach in dry water-courses.
We left that dry channel next morning. Some of our men, riding light, reached villages of the Plain in the afternoon, raided a few, and brought back flocks, cloth and horses bred for trade.894 Pack-animals and camels and also the braves we had outdistanced, kept coming into camp all through that night till dawn and on till that morrow’s noon. During our stay there, the foragers brought in from villages in the Plain, masses of sheep and cattle, and, from Afghān traders met on the roads, white cloths, aromatic roots, sugars, tīpūchāqs, and horses bred for trade. Hindī (var. Mindī) Mughūl unhorsed Khwāja Khiẓr Lūhānī, a well-known and respected Afghān merchant, cutting off and bringing in his head. Once when Sherīm T̤aghāī went in the rear of the foragers, an Afghān faced him on the road and struck off his index-finger.
(i. Return made for Kābul.)
Two roads were heard of as leading from where we were to Ghaznī; one was the Tunnel-rock (Sang-i-sūrākh) road, passing Birk (Barak) and going on to Farmūl; the other was one along the Gūmāl, which also comes out at Farmūl but without touching Birk (Barak).895 As during our stay in the Plain rain had fallen incessantly, the Gūmāl was so swollen that it would have been difficult to cross at the ford we came to; moreover persons well-acquainted with the roads, represented that going by the Gūmāl road, this torrent must be crossed several times, that this was always difficult when the waters were so high and that there was always uncertainty on the Gūmāl road. Nothing was settled then as to which of these two roads to take; I expected it to be settled next day when, after the drum of departure had sounded, we talked it over as we went.896 It was the ‘Īd-i-fitr (March 7th 1505 AD.); while I was engaged in the ablutions due for the breaking of the fast, Jahāngīr Mīrzā and the begs discussed the question of the roads. Some-one said that if we were to turn the bill897 of the Mehtar Sulaimān range, this lying between the Plain and the Hill-country (desht u dūkī),898 we should get a level road though it might make the difference of a few marches. For this they decided and moved off; before my ablutions were finished the whole army had taken the road and most of it was across the Gūmāl. Not a man of us had ever seen the road; no-one knew whether it was long or short; we started off just on a rumoured word!
The Prayer of the ‘Id was made on the bank of the Gūmāl. That year New-year’s Day899 fell close to the ‘Id-i-fitr, there being only a few days between; on their approximation I composed the following (Turkī) ode: —
Glad is the Bairām-moon for him who sees both the face of the Moon and the Moon-face of his friend;
Sad is the Bairām-moon for me, far away from thy face and from thee.900
O Bābur! dream of your luck when your Feast is the meeting, your New-year the face;
For better than that could not be with a hundred New-years and Bairāms.
After crossing the Gūmāl torrent, we took our way along the skirt of the hills, our faces set south. A mile or two further on, some death-devoted Afghāns shewed themselves on the lower edge of the hill-slope. Loose rein, off we went for them; most of them fled but some made foolish stand on rocky-piles901 of the foot-hills. One took post on a single rock seeming to have a precipice on the further side of it, so that he had not even a way of escape. Sl. Qulī Chūnāq (One-eared), all in his mail as he was, got up, slashed at, and took him. This was one of Sl. Qulī’s deeds done under my own eyes, which led to his favour and promotion.902 At another pile of rock, when Qūtlūq-qadam exchanged СКАЧАТЬ
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,
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
895
Mr. Erskine thought it probable that the first of these routes went through Kanigūram, and the second through the Ghwālirī-pass and along the Gūmāl.
896
From this it would seem that the alternative roads were approached by one in common.
897
898
Here these words may be common nouns.
899
Nū-roz, the feast of the old Persian New-year (Erskine); it is the day on which the Sun enters Aries.
900
In the [Turkī] Elph. and Ḥai. MSS. and in some Persian ones, there is a space left here as though to indicate a known omission.
901
902
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