Page:Babur-nama Vol 1.djvu/76

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6 FARGHANA Masjid (Twin Mosque).¹ Between this mosque and the town, a great main canal flows from the direction of the hill. Below the outer court of the mosque lies a shady and delightful clovermeadow where every passing traveller takes a rest. It is the joke of the ragamuffins of Aush to let out water from the canal 2 on anyone happening to fall asleep in the meadow. A very beautiful stone, waved red and whites was found in the Barā Koh in 'Umar Shaikh Mirza's latter days; of it are made knife handles, and clasps for belts and many other things. For climate and for pleasantness, no township in all Farghāna equals Aush. Again there is Marghīnän; seven yighach by road to the west of Andijān, a fine township full of good things. Its apricots (aŭrūk) and pomegranates are most excellent. One sort of pomegranate, they call the Great Seed (Dana-i-kalān); its sweetness has a little of the pleasant flavour of the small apricot (zard-alu) and it may be thought better than the Semnan pomeFol. 36. granate. Another kind of apricot (aurük) they dry after stoning it and putting back the kernel; 5 they then call it subḥānī; it is very palatable. The hunting and fowling of Marghīnān are good; aq kiyik are had close by. Its people are Sārts, boxers, 1 Madame Ujfalvy has sketched a possible successor. Schuyler found two mosques at the foot of Takht-i-sulaiman, perhaps Bābur's Jauza Masjid. 2 aul shāh-jū'idin su quyārlār. 3 Ribbon Jasper, presumably. 4 Kostenko (ii, 30), 71 versts i.e. 47 m. 4 fur. by the Postal Road. 5 Instead of their own kernels, the Second W.-i-B. stuffs the apricots, in a fashion well known in India by khūbānī, with almonds (maghz-i badam). The Turki wording however allows the return to the apricots of their own kernels and Mr. Rickmers tells me that apricots so stuffed were often seen by him in the Zar-afshān Valley. My husband has shewn me that Nizāmī in his Haft Paikar appears to refer to the other fashion, that of inserting almonds:"I gave thee fruits from the garden of my heart, Plump and sweet as honey in milk; Their substance gave the lusciousness of figs. In their hearts were the kernels of almonds."

6 What this name represents is one of a considerable number of points in the Bābur-nāma I am unable to decide. Kiyik is a comprehensive name (cf. Shaw's Vocabulary); aq kiyik might mean white sheep or white deer. It is rendered in the Second W.-i-B., here, by ahu-i-wariq and on f. 4. by ahu-i-safed. Both these names Mr. Erskine has translated by "white deer." but he mentions that the first is said to mean argāli i.e. ovis poli, and refers to Voyages de Pallas iv, 325. 7 Concerning this much discussed word, Bābur's testimony is of service. It seems to me that he uses it merely of those settled in towns (villages) and