The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)

Farghāna is situated in the fifth climate39 and at the limit of settled habitation. On the east it has Kāshghar; on the west, Samarkand; on the south, the mountains of the Badakhshān border; on the north, though in former times there must have been towns such as Ālmālīgh, Ālmātū and Yāngī which in books they write Tarāz,40 at the present time all is desolate, no settled population whatever remaining, because of the Mughūls and the Aūzbegs.41

Fol. 2.The Saiḥūn River (daryā) commonly known as the Water of Khujand, comes into the country from the north-east, flows westward through it and after passing along the north of Khujand and the south of Fanākat,44 now known as Shāhrukhiya, turns directly north and goes to Turkistān. It does not join any sea45 but sinks into the sands, a considerable distance below [the town of] Turkistān.

Of those on the south, one is Andijān. It has a central position and is the capital of the Farghāna country. It produces much grain, fruits in abundance, excellent grapes and melons. In the melon season, it is not customary to sell them out at the beds.47 Better than the Andijān nāshpātī,48 there is none. After Samarkand and Kesh, the fort49 of Andijān is the largest in Mawārā’u’n-nahr (Transoxiana). It has three gates. Its citadel (ark) is on its south side. Into it water goes by nine channels; out of it, it is strange that none comes at even a single place.50 Round the outer edge of the ditch51 runs a gravelled highway; the width of this highway divides the fort from the suburbs surrounding it.

Andijānīs are all Turks, not a man in town or bāzār but knows Turkī. The speech of the people is correct for the pen; hence the writings of Mīr ‘Alī-shīr Nawā’ī,53 though he was bred and grew up in Hīrī (Harāt), are one with their dialect. Good looks are common amongst them. The famous musician, Khwāja Yūsuf, was an Andijānī.54 The climate is malarious; in autumn people generally get fever.55

Again, there is Aūsh (Ūsh), to the south-east, inclining to east, of Andijān and distant from it four yīghāch by road.56 It has a fine climate, an abundance of running waters57 and a most beautiful spring season. Many traditions have their rise in its excellencies.58 To the south-east of the walled town (qūrghān) lies a symmetrical mountain, known as the Barā Koh;59 on the top of this, Sl. Maḥmūd Khān built a retreat (ḥajra) and lower down, on its shoulder, I, in 902AH. (1496AD.) built another, having a porch. Though his lies the higher, mine is the better placed, the whole of the town and the suburbs being at its foot.

The Andijān torrent60 goes to Andijān after having traversedFol. 3. the suburbs of Aūsh. Orchards (bāghāt)61 lie along both its banks; all the Aūsh gardens (bāghlār) overlook it; their violets are very fine; they have running waters and in spring are most beautiful with the blossoming of many tulips and roses.

On the skirt of the Barā-koh is a mosque called the Jauza Masjid (Twin Mosque).62 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 clover-meadow where every passing traveller takes a rest. It is the joke of the ragamuffins of Aūsh to let out water from the canal63 on anyone happening to fall asleep in the meadow. A very beautiful stone, waved red and white64 was found in the Barā Koh in ‘Umar Shaikh Mīrzā’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 Aūsh.

Again there is Marghīnān; seven yīghāch65 by road to the west of Andijān,—a fine township full of good things. Its apricots (aūrūk) and pomegranates are most excellent. One sort of pomegranate, they call the Great Seed (Dāna-i-kalān); its sweetness has a little of the pleasant flavour of the small apricot (zard-alū) and it may be thought better than the Semnān pomegranate. Fol. 3b.Another kind of apricot (aūrūk) they dry after stoning it and putting back the kernel;66 they then call it subḥānī; it is very palatable. The hunting and fowling of Marghīnān are good; āq kīyīk67 are had close by. Its people are Sārts,68 boxers, noisy and turbulent. Most of the noted bullies (jangralār) of Samarkand and Bukhārā are Marghīnānīs. The author of the Hidāyat69 was from Rashdān, one of the villages of Marghīnān.

Again there is Asfara, in the hill-country and nine yīghāch70 by road south-west of Marghīnān. It has running waters, beautiful little gardens (bāghcha) and many fruit-trees but almonds for the most part in its orchards. Its people are all Persian-speaking71 Sārts. In the hills some two miles (bīrshar‘ī) to the south of the town, is a piece of rock, known as the Mirror Stone.72 It is some 10 arm-lengths (qārī) long, as high as a man in parts, up to his waist in others. Everything is reflected by it as by a mirror. The Asfara district (wilāyat) is in four subdivisions (balūk) in the hill-country, one Asfara, one Warūkh, one Sūkh and one Hushyār. When Muḥammad Shaibānī Khān defeated Sl. Maḥmūd Khān and Alacha Khān and took Tāshkīnt and Shāhrukhiya,73 I went into the Sūkh and HushyārFol. 4. hill-country and from there, after about a year spent in great misery, I set out (‘azīmat) for Kābul.74

Again there is Khujand,75 twenty-five yīghāch by road to the west of Andijān and twenty-five yīghāch east of Samarkand.76 Khujand is one of the ancient towns; of it were Shaikh Maṣlaḥat and Khwāja Kamāl.77 Fruit grows well there; its pomegranates are renowned for their excellence; people talk of a Khujand pomegranate as they do of a Samarkand apple; just now however, Marghīnān pomegranates are much met with.78 The walled town (qūrghān) of Khujand stands on high ground; the Saiḥūn River flows past it on the north at the distance, may be, of an arrow’s flight.79 To the north of both the town and the river lies a mountain range called Munūghul;80 people say there are turquoise and other mines in it and there are many snakes. The hunting and fowling-grounds of Khujand are first-rate; āq kīyīk,81 būghū-marāl,82 pheasant and hare are all had in great plenty. The climate is very malarious; in autumn there is much fever;83 people rumour it about that the very sparrows get fever and say that the cause of the malaria is the mountain range on the north (i.e. Munūghul).

Kand-i-badām (Village of the Almond) is a dependency of Khujand; though it is not a township (qaṣba) it is rather a good approach to one (qaṣbacha). Its almonds are excellent, hence its name; they all go to Hormuz or to Hindūstān. It is five orFol. 4b. six yīghāch84 east of Khujand.

Between Kand-i-badām and Khujand lies the waste known as Hā Darwesh. In this there is always (hamesha) wind; from it wind goes always (hameshā) to Marghīnān on its east; from it wind comes continually (dā’im) to Khujand on its west.85 It has violent, whirling winds. People say that some darweshes, encountering a whirlwind in this desert,86 lost one another and kept crying, “Hāy Darwesh! Hāy Darwesh!” till all had perished, and that the waste has been called Hā Darwesh ever since.

Of the townships on the north of the Saiḥūn River one is Akhsī. In books they write it Akhsīkīt87 and for this reason the poet As̤iru-d-dīn is known as Akhsīkītī. After Andijān no township in Farghāna is larger than Akhsī. It is nine yīghāch88 by road to the west of Andijān. ‘Umar Shaikh Mīrzā made it his capital.89 The Saiḥūn River flows below its walled town (qūrghān). This stands above a great ravine (buland jar) and it has deep ravines (‘uṃiq jarlār) in place of a moat. When ‘Umar Shaikh Mīrzā made it his capital, he once or twice cut other ravines from the outer ones. In all Farghāna no fort is so strong as Akhsī. *Its suburbs extend some two miles further Fol. 5.than the walled town.* People seem to have made of Akhsī the saying (mis̤al), “Where is the village? Where are the trees?” (Dih kujā? Dirakhtān kujā?) Its melons are excellent; they call one kind Mīr Tīmūrī; whether in the world there is another to equal it is not known. The melons of Bukhārā are famous; when I took Samarkand, I had some brought from there and some from Akhsī; they were cut up at an entertainment and nothing from Bukhārā compared with those from Akhsī. The fowling and hunting of Akhsī are very good indeed; āq kīyīk abound in the waste on the Akhsī side of the Saihūn; in the jungle on the Andijān side būghū-marāl,90 pheasant and hare are had, all in very good condition.

Again there is Kāsān, rather a small township to the north of Akhsī. From Kāsān the Akhsī water comes in the same way as the Andijān water comes from Aūsh. Kāsān has excellent air and beautiful little gardens (bāghcha). As these gardens all lie along the bed of the torrent (sā’ī) people call them the “fine front of the coat.”91 Between Kāsānīs and Aūshīs there is rivalry about the beauty and climate of their townships.

In the mountains round Farghāna are excellent summer-pastures (yīlāq). There, and nowhere else, the tabalghū92grows, a tree (yīghāch) with red bark; they make staves of it; theyFol. 5b. make bird-cages of it; they scrape it into arrows;93 it is an excellent wood (yīghāch) and is carried as a rarity94 to distant places. Some books write that the mandrake95 is found in these mountains but for this long time past nothing has been heard of it. A plant called Āyīq aūtī96 and having the qualities of the mandrake (mihr-giyāh), is heard of in Yītī-kīnt;97 it seems to be the mandrake (mihr-giyāh) the people there call by this name (i.e. āyīq aūtī). There are turquoise and iron mines in these mountains.

As ‘Umar Shaikh Mīrzā was a ruler of high ambition and great pretension, he was always bent on conquest. On several occasions he led an army against Samarkand; sometimes he was beaten, sometimes retired against his will.100 More than once he asked his father-in-law into the country, that is to say, my grandfather, Yūnas Khān, the then Khān of the Mughūls in the camping ground (yūrt) of his ancestor, Chaghatāī Khān, the second son of Chīngīz Khān. Each time the Mīrzā brought The Khān into the Farghāna country he gave him lands, but, partly owing to his misconduct, partly to the thwarting of the Fol. 6.Mughūls,101 things did not go as he wished and Yūnas Khān, not being able to remain, went out again into Mughūlistān. When the Mīrzā last brought The Khān in, he was in possession of

Tāshkīnt, which in books they write Shash, and sometimes Chāch, whence the term, a Chāchī, bow.102 He gave it to The Khān, and from that date (890AH.-1485AD.) down to 908AH. (1503AD.) it and the Shāhrukhiya country were held by the Chaghatāī Khāns.

At this date (i.e., 899AH.-1494AD.) the Mughūl Khānship was in Sl. Maḥ=mūd Khān, Yūnas Khān’s younger son and a half-brother of my mother. As he and ‘Umar Shaikh Mīrzā’s elder brother, the then ruler of Samarkand, Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā were offended by the Mīrzā’s behaviour, they came to an agreement together; Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā had already given a daughter to Sl. Maḥmūd Khān;103 both now led their armies against ‘Umar Shaikh Mīrzā, the first advancing along the south of the Khujand Water, the second along its north.

Meantime a strange event occurred. It has been mentionedFol. 6b that the fort of Akhsī is situated above a deep ravine;104 along this ravine stand the palace buildings, and from it, on Monday, Ramẓān 4, (June 8th.) ‘Umar Shaikh Mīrzā flew, with his pigeons and their house, and became a falcon.105

He was 39 (lunar) years old, having been born in Samarkand, in 860AH. (1456AD.) He was Sl. Abū-sa‘īd Mīrzā’s fourth son,106 being younger than Sl. Aḥmad M. and Sl. Muḥammad M. and Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā. His father, Sl. Abū-sa‘īd Mīrzā, was the son of Sl. Muḥammad Mīrzā, son of Tīmūr Beg’s third son, Mīrān-shāh M. and was younger than ‘Umar Shaikh Mīrzā, (the elder) and Jahāngīr M. but older than Shāhrukh Mīrzā.

His father first gave him Kābul and, with Bābā-i-Kābulī107 for his guardian, had allowed him to set out, but recalled him from the Tamarisk Valley108 to Samarkand, on account of the Mīrzās’ Circumcision Feast. When the Feast was over, he gave him Andijān with the appropriateness that Tīmūr Beg had given Farghāna (Andijān) to his son, the elder ‘Umar Shaikh Mīrzā. This done, he sent him off with Khudāī-bīrdī Tūghchī Tīmūr-tāsh109 for his guardian.

He was a short and stout, round-bearded and fleshy-faced Fol. 7.person.110 He used to wear his tunic so very tight that to fasten the strings he had to draw his belly in and, if he let himself out after tying them, they often tore away. He was not choice in dress or food. He wound his turban in a fold (dastar-pech); all turbans were in four folds (chār-pech) in those days; people wore them without twisting and let the ends hang down.111 In the heats and except in his Court, he generally wore the Mughūl cap.

He was a true believer (Ḥanafī maẕhablīk) and pure in the Faith, not neglecting the Five Prayers and, his life through, making up his Omissions.112 He read the Qur’ān very frequently and was a disciple of his Highness Khwāja ‘Ubaidu’l-lāh (Aḥrārī) who honoured him by visits and even called him son. His current readings113 were the two Quintets and the Mas̤nawī;114 of histories he read chiefly the Shāh-nāma. He had a poetic nature, but no taste for composing verses. He was so just that when he heard of a caravan returning from Khitāī as overwhelmed by snow in the mountains of Eastern Andijān,115 and that of its thousand heads of houses (awīlūq) two only had escaped, he sent his overseers to take charge of all goods and, though no heirs wereFol. 7b. near and though he was in want himself, summoned the heirs from Khurāsān and Samarkand, and in the course of a year or two had made over to them all their property safe and sound.

He was very generous; in truth, his character rose altogether to the height of generosity. He was affable, eloquent and sweet-spoken, daring and bold. Twice out-distancing all his braves,116 he got to work with his own sword, once at the Gate of Akhsī, once at the Gate of Shāhrukhiya. A middling archer, he was strong in the fist,—not a man but fell to his blow. Through his ambition, peace was exchanged often for war, friendliness for hostility.

In his early days he was a great drinker, later on used to have a party once or twice a week. He was good company, on occasions reciting verses admirably. Towards the last he rather preferred intoxicating confects117 and, under their sway, used to lose his head. His disposition118 was amorous, and he bore many a lover’s mark.119 He played draughts a good deal, sometimes even threw the dice.

He fought three ranged battles, the first with Yūnas Khān, Fol. 8.on the Saiḥūn, north of Andijān, at the Goat-leap,120 a village so-called because near it the foot-hills so narrow the flow of the water that people say goats leap across.121 There he was beaten and made prisoner. Yūnas Khān for his part did well by him and gave him leave to go to his own district (Andijān). This fight having been at that place, the Battle of the Goat-leap became a date in those parts.

His second battle was fought on the Urūs,122 in Turkistān, with Aūzbegs returning from a raid near Samarkand. He crossed the river on the ice, gave them a good beating, separated off all their prisoners and booty and, without coveting a single thing for himself, gave everything back to its owners.