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4
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FARGHANA
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so surprisnigly fat that rumour has it four people could not finish one they were eating with its stew.1
Andijanis are all Turks, not a man in town or bazar but knows Turkl. The speech of the people is correct for the pen ; hence the writings of Mir 'All-shir Nawal,- though he was bred and grew up in Hlri (Harat), are one with their dialect. Good looks are common amongst them. The famous musician, Khwaja Yusuf, was an Andijanl.3 The climate is malarious; in autumn people generally get fever.4
Again, there is Aush (Ush), to the south-east, inclining to east, of Andijan and distant from it four ylghdch by road.5 It has a fine climate, an abundance of running waters6 and a most beautiful spring season. Many traditions have their rise
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of loess. Here, obeying his Persian source, Mr. Erskine writes " stone-faced ditch " ; M. de C. obeying his Turki one, " bord extirieur."
1 qirghdwal dsh-klnasl bila. Ash-klna, a diminutive of ash, food, is the rice and vegetables commonly served with the bird. Kostenko i, 287 gives a recipe for what seems ash-klna.
2 b. 1440 ; d. 1500 ad.
3 Yusuf was in the service of Bai-sunghar Mirza Shahrukhl (d. 837 ah.1434 ad.). Cf. Daulat Shah's Memoirs of the Poets (Browne) pp. 340 and 350-1. (H.B.)
4 guzlat all blzkfik kub bulur. Second W.-i-B. (I.O. 217 f. 2) here and on 1. 4 has read Turki guz, eye, for Turk! guz or goz, autumn. It has here a gloss not in the Ilaidarabad or Kehr's MSS. (Cf. Mems. p. 4 note.) This gloss may be one of HumayQn's numerous notes and may have been preserved in the Elphinstone Codex, but the fact cannot now be known because of the loss of the two folios already noted. (See Von Schwarz and Kostenko concerning the autumn fever of Transoxiana.)
5 The Ptrs. trss. render ylghdch by farsang ; Ujfalvy also takes the ylghdch and the farsang as having a common equivalent of about 6 kilometres. Babur's statements in ylghdch however, when tested by ascertained distances, do not work out into the farsang of four miles or the kilometre of 8 kil. to 5 miles. The ylghdch appears to be a variable estimate of distance, sometimes indicating the time occupied on a given journey, at others the distance to which a man's voice will carry. (Cf. Ujfalvy Expedition scientifique ii, 179 ; . Von Schwarz p. 124 and de C.'s Diet. s.n. ylghdch. In the present instance, if Babur's 4 y. equalled 4 f. the distance from Aush to Andijan should be about 16 m. ; but it is 33 m. 1 j fur. i.e. 50 versts. (Kostenko ii, 33.) I find Babur's ylghdch to vary from about 4 m. to nearly 8 m.
8 dqdr sit, the irrigation channels on which in Turkistan all cultivation depends. Major-General Gerard writes, (Report of the Pamir Boundary Commission, p. 6,) "Osh is a charming little town, resembling Islamabad in Kashmir, everywhere the same mass of running water, in small canals, bordered with willow, poplar and mulberry." He saw the Aq Bura, the White wolf, mother of all these running waters, as a " bright, stony, trout-stream ;" Dr. Stein saw it as a " broad, tossing river." (Buried Cities of Khotan, p. 45.) Cf. Reclus vi, cap. Farghana ; Kostenko i, 104 ; Von Schwarz s.nn.
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