up in tufts {biita, biita)} The alps of these mountains are like those of Hisar, Khutlan, Farghana, Samarkand and Mughulistan, all these being alike in mountain and alp, though the alps of Farghana and Mughulistan are beyond comparison with the rest.
From all these the mountains of Nijr-au, the Lamghanat and Sawad differ in having masses of cypresses,2 holm-oak, olive and mastic (kkanjak); their grass also is different, it is dense, it is tall, it is good neither for horse nor sheep. Although these mountains are not so high as those already described, indeed they look to be low, none-the-less, they are strongholds; what to the eye is even slope, really is hard rock on which it is impossible to ride. Many of the beasts and birds of Hindustan are found amongst them, such as the parrot, mina, peacock and luja (Jukka), the ape, nil-gau and hog-deer {kuta-pat);3 some found there are not found even in Hindustan.
The mountains to the west of Kabul are also all of one sort, those of the Zindan-valley, the Suf-valley, Garzawan and Gharjistan (Gharchastan).4 Their meadows are mostly in the dales ; they have not the same sw.eep of grass on slope and top as some of those described have ; nor have they masses of trees ; they have, however, grass suiting horses. On their flat tops, where all the crops are grown, there is ground where a horse can gallop. They have masses of kiyik.5 Their valley-bottoms are strongholds, mostly precipitous and inaccessible from above. It is remarkable that, whereas other mountains have their fastnesses in their high places, these have theirs below.
Of one sort again are the mountains of Ghur, Karnud (var. Kuzud) and Hazara ; their meadows are in their dales; their trees are few, not even the archa being there ;6 their grass is fit
1 Babur's statement about this fodder is not easy to translate ; he must have seen grass grow in tufts, and must have known the Persian word biita (bush). Perhaps kah should be read to mean plant, not grass. Would Wood's bootr fit in, a small furze bush, very plentiful near Barman ? (Wood's Report VI, p. 23 ; an 1 for regional grasses, Aitchison's Botany of the Afghan Delimitation Commission, p. i22.)
2 nazu, perhaps cupressus torulosa (Brandis, p. 693).
3 f. 276.
4 A laborious geographical note of Mr. Erskine's is here regretfully left behind, as now needless (Mems. p. 152).
5 Here, mainly wild-sheep and wild-goats, including mar-khwar.
6 Perhaps, no conifers ; perhaps none of those of the contrasted hill-tract.
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