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240
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KAEUL
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itself to view ; the level lands on its further side could not be seen at all ; its water seemed to join the sky ; the higher land and the mountains of that further side looked to hang between Heaven and Earth, as in a mirage. The waters there gathered are said to be those of the spring-rain floods of the Kattawazplain, the Zurmut-valley, and the Oara-bagh meadow of the GhaznT-torrent, floods of the spring-rains, and the over-plus1 of the summer-rise of streams.
When within two miles of the Ab-i-istada, we saw a wonderful thing, something as red as the rose of the dawn kept shewing and vanishing between the sky and the water. It kept coming and going. When we got quite close we learned that what seemed the cause were flocks of geese,2 not io,ooc, not 20,000 in a flock, but geese innumerable which, when the mass of birds flapped their wings in flight, sometimes shewed redy feathers, sometimes not. Not only was this bird there in countless numbers, but birds of every sort. Eggs lay in masses on the shore. When two Afghans, come there to collect eggs, saw us, they went into the water half a kitrok (a mile). Some of our men following, brought them back. As far as they went the water was of one depth, up to a horse's belly ; it seemed not to lie in a hollow, the country being flat.
We dismounted at the torrent coming down to tne Ab-i-istada from the plain of Kattawaz. The se-eral o^her times we have passed it, we have found a dry channel with no water whatever,3 but this time, there was so much water, from the spring-rains, that no ford could be found. The water was not very broad but very deep. Horses and camels were made to swim it; some of the baggage was hauled over with ropes. Having got across, we went on through Old Nan! and Sar-i-dih to Ghazni where for a few days Jahanglr Mlrza was our host, setting food before us and offering his tribute.
1 This may mean, what irrigation has not used.
= Mr. Erskine notes that the description would lead us to imagine a flock of flamingoes. Masson found the lake filled with red-legged, white fowl (i, 262); these and also what Babur saw, may have been the China-goose which has body and neck white, head and tail russet (Bellew's Mission p. 402). Broadfoot seems to have visited the lake when migrants were few, and through this to have been led to adverse comment on Babur's accuracy p. 350).
3 The usual dryness of the bed may have resulted from the irrigation of much land some 12 miles from Ghazni.
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