932 AH. OCT. 18th 1525 to OCT. 8th 1526 AD. 505
sweet. The plantain is a very good-looking tree, its broad, broad, leaves of beautiful green having an excellent appearance.
The anbli (H. imli, Tamarindus indica, the tamarind) is another. By this name {anbli) people call the khurma-i-hind (Indian date-tree).1 It has finely-cut leaves (leaflets), precisely like those of the (T.) bum, except that they are not so finely-cut.2 It is a very good-looking tree, giving dense shade. It grows wild in masses too.
The (Beng.) mahuwa (Bassia latifolid) is another.3 People call it also (P.) gul-chikan (or chigdn, distilling-flower). This also is a very large tree. Most of the wood in the houses of Hindustanis is from it. Spirit Qaraq) is distilled from its flowers,4 not only so, but they are dried and eaten like raisins, and from them thus dried, spirit is also extracted. The dried flowers taste just like kishmish ; 5 they have an ill-flavour. The flowers are not bad in their natural state 6 ; they are eatable. The mahuwa grows wild also. Its fruit is tasteless, has rather a large seed with a thin husk, and from this seed, again,7 oil is extracted.
The mimusops (Sans, khirni, Mimusops kauki) is another. Its tree, though not very large, is not small. The fruit is yellow and
' The ripe "dates" are called P. tamar-i Hitid, whence our tamarind, and Tamarindus Indica. a Sophora alopecuroides, a leguminous plant (Scully).
3 Abu'1-fazl givesgalannda as the name of the "fruit" [/«««<;], Forbes, as that of the fallen flower. Cf. Brandis p. 426 and Yule's H.J. s.n. Mohwa.
4 Babur seems to say that spirit is extracted from both the fresh and the dried flowers. The fresh ones are favourite food with deer and jackals ; they have a sweet spirituous taste. Erskine notes that the spirit made from them was well-known in Bombay by the name of Moura, or of Parsi-brandy, and that the farm of it was a considerable article of revenue (p. 325 n.). Roxburgh describes it as strong and intoxicating (p. 411).
5 This is the name of a green, stoneless grape which when dried, results in a raisir resembling the sultanas of Europe (Jahangir' s Memoirs and Yule's H.J. s.n. ; Griffiths' Journal of Travel pp. 359, 388).
6 Aul, lit. the aid of the flower. The Persian translation renders aid by bit which may allow both words to be understood in their (root) sense of being, i.e. natural state. De Courteille translates by qttand la flenr est fralche (ii, 210) ; Erskine took bu to mean smell (Memoirs p. 325), but the aill it translates, does not seem to have this meaning. For reading aitl as " the natural state", there is circumstantial support in the flower's being eaten raw (Roxburgh). The annotator of the Elphinstone MS. [whose defacement of that Codex has been often mentioned], has added points and tashdidto the afil-i (i.e. its aul), so as to produce cnvwali (first, f. 235). Against this there are the obvious objections that the Persian translation does not reproduce, and that its bu does not render aimvali; also that aiil-i is a noun with its enclitic genitiveya (i).
7 This word seems to be meant to draw attention to the various merits of the mahmva tree.
