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C ON THE GOSHA-GlR
IX
be used there on condition that there are not two daur (curves) in the bow. If there are two the bow cannot be repaired without fire. The haldl daur is said to be characteristic of the Turkish bow. There are three daur. I am indebted to Mr. Inigo Simon for the suggestions that daur in this connection means warp and that the three twists (daur) may be those of one horn (gosha), of the whole bow warped in one curve, and of the two horns warped in opposite directions.
Of repair to the kaman-khana it is said further that if no kardang be available, its work can be done by means of a stick and string, and if the damage be slight only, the bow and the string can be tightly tied together till the bow comes straight. ' And the cure is with God!'
Both manuscripts named contain much technical information. Some parts of this are included in my husband's article, Oriental Crossbows (A.Q.R. 1911, p. 1). Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey's interesting book on the Cross-bow allows insight into the fine handicraft of Turkish bow-making.
D. ON THE RESCUE PASSAGE.
I have omitted from my translation an account of Babur's rescue from expected death, although it is with the Haidarabad Codex, because closer acquaintance with its details has led both my husband and myself to judge it spurious. We had welcomed it because, being with the true Babur-nama text, it accredited the same account found in the Kehr-Ilminsky text, and also because, however inefficiently, it did something towards filling the gap found elsewhere within 908 ah.
It is in the Haidarabad MS. (f. 1186), in Kehr's MS. (p. 385), in Ilminsky's imprint (p. 144), in Les Memoires de Babour (i, 255) and with the St. P. University Codex, which is a copy of Kehr's.