[196] Elliot has Amardi, but the MSS. have Amrohi. The Ma'asir, ii, 755, has Ahru'i. See Blochmann, p. 522.
[197] Az taghyan farud amada. Perhaps the meaning is exactly the opposite, viz. 'had come down in violence.' But if so, could a bridge have been made, and with eighteen boats? The time was the 4th or 5th May. Elliot has "the Nilab was very full."
[198] According to the Ma'asiru-l-umara, iii, 376, Ma`mur is a village in Arabia.
[199] The MSS. have sad instead of chand, i.e. 100.
[200] This Asaf Khan is Qawamu-d-din Ja`far Beg and the No. iii of Blochmann, p. 411. Apparently his appointment as Mir Bakhshi was made in 989 (1581), in which year Akbar went to Kabul. Blochmann says Asaf Khan was made Mir Bakhshi in the room of Qazi `Ali, and we find at p. 372 of A. N., iii, that Qazi `Ali Bakhshi was appointed in that year to the Panjab. Twenty-eight years before 1016 (to the beginning of which Jahangir is referring) yields 988. Basawal is on right bank of Kabul River below Jalalabad.
[201] Text bauli, but the MSS. have luli, i.e. dancing-girl.
[202] Generally spelt ballut, either the oak or the chestnut. Cf. Erskine's Baber, p. 145. Sir Alexander Burnes calls the ballut the holly.
[203] See below, p. 52, where the Ra'is or headman of Chikri is mentioned.
[205] The fort of Pesh Bulaq is mentioned in the third volume of the Akbar-nama, p. 512. It is marked on the map of Afghanistan between Daka and Jalalabad.
[206] Sic in text, but should be Jaunpur as in the MSS.
[207] There was also a Shahr-banu who was Babar's sister. Bika Begam was Babar's widow and the lady who carried his bones to Kabul.
[208] Bakafsh-pay, which Erskine renders 'with slippers on' and Elliot 'with his shoes on.'
[209] Bayazid Biyat describes Humayun as holding a cooking festival in Badakhshan. See A.N., i, translation, p. 496, n. 2. They cooked bughra, which appears to be macaroni. The text wrongly has raqz az `ishq (love-dances). The real word, as the MSS. show, is arghushtaq, which is a kind of dance (not a child's game as in Johnson). It is described in Vullers, s.v., in accordance with the account in the Burhan-i-qati`. It is a dance by girls or young men, and is accompanied with singing and with clapping of hands, etc. Probably it is the dance described by Elphinstone in his account of Kabul, i, 311, where he says: "The great delight of all the western Afghans is to dance the Attun or Ghoomboor. From ten to twenty men or women stand up in a circle (in summer before their houses and tents, and in winter round a fire); a person stands within the circle to sing and play on some instrument. The dancers go through a number of attitudes and figures; shouting, clapping their hands, and snapping their fingers. Every now and then they join hands, and move slow or fast according to the music, all joining in chorus. When I was showed this, a love-song was sung to an extremely pretty tune, very simple, and not unlike a Scottish air." Erskine's translation is: "Custards and confections were presented, and the amusements of dancing girls and arghustak were introduced."