4 FARGHĀNA so surprisingly fat that rumour has it four people could not finish one they were eating with its stew.¹ Andijānīs are all Turks, not a man in town or bāzār but knows Turki. The speech of the people is correct for the pen; hence the writings of Mir 'Ali-shir Nawai, though he was bred and grew up in Hiri (Harāt), are one with their dialect. Good looks are common amongst them. The famous musician, Khwaja Yusuf, was an Andijānī.3 The climate is malarious; in autumn people generally get fever.* Again, there is Aush (Ūsh), to the south-east, inclining to east, of Andijān and distant from it four yighach by road. It has a fine climate, an abundance of running waters and a most beautiful spring season. Many traditions have their rise
1 qirghāwal ash-kinasi bila. Ash-kina, a diminutive of ash, food, is the rice
and vegetables commonly served with the bird. Kostenko i, 287 gives a
recipe for what seems āsh-kina.
2 b. 1440; d. 1500 AD.
3 Yusuf was in the service of Bai-sunghar Mirzā Shahrukhi (d. 837 AH.-
1434 AD.). Cf. Daulat Shāh's Memoirs of the Poets (Browne) pp. 340 and
350-1. (H.B.)
4 guzlar ail bizkāk kūb bülür. Second W.-i-B. (I.O. 217 f. 2) here and on
f. 4 has read Turki guz, eye, for Turki güz or goz, autumn. It has here a gloss
not in the Haidarābād or Kehr's MSS. (Cf. Mems. p. 4 note.) This gloss
may be one of Humayun's numerous notes and may have been preserved in
the Elphinstone Codex, but the fact cannot now be known because of the loss
of the two folios already noted. (See Von Schwarz and Kostenko concerning
the autumn fever of Transoxiana.)
5 The Pers. trss. render yighāch by farsang; Ujfalvy also takes the yighach
and the farsang as having a common equivalent of about 6 kilomètres. Babur's
statements in yighach however, when tested by ascertained distances, do not
work out into the farsang of four miles or the kilomètre of 8 kil. to 5
miles. The yighach appears to be a variable estimate of distance, sometimes
indicating the time occupied on a given journey, at others the distance to
which a man's voice will carry. (Cf. Ujfalvy Expédition scientifique ii, 179;
Von Schwarz p. 124 and de C.'s Dict. s.n. yighach. In the present instance, if
Bābur's 4 y. equalled 4 f. the distance from Aūsh to Andijān should be about
16 m.; but it is 33 m. 12 fur. i.e. 50 versts. (Kostenko ii, 33.) I find Bābur's
yighāch to vary from about 4 m. to nearly 8 m.
6 aqār sü, the irrigation channels on which in Turkistān all cultivation
depends. Major-General Gérard writes, (Report of the Pamir Boundary Com-
mission, p. 6,) "Osh is a charming little town, resembling Islāmābād in Kāshmir,
-everywhere the same mass of running water, in small canals, bordered with
willow, poplar and mulberry." He saw the Aq Būrā, the White wolf, mother
of all these running waters, as a "bright, stony, trout-stream;" Dr. Stein saw
it as a "broad, tossing river." (Buried Cities of Khotan, p. 45.) Cf. Réclus
vi, cap. Farghäna; Kostenko i, 104; Von Schwarz s.nn.
