899 AH.-OCT. 12TH. 1493 TO OCT. 2ND. 1494 9 approach to one (qaşbacha). Its almonds are excellent, hence its name; they all go to Hormuz or to Hindūstān. It is five or Fol. 46. six yighach¹ east of Khujand. Between Kand-i-badām and Khujand lies the waste known as Hã Darwesh. In this there is always (hamesha) wind; from it wind goes always (hamesha) to Marghīnān on its east; from it wind comes continually (da'im) to Khujand on its west.2 It has violent, whirling winds. People say that some darweshes, encountering a whirlwind in this desert,3 lost one another and kept crying, "Hay Darwesh! Hãy Darwesh!" till all had perished, and that the waste has been called Hã Darwesh ever since. Of the townships on the north of the Saiḥūn River one is Akhsī. In books they write it Akhsīkīt and for this reason the 1 Schuyler (ii, 3), 18 m. 2 Hai. MS. Hamesha bu deshttä yil bar dür. Marghinanghā kim sharqi dūr, hamesha mundin yil bārur; Khujandghā kim gharibi dür, da'im mündin yil kilūr. This is a puzzling passage. It seems to say that wind always goes east and west from the steppe as from a generating centre. E. and de C. have given it alternative directions, east or west, but there is little point in saying this of wind in a valley hemmed in on the north and the south. Bābur limits his statement to the steppe lying in the contracted mouth of the Farghāna valley (pace Schuyler ii, 51) where special climatic conditions exist such as (a) difference in temperature on the two sides of the Khujand narrows and currents resulting from this difference,-(b) the heating of the narrows by sun-heat reflected from the Mogol-tau,-and (c) the inrush of westerly wind over Mirzā Rabāt. Local knowledge only can guide a translator safely but Bābur's directness of speech compels belief in the significance of his words and this particularly when what he says is unexpected. He calls the Hā Darwesh a whirling wind and this it still is. Thinkable at least it is that a strong westerly current (the prevailing wind of Farghāna) entering over Mirzā Rabāt and becoming, as it does become, the whirlwind of Ha Darwesh on the hemmed-in steppe, becoming so perhaps by conflict with the hotter indraught through the Gates of Khujand-might force that indraught back into the Khujand Narrows (in the way e.g. that one Nile in flood forces back the other), and at Khujand create an easterly current. All the manuscripts agree in writing to (ghā) Marghīnān and to (ghā) Khujand. It may be observed that, looking at the map, it appears somewhat strange that Babur should take, for his wind objective, a place so distant from his (defined) Hā Darwesh and seemingly so screened by its near hills as is Marghīnān. But that westerly winds are prevalent in Marghīnān is seen e.g. in Middendorff's Einblikke in den Farghāna Thal (p. 112). Cf. Réclus vi, 547; Schuyler ii, 51; Cahun's Histoire du Khanat de Khokand p. 28 and Sven Hedin's Durch Asien's Wüsten's.n. būrān. 3 badiya; a word perhaps selected as punning on bād, wind. 4 i.e. Akhsi Village. This word is sometimes spelled Akhsīkis but as the old name of the place was Akhsī-kint, it may be conjectured at least that the sa'i maşallaşa of Akhsikis represents the three points due for the nun and tā of kint. Of those writing Akhsikit may be mentioned the Hai, and Kehr's
