[374] Hindūstān would make a better climax here than Samarkand does.
[375] These appear to be pictures or ornamentations of carved wood. Redhouse describes islīmī as a special kind of ornamentation in curved lines, similar to Chinese methods.
[376] i.e. the Black Stone (ka’ba) at Makkah to which Musalmāns turn in prayer.
[377] As ancient observatories were themselves the instruments of astronomical observation, Bābur’s wording is correct. Aūlūgh Beg’s great quadrant was 180 ft. high; Abū-muḥammad Khujandī’s sextant had a radius of 58 ft. Jā’ī Singh made similar great instruments in Jā’īpūr, Dihlī has others. Cf. Greaves Misc. Works i, 50; Mems. p. 51 note; Āiyīn-i-akbarī (Jarrett) ii, 5 and note; Murray’s Hand-book to Bengal p. 331; Indian Gazetteer xiii, 400.
[378] b. 597 AH. d. 672 AH. (1201-1274 AD.). See D’Herbélot’s art. Naṣīr-i-dīn p. 662; Abū’l-fidā (Reinaud, Introduction i, cxxxviii) and Beale’s Biographical Dict. s.n.
[379] a grandson of Chīngīz Khān, d. 663 AH. (1265 AD.). The cognomen Aīl-khānī (Īl-khānī) may mean Khān of the Tribe.
[380] Ḥarūnu’r-rashīd’s second son; d. 218 AH. (833 AD.).
[381] Mr. Erskine notes that this remark would seem to fix the date at which Bābur wrote it as 934 AH. (1527 AD.), that being the 1584th. year of the era of Vikramāditya, and therefore at three years before Bābur’s death. (The Vikramāditya era began 57 BC.)
[382] Cf. index s.n. tāsh.
[383] This remark may refer to the 34 miles between the town and the quarries of its building stone. See f. 49 and note to Aītmāk Pass.