[737] 300% to 400% (Erskine).
[738] Persian sinjid, Brandis, elæagnus hortensis; Erskine (Mems. p. 138) jujube, presumably the zizyphus jujuba of Speede, Supplement p. 86. Turkī yāngāq, walnut, has several variants, of which the most marked is yānghkāq. For a good account of Kābul fruits see Masson, ii, 230.
[739] a kind of plum (?). It seems unlikely to be a cherry since Bābur does not mention cherries as good in his old dominions, and Firminger (p. 244) makes against it as introduced from India. Steingass explains alū-bālū by “sour-cherry, an armarylla”; if sour, is it the Morello cherry?
[740] The sugar-cane was seen in abundance in Lan-po (Lamghān) by a Chinese pilgrim (Beale, p. 90); Bābur’s introduction of it may have been into his own garden only in Nīngnahār (f. 132b).
[741] i.e. the seeds of pinus Gerardiana.
[742] rawāshlār. The green leaf-stalks (chūkrī) of ribes rheum are taken into Kābul in mid-April from the Pamghān-hills; a week later they are followed by the blanched and tended rawāsh (Masson, ii, 7). See Gul-badan’s H.N. trs. p. 188, Vigne, p. 100 and 107, Masson, ii, 230, Conolly, i, 213.
[743] a large green fruit, shaped something like a citron; also a large sort of cucumber (Erskine).
[744] The ṣāḥibī, a grape praised by Bābur amongst Samarkandī fruits, grows in Koh-dāman; another well-known grape of Kābul is the long stoneless ḥusainī, brought by Afghān traders into Hindūstān in round, flat boxes of poplar wood (Vigne, p. 172).
[745] An allusion, presumably, to the renouncement of wine made by Bābur and some of his followers in 933 AH. (1527 AD. f. 312). He may have had ‘Umar Khayyām’s quatrain in mind, “Wine’s power is known to wine-bibbers alone” (Whinfield’s 2nd ed. 1901, No. 164).
[746] pūstīn, usually of sheep-skin. For the wide range of temperature at Kābul in 24 hours, see Ency. Brtt. art. Afghānistān. The winters also vary much in severity (Burnes, p. 273).