[775] Presumably those of the tūqūz-rūd, supra. Cf. Appendix E, On Nagarahāra.
[776] White-mountain; Pushtū, Spīn-ghur (or ghar).
[777] i.e. the Lamghānāt proper. The range is variously named; in (Persian) Siyāh-koh (Black-mountain), which like Turkī Qarā-tāgh may mean non-snowy; by Tājīks, Bāgh-i-ātāka (Foster-father’s garden); by Afghāns, Kanda-ghur, and by Lamghānīs Koh-i-būlān,—Kanda and Būlān both being ferry-stations below it (Masson, iii, 189; also the Times Nov. 20th 1912 for a cognate illustration of diverse naming).
[778] A comment made here by Mr. Erskine on changes of name is still appropriate, but some seeming changes may well be due to varied selection of land-marks. Of the three routes next described in the text, one crosses as for Mandrāwar; the second, as for ‘Alī-shang, a little below the outfall of the Tīzīn-water; the third may take off from the route, between Kābul and Tag-aū, marked in Col. Tanner’s map (PRGS 1881 p. 180). Cf. R’s Route 11; and for Aūlūgh-nūr, Appendix F, On the name Nūr.
[779] The name of this pass has several variants. Its second component, whatever its form, is usually taken to mean pass, but to read it here as pass would be redundant, since Bābur writes “pass (kūtal) of Bād-i-pīch”. Pich occurs as a place name both east (Pīch) and west (Pīchghān) of the kūtal, but what would suit the bitter and even fatal winds of the pass would be to read the name as Whirling-wind (bād-i-pīch). Another explanation suggests itself from finding a considerable number of pass-names such as Shibr-tū, Jāi-tū, Qarā-tū, in which tū is a synonym of pīch, turn, twist; thus Bād-i-pīch may be the local form of Bād-tū, Windy-turn.
[780] See Masson, iii, 197 and 289. Both in Pashāī and Lamghānī, lām means fort.
[781] See Appendix F, On the name Dara-i-nūr.
[782] ghair mukarrar. Bābur may allude to the remarkable change men have wrought in the valley-bottom (Appendix F, for Col. Tanner’s account of the valley).
[783] f. 154.
[784] diospyrus lotus, the European date-plum, supposed to be one of the fruits eaten by the Lotophagi. It is purple, has bloom and is of the size of a pigeon’s egg or a cherry. See Watts’ Economic Products of India; Brandis’ Forest Trees, Illustrations; and Speede’s Indian Hand-book.