[1821] In this passage my husband finds the explanation of two somewhat vague statements of later date, one made by Abū’l-faẓl (A. A. Blochmann, p. 65) that Akbar called the kīlās (cherry) the shāh-ālū (king-plum), the other by Jahāngīr that this change was made because kīlās means lizard (Jahāngīr’s Memoirs, R. & B. i, 116). What Akbar did is shewn by Bābur; it was to reject the Persian name kīlās, cherry, because it closely resembled Turkī gīlās, lizard. There is a lizard Stellio Lehmanni of Transoxiana with which Bābur may well have compared the crocodile’s appearance (Schuyler’s Turkistān, i, 383). Akbar in Hindūstān may have had Varanus salvator (6 ft. long) in mind, if indeed he had not the great lizard, al lagarto, the alligator itself in his thought. The name kīlās evidently was banished only from the Court circle, since it is still current in Kashmīr (Blochmann l.c. p. 616); and Speede (p. 201) gives keeras, cherry, as used in India.
[1822] This name as now used, is that of the purely fish-eating crocodile. [In the Turkī text Bābur’s account of the ghaṛīāl follows that of the porpoise; but it is grouped here with those of the two other crocodiles.]
[1823] As the Ḥai. MS. and also I.O. 216 f. 137 (Pers. trs.) write kalah (galah)-fish, this may be a large cray-fish. One called by a name approximating to galah-fish is found in Malāyan waters, viz. the galah-prawn (hūdang) (cf. Bengālī gūla-chingrī, gūla-prawn, Haughton). Galah and gūla may express lament made when the fish is caught (Haughton pp. 931, 933, 952); or if kalah be read, this may express scolding. Two good MSS. of the Wāqi‘āt-i-bāburī (Pers. trs.) write kaka; and their word cannot but have weight. Erskine reproduces kaka but offers no explanation of it, a failure betokening difficulty in his obtaining one. My husband suggests that kaka may represent a stuttering sound, doing so on the analogy of Vullers’ explanation of the word,—Vir ridiculus et facetus qui simul balbutiat; and also he inclines to take the fish to be a crab (kakra). Possibly kaka is a popular or vulgar name for a cray-fish or a crab. Whether the sound is lament, scolding, or stuttering the fisherman knows! Shaikh Zain enlarges Bābur’s notice of this fish; he says the bones are prolonged (bar āwarda) from the ears, that these it agitates at time of capture, making a noise like the word kaka by which it is known, that it is two wajab (18 in.) long, its flesh surprisingly tasty, and that it is very active, leaping a gaz (cir. a yard) out of the water when the fisherman’s net is set to take it. For information about the Malāyan fish, I am indebted to Mr. Cecil Wray.
[1824] T. qiyünlīghī, presumably referring to spines or difficult bones; T. qīn, however, means a scabbard [Shaw].
[1825] One of the common frogs is a small one which, when alarmed, jumps along the surface of the water (G. of I. i, 273).
[1826] Anb and anbah (pronounced aṃb and aṃbah) are now less commonly used names than ām. It is an interesting comment on Bābur’s words that Abū’l-faẓl spells anb, letter by letter, and says that the b is quiescent (Āyīn 28; for the origin of the word mango, vide Yule’s H.J. s.n.).
[1827] A corresponding diminutive would be fairling.
[1828] The variants, entered in parenthesis, are found in the Bib. Ind. ed. of the Āyīn-i-akbarī p. 75 and in a (bazar) copy of the Qurānu’s-sā‘dain in my husband’s possession. As Amīr Khusrau was a poet of Hindūstān, either khẉash (khẉesh) [our own] or mā [our] would suit his meaning. The couplet is, literally:—
Our fairling, [i.e. mango] beauty-maker of the garden,
Fairest fruit of Hindūstān.