[1881] melter, from the Sans. root gal, which provides the names of several lemons by reason of their solvent quality, specified by Bābur (infra) of the amal-bīd. Erskine notes that in his day the gal-gal was known as kilmek (galmak?).
[1882] Sans. jambīrā, H. jambīr, classed by Abū’l-faẓl as one of the somewhat sour fruits and by Watts as Citrus medica limonum.
[1883] Watts, C. decumana, the shaddock or pumelo; Firminger (p. 223) has C. decumana pyriformis suiting Bābur’s “pear-shaped”. What Bābur compared it with will be the Transoxanian pear and quince (P. amrūd and bihī) and not the Indian guava and Bengal quince (P. amrūd and H. bael).
[1884] The Turkī text writes amrd. Watts classes the amrit-phal as a C. aurantium. This supports Erskine’s suggestion that it is the mandarin-orange. Humāyūn describes it in a note which is written pell-mell in the text of the Elph. Codex and contains also descriptions of the kāmila and santara oranges; it can be seen translated in Appendix O.
[1885] So spelled in the Turkī text and also in two good MSS. of the Pers. trs. I.O. 217 and 218, but by Abū’l-faẓl amal-bīt. Both P. bīd and P. bīt mean willow and cane (ratan), so that amal-bīd (bīt) can mean acid-willow and acid-cane. But as Bābur is writing of a fruit like an orange, the cane that bears an acid fruit, Calamus rotang, can be left aside in favour of Citrus medica acidissima. Of this fruit the solvent property Bābur mentions, as well as the commonly-known service in cleansing metal, link it, by these uses, with the willow and suggest a ground for understanding, as Erskine did, that amal-bīd meant acid-willow; for willow-wood is used to rub rust off metal.
[1886] This statement shows that Bābur was writing the Description of Hindūstān in 935 AH. (1528-9 AD.), which is the date given for it by Shaikh Zain.
[1887] This story of the needle is believed in India of all the citron kind, which are hence called sūī-gal (needle-melter) in the Dakhin (Erskine). Cf. Forbes, p. 489 s.n. sūī-gal.
[1888] Erskine here quotes information from Abū’l-faẓl (Āyīn 28) about Akbar’s encouragement of the cultivation of fruits.
[1889] Hindustani (Urdu) gaṛhal. Many varieties of Hibiscus (syn. Althea) grow in India; some thrive in Surrey gardens; the jāsūn by name and colour can be taken as what is known in Malayan, Tamil, etc., as the shoe-flower, from its use in darkening leather (Yule’s H.J.).
[1890] I surmise that what I have placed between asterisks here belongs to the next-following plant, the oleander. For though the branches of the jāsūn grow vertically, the bush is a dense mass upon one stout trunk, or stout short stem. The words placed in parenthesis above are not with the Ḥaidarabad but are with the Elphinstone Codex. There would seem to have been a scribe’s skip from one “rose” to the other. As has been shewn repeatedly, this part of the Bābur-nāma has been much annotated; in the Elph. Codex, where only most of the notes are preserved, some are entered by the scribe pell-mell into Bābur’s text. The present instance may be a case of a marginal note, added to the text in a wrong place.