899 AH.-OCT. 12TH. 1493 TO OCT. 2ND. 1494 5 in its excellencies.¹ To the south-east of the walled town (qurghān) lies a symmetrical mountain, known as the Bara Koh; on the top of this, Sl. Mahmud Khān built a retreat 2 (hajra) and lower down, on its shoulder, I, in 902AH. (1496AD.) built another, having a porch. Though his lies the higher, mine is the better placed, the whole of the town and the suburbs being at its foot. The Andijān torrent ³ goes to Andijän after having traversed Fol. 3. the suburbs of Aush. Orchards (bāghāt) 4 lie along both its banks; all the Aush gardens (bāghlar) overlook it; their violets are very fine; they have running waters and in spring are most beautiful with the blossoming of many tulips and roses. On the skirt of the Barā-koh is a mosque called the Jauza 1 Aushning fazilatida khaili aḥādis wärid dür. Second W.-i-B. (I.O. 217 f. 2) Fazilat-i-Aush aḥadis wärid ast. Mems. (p. 3) "The excellencies of Ush are celebrated even in the sacred traditions." Méms. (i, 2) "On cite beaucoup de traditions qui célèbrent l'excellence de ce climat." Aush may be mentioned in the traditions on account of places of pilgrimage near it; Bābur's meaning may be merely that its excellencies are traditional. Cf. Ujfalvy ii, 172. 2 Most travellers into Farghāna comment on Bābur's account of it. One much discussed point is the position of the Barā Koh. The personal observations of Ujfalvy and Schuyler led them to accept its identification with the rocky ridge known as the Takht-i-sulaiman. I venture to supplement this by the suggestion that Bābur, by Barā Koh, did not mean the whole of the rocky ridge, the name of which, Takht-i-sulaiman, an ancient name, must have been known to him, but one only of its four marked summits. Writing of the ridge Madame Ujfalvy says, " Il y a quatre sommets dont le plus élevé est le troisième comptant par le nord." Which summit in her sketch (p. 327) is the third and highest is not certain, but one is so shewn that it may be the third, may be the highest and, as being a peak, can be described as symmetrical i.e. Bābur's mauzun. For this peak an appropriate name would be Barā Koh. If the name Barā Koh could be restricted to a single peak of the Takht-i-sulaiman ridge, a good deal of earlier confusion would be cleared away, concerning which have written, amongst others, Ritter (v, 432 and 732); Réclus (vi. 54); Schuyler (ii, 43) and those to whom these three refer. For an excellent account, graphic with pen and pencil, of Farghāna and of Aush see Madame Ujfalvy's De Paris à Samarcande cap. v. 3 rūd. This is a precise word since the Aq Būrā (the White Wolf), in a relatively short distance, falls from the Kürdün Pass, 13,400 ft. to Aush, 3040 ft. and thence to Andijān, 1380 ft. Cf. Kostenko i, 104; Huntingdon in Pumpelly's Explorations in Turkistan p. 179 and the French military map of 1904.
- Whether Bābur's words, bāghāt, bāghlār and baghcha had separate significations, such as orchard, vineyard and ordinary garden i.e. garden-plots of small size, I am not able to say but what appears fairly clear is that when he writes bāghāt u bāghlār he means all sorts of gardens, just as when writes begāt u beglār, he means begs of all ranks.
