In the same season the migration of the fish takes place in the river Bārān; they first of all take great quantities of them by the net, and by erecting gratings.* In the autumn season, when the plant named kūlān kūirūghi (or wild-ass-tail) has come out, reached maturity, flowered and seeded, they take ten or twelve loads of it, and twenty or thirty loads of the plant named gūk-shibāk, and having brought them to the banks of the river, shred them down and throw them into the stream; the instant that the plants touch the water the fishes become intoxicated, and they begin to catch them. Farther down the river they construct gratings, in a convenient place, in the following manner: They take twigs of the tāl* tree, of the thickness of one’s finger, and weave them into open gratings, latticewise; this lattice-work they place under a water-fall where there is a hollow, and lay heaps of stones all around it, so that the water rushes through the wicker-work with a loud noise, and runs off below, while the fish that come down the stream are borne along and retained by the wicker-work above; and thus the fishes that have been intoxicated, while they come in numbers floating down the current, are taken within these gratings. They catch great quantities of fish in this manner, in the rivers of Gulbehār, Purwān, and Istālīf.*
There is another singular way in which they catch fish in Lamghānāt during the winter. In places where the water falls from a height, they dig out hollow pits of about the size of a house, and laying them with stones in the form of the lower part of a cooking furnace, they heap on stones above the pits, leaving only one passage for the water to descend; and they pile the stones up in such a manner, that, except by this single passage, there is no other for any fish either to come or go. The water of the stream finds its way through these stones that have been heaped on, so that this contrivance answers the purpose of a fish pool. In winter, whenever fish are required, they open one of these pits, and take out forty or fifty fishes at a time. In some convenient place of the pit an opening is formed, and excepting at that outlet, all the sides of it are secured with rice straw, over which stones are piled up. At the opening they fasten a kind of wicker-work like a net, the two extremities of which are contracted and brought near each other. In the middle of this first wicker-net they fix another piece of wicker net-work, in such a way that the mouth of this last may correspond with that of the other, but its whole length be only about half of that of the one first mentioned. They make the mouth of this inner net-work very narrow. Whatever enters it must pass into the larger wicker-net, the lower part of which is so constructed that no fish can escape back. The lower part of the mouth of the inner wicker-net is so formed that, when fish have once entered the upper part, they must proceed one by one down to the lower part of its mouth. The sharpened sticks forming the lower part of the mouth are brought close together. Whatever passes this mouth comes into the larger wicker-net, the lower passage of which is strongly secured, so that the fish cannot escape; and should it turn and attempt to swim back, it cannot get up, in consequence of the sharpened prongs that form the lower mouth of the small inner wicker-net. Every time that they bring these nets, they fasten them in the water-course of the fish-pool, and then take off the covering of the fish-pool, leaving all its sides secured by the rice-straw. Whatever they can lay hold of in the hollow pit they seize, while every fish that attempts to escape by the only issue left necessarily comes into the wicker-net that has been mentioned, and is taken there. This mode of catching fish I never saw practised elsewhere.
Mukīm Some days after the taking of Kābul, Mukīm requested
permission to proceed to Kandahār; and, as had been
settled by the capitulation, I dismissed him safe and sound,
with all his baggage, effects, and followers, to join his
Bābur di-
vides the
country
among his
followers.
father and elder brother. After his departure I partitioned
out the country of Kābul among those Begs only who had
lately taken service with me.*
Ghazni and its dependencies
I gave to Jehāngīr Mirza; the Tumān of Nangenhār,
Mandrāwar, the Dareh-Nūr, the Dareh-Kuner, Nūrgil,
and Cheghānserāi, I gave to Nāsir Mirza. Those Begs
and young officers who had followed me in my expeditions
and dangers, I rewarded; giving to one of them a village,
to another an estate in land, but to none of them did I give
the government of a district. Nor was this the sole occasion
in which I acted in this manner; but uniformly, whenever
the Most High God prospered my undertakings, I always
regarded and provided for those Begs and soldiers who
were strangers and guests, in the first place, and in a
superior manner to the Bāburians,*
and those who were
of Andejān. In spite of this, it has been a great misfortune
to me*
that I have always been charged with favouring
none but my own Bāburians and the Andejānians. There
is a proverb,
Levies a
(Tūrki)— What is it enemies will not say?
What is it dreams will not display?(Persian)— The gates of a city you may shut;
You cannot shut the mouth of an enemy.
As many Īls and Ulūses had come to me from Hissār, Samarkand, and Kunduz, it appeared advisable, as Kābul was a confined country, and to be governed by the sword, not the pen, and incapable of supplying a contribution in money sufficient for all my people, that a levy of corn should be made and given to the wives, families, and followers of the Īls and Ulūses, to enable them to proceed with us in our wars and expeditions. It was therefore determined to raise thirty thousand loads of grain,* from Kābul, Ghazni, and their dependencies. As I was at that time very imperfectly acquainted with the revenues and resources of Kābul, the amount was excessive, and the country suffered extremely.
It was at this time that I invented a kind of writing called the Bāburi hand.
ForayI had imposed a large contribution of horses and sheep on the Sultan Masaūdi Hazāras, and sent collectors to receive it. In a few days I heard from them that the Hazāras* refused to pay, and were in a state of rebellion. Several times before, they had been guilty of depredations on the roads of Ghazni and Gerdēz.* On these accounts I took the field for the purpose of falling on them by surprise; and having advanced by way of Meidān, we cleared the pass of Nirkh* by night, and, by the time of morning prayers, fell upon the Hazāras in the territory of Chātū, and beat them to our heart’s content. Returning thence by way of Sang-e-surākh, Jehāngīr Mirza took leave to go to Ghazni, while I returned to Kābul. When I reached Kābul, Yār Hussain, the son of Daryā Khan, came from Behreh* to offer me his services.
A few days afterwards, having mustered my army, and
Bābur re-
solves on an
irruption
into Hin-
dustān.
assembled the persons best acquainted with the situation
of the country, I made particular inquiries regarding the
state and condition of the different districts on every hand.
Some advised that we should march against Dasht;*
January
1505.
others preferred Bangash; while others proposed to
advance against Hindustān. It was at last determined in
council to make an irruption into Hindustān.
In the month of Shābān, when the sun was in Aquarius, I set out from Kābul towards Hindustān; and proceeding by way of Badām-chashmeh and Jagdālīk,* in six marches reached Adīnapūr. I had never before seen the garmsīl (or countries of warm temperature), nor the country of Hindustān. Immediately on reaching them,* I beheld a new world. The grass was different, the trees different, the wild animals of a different sort, the birds of a different plumage, the manners and customs of the Īls and Ulūses (the wandering tribes) of a different kind.* I was struck with astonishment, and indeed there was room for wonder.