The Memoirs of Bābur 910.4.3

910.4.3

The Hindū-kush mountains, which separate Kābul from Balkh, Qūndūz and Badakhshān, are crossed by seven roads.[749] Three of these lead out of Panjhīr (Panj-sher), _viz._ Khawāk, the uppermost, T̤ūl, the next lower, and Bāzārak.[750] Of the passes on them, the one on the T̤ūl road is the best, but the road itself is rather [Sidenote: Fol. 130b.] the longest whence, seemingly, it is called T̤ūl. Bāzārak is the most direct; like T̤ūl, it leads over into Sar-i-āb; as it passes through Pārandī, local people call its main pass, the Pārandī. Another road leads up through Parwān; it has seven minor passes, known as Haft-bacha (Seven-younglings), between Parwān and its main pass (Bāj-gāh). It is joined at its main pass by two roads from Andar-āb, which go on to Parwān by it. This is a road full of difficulties. Out of Ghūr-bund, again, three roads lead over. The one next to Parwān, known as the Yāngī-yūl pass (New-road), goes through Wālīān to Khinjan; next above this is the Qīpchāq road, crossing to where the water of Andar-āb meets the Sūrkh-āb (Qīzīl-sū); this also is an excellent road; and the third leads over the Shibr-tū pass;[751] those crossing by this in the heats take their way by Bāmīān and Saighān, but those crossing by it in winter, go on by Āb-dara (Water-valley).[752] Shibr-tū excepted, all the Hindū-kush roads are closed for three or four months in winter,[753] because no road through a valley-bottom is passable when the waters are high.