The Memoirs of Bābur 910.6.2

910.6.2

136b.] two which Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā used to call his Khurāsān and Samarkand. Pamghān is another of the best, not ranking in fruit and grapes with those two others, but beyond comparison with them in climate. The Pamghān mountains are a snowy range. Few villages match Istālīf, with vineyards and fine orchards on both sides of its great torrent, with waters needing no ice, cold and, mostly, pure. Of its Great garden Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā had taken forcible possession; I took it over, after paying its price to the owners. There is a pleasant halting-place outside it, under great planes, green, shady and beautiful. A one-mill stream, having trees on both banks, flows constantly through the middle of the garden; formerly its course was zig-zag and irregular; I had it made straight and orderly; so the place became very beautiful. Between the village and the valley-bottom, from 4 to 6 miles down the slope, is a spring, known as Khwāja Sih-yārān (Three-friends), round which three sorts of tree grow. A group of planes gives pleasant shade above it; holm-oak [Sidenote: Fol. 137.] (_quercus bīlūt_) grows in masses on the slope at its sides,—these two oaklands (_bīlūtistān_) excepted, no holm-oak grows in the mountains of western Kābul,—and the Judas-tree (_arghwān_)[817] is much cultivated in front of it, that is towards the level ground,—cultivated there and nowhere else. People say the three different sorts of tree were a gift made by three saints,[818] whence its name.