تحفة النظار في غرايب الامصار وعجايب الاسفار 13.37.1

13.37.1

The vizier had given me ten thousand maunds of the grain ordered for the zāwiya, and assigned me the rest on Hazār Amrūhā. The revenue governor there was ʿAzīz al-Khammār, and its amīr was Shams al-Dīn al-Badhakhshānī. I sent my men and they collected part of the assignment, and complained of ʿAzīz al-Khammār's high-handedness, so I went out myself to recover it. Between Dihlī and this district is three days. It was the season of the rains, and I set out with about thirty of my companions, taking with me two brothers, skilled singers, who sang for me on the road. We reached the town of Bijnūr—its name is spelled with i after the b, no vowel on the j, a after the n, and ending in r—and there I also found three brothers who were singers and took them along, so they would sing for me in one turn and the other two in another! Then we reached Amrūhā, a small, pleasant town. Its officials came out to meet me, and its qāḍī, the sharīf Amīr ʿAlī, and the shaykh of its zāwiya came, and together they entertained me handsomely. ʿAzīz al-Khammār was at a place called Afghānpūr on the river Sarw, with the river between us and him and no ferry on it. We took the baggage across on a ferry we made of wood and plants and crossed on the second day. Najīb, ʿAzīz's brother, came with a group of his companions and pitched an enclosure-tent for us; then his brother the governor came to me. He was known for oppression. The villages in his district numbered one thousand five hundred, and their revenue was sixty lakhs a year, of which he received one-twentieth. Among the marvels of the river on which we camped is that no one drinks from it during the rainy season