Twilight of the Sultanate c17.s9.14

c17.s9.14

He was again stating a fact when he declared that in India there were no good horses, for we know that good-breed horses were imported from abroad, both in the south and in the north. Muskmelon (*Sardā*) which Bābur loved so much was then not grown in India. The *Hamām* and little canals with running water, the Mughal rulers themselves introduced in this country. True, his account of the people of India is a little biassed, not because he was by conviction uncharitable towards the Indian people, but perhaps because, firstly, his stay in Hindustan was much too short to enable him to acquaint himself fully and accurately with the customs, manners, ideas and habits of the people, and secondly, everything struck him strange in "a different world". But he was certainly interested in everything he noticed in this country. He gives a detailed and minute account of the flora and fauna of Hindustan, of its mountains and rivers, of its various kinds of vegetables and fruits.¹⁸⁴