Note 2199 — SECTION III. HINDŪSTĀN (continued 3)

The word here preceding tūra has puzzled scribes and translators. I have seen the following variants in MSS.;—nūkrī or tūkrī, b:krī or y:krī, būkrī or yūkrī, būkrāī or yūkrāī, in each of which the k may stand for g. Various suggestions might be made as to what the word is, but all involve reading the Persian enclitic ī (forming the adjective) instead of Turkī līk. Two roots, tīg and yūg, afford plausible explanations of the unknown word; appliances suiting the case and able to bear names formed from one or other of these roots are wheeled mantelet, and head-strike (P. sar-kob). That the word is difficult is shewn not only by the variants I have quoted, but by Erskine’s reading naukarī tūra, “to serve the tūras,” a requisite not specified earlier by Bābur, and by de Courteille’s paraphrase, tout ce qui est nécessaire aux touras.