Note 43 — Feast of the Second New Year.

First of all I walked round the S͟hahr-ārā (city-adorning), then the Mahtāb (moonlight) garden, then the garden that Bīka Begam, grandmother of my father, had made, then passed through the Ūrta-bāg͟h (middle garden), then a garden that Maryam-makānī, my own grandmother, had prepared, then the Ṣūrat-k͟hāna garden, which has a large chanār-tree, the like of which there is not in the other gardens of Kabul. Then, having seen the Chārbāg͟h, which is the largest of the city gardens, I returned to my own abode. There were abundance of cherries on the trees, each of which looked as it were a round ruby, hanging like globes on the branches. The S͟hahr-ārā garden was made by S͟hahr-bānū43 Begam, daughter of Mīrzā Abū Saʿīd, who was own aunt to the late king Bābar. From time to time it has been added to, and there is not a garden like it for sweetness in Kabul. It has all sorts of fruits and grapes, and its softness is such that to put one’s sandalled44 feet on it would be far from propriety or good manners. In the neighbourhood of this garden an excellent plot of land came to view, which I ordered to be bought from the owners. I ordered a stream that flows from the guẕargāh (ferry, also bleaching green) to be diverted into the middle of the ground so that a garden might be made such that in beauty and sweetness there should not be in the inhabited world another like it. I gave it the name of Jahān-ārā (world-adorning). Whilst I was at Kabul I had several entertainments in the S͟hahr-ārā garden, sometimes with my intimates and courtiers and sometimes with the ladies of the harem. At nights I ordered the learned and the students of Kabul to hold the cooking entertainment,45 bug͟hra, and the throwing of bug͟hra, together with arg͟hus͟htak dances.