Note 64 — Feast of the Second New Year.

As I had experienced the excellencies of Kabul, and had eaten most of its fruits, in consequence of important considerations and the distance from the capital, on Sunday, the 4th Jumādā-l-awwal, I gave an order that they should send out the advance camp in the direction of Hindustan. After some days I left the city, and the royal standards proceeded to the meadow of Safīd-sang. Although the grapes were not yet fully ripe, I had often before this eaten Kabul grapes. There are many good sorts of grapes, especially the Ṣāḥibī and Kis͟hmis͟hī. The cherry also is a fruit of pleasant flavour, and one can eat more of it than of other fruits; I have in a day eaten up to 150 of them. The term s͟hāh-ālū means gīlās64 (cherry), which are obtainable in most places of the country, but since gīlās is like gīlās, which is one of the names of the chalpāsa (lizard), my revered father called it s͟hāh-ālū. The zard-ālū paywandī65 is good, and is abundant. There is especially a tree in the S͟hahr-ārā garden, that Mīrzā Muḥammad Ḥakīm, my uncle, planted, and is known as the Mīrzāʾī. The apricots of this tree are quite unlike the apricots of other trees. The peaches also are very delicious and plentiful. They had brought some peaches from Istālif. I had them weighed in my presence, and they came exactly in weight to 25 rupees, which is 68 current mis̤qāl. Notwithstanding the sweetness of the Kabul fruits, not one of them has, to my taste, the flavour of the mango. The parganah of Mahāban was given as jagir to Mahābat K͟hān. ʿAbdu-r-Raḥīm, paymaster of the Ahadis, was promoted to the rank of 700 personal and 200 horse. Mubārak K͟hān Sarwānī was appointed to the faujdārship of the sarkar of Ḥiṣār. I ordered that Mīrzā Farīdūn Barlās should have a jagir in the Subah of Allahabad. On the 14th of the aforesaid month I gave Irādat K͟hān, brother of Āṣaf K͟hān, the rank of 1,000 personal and 500 horse, and presenting him with a special robe of honour and a horse, bestowed on him the paymastership of the Subah of Patna and Ḥājīpūr. As he was my qūrbegī, I sent by his hand a jewelled sword for my son (farzand) Islām K͟hān, the governor of the aforesaid Subah. As we were going along I saw near ʿAlī Masjid and G͟harīb-k͟hāna a large spider of the size of a crab that had seized by the throat a snake of one and a half gaz in length and half strangled it. I delayed a minute to look on at this, and after a moment it died (the snake).