OF THE CITY OF BALC.
Balc is a noble city and a great, though it was much greater in former
days. But the Tartars and other nations have greatly ravaged and
destroyed it. There were formerly many fine palaces and buildings of
marble, and the ruins of them still remain. The people of the city tell
that it was here that Alexander took to wife the daughter of Darius.
Here, you should be told, is the end of the empire of the Tartar
Lord of the Levant. And this city is also the limit of Persia in the
direction between east and north-east.{1}
Now, let us quit this city, and I will tell you of another country
called DOGANA.{2}
When you have quitted the city of which I have been speaking, you ride
some 12 days between north-east and east, without finding any human
habitation, for the people have all taken refuge in fastnesses among
the mountains, on account of the Banditti and armies that harassed
them. There is plenty of water on the road, and abundance of game;
there are lions too. You can get no provisions on the road, and must
carry with you all that you require for these 12 days.{3}
NOTE 1.—BALKH, “the mother of cities,” suffered mercilessly from
Chinghiz. Though the city had yielded without resistance, the whole
population was marched by companies into the plain, on the usual
Mongol pretext of counting them, and then brutally massacred. The
city and its gardens were fired, and all buildings capable of
defence were levelled. The province long continued to be harried
by the Chaghataian inroads. Ibn Batuta, sixty years after Marco’s
visit, describes the city as still in ruins, and as uninhabited:
“The remains of its mosques and colleges,” he says, “are still
to be seen, and the painted walls traced with azure.” It is no
doubt the Vaeq (_Valq_) of Clavijo, “very large, and surrounded by
a broad earthen wall, thirty paces across, but breached in many
parts.” He describes a large portion of the area within as sown
with cotton. The account of its modern state in Burnes and Ferrier
is much the same as Ibn Batuta’s, except that they found some
population; two separate towns within the walls according to the
latter. Burnes estimates the circuit of the ruins at 20 miles. The
bulk of the population has been moved since 1858 to Takhtapul, 8
miles east of Balkh, where the Afghan Government is placed.
(_Erdmann_, 404–405; _I. B._ III. 59; _Clavijo_, p. 117; _Burnes_,
II. 204–206; _Ferrier_, 206–207.)
According to the legendary history of Alexander, the beautiful
Roxana was the daughter of Darius, and her father in a dying
interview with Alexander requested the latter to make her his wife:—
“Une fille ai mult bele; se prendre le voles.
Vus en seres de l’mont tout li mius maries,” etc.
(_Lambert Le Court_, p. 256.)
NOTE 2.—The country called _Dogana_ in the G. Text is a puzzle. In
the former edition I suggested _Juzgána_, a name which till our
author’s time was applied to a part of the adjoining territory,
though not to that traversed in quitting Balkh for the east. Sir H.
Rawlinson is inclined to refer the name to _Dehgán_, or “villager,”
a term applied in Bactria, and in Kabul, to Tajik peasantry[1]. I
may also refer to certain passages in Baber’s “Memoirs,” in which
he speaks of a place, and apparently a district, called _Dehánah_,
which seems from the context to have lain in the vicinity of the
Ghori, or Aksarai River. There is still a village in the Ghori
territory, called _Dehánah_. Though this is worth mentioning, where
the true solution is so uncertain, I acknowledge the difficulty of
applying it. I may add also that Baber calls the River of Ghori
or Aksarai, the _Dogh_-ábah. (_Sprenger, P. und R. Routen_, p. 39
and Map; _Anderson_ in _J. A. S. B._ XXII. 161; _Ilch._ II. 93;
_Baber_, pp. 132, 134, 168, 200, also 146.)
NOTE 3.—Though Burnes speaks of the part of the road that we
suppose necessarily to have been here followed from Balkh towards
Taican, as barren and dreary, he adds that the ruins of _aqueducts_
and houses proved that the land had at one time been peopled,
though now destitute of water, and consequently of inhabitants. The
country would seem to have reverted at the time of Burnes’ journey,
from like causes, nearly to the state in which Marco found it after
the Mongol devastations.
_Lions_ seem to mean here the real king of beasts, and not tigers,
as hereafter in the book. Tigers, though found on the S. and W.
shores of the Caspian, do not seem to exist in the Oxus valley.
On the other hand, Rashiduddin tells us that, when Hulaku was
reviewing his army after the passage of the river, several lions
were started, and two were killed. The lions are also mentioned by
Sidi ’Ali, the Turkish Admiral, further down the valley towards
Hazárasp: “We were obliged to fight with the lions day and night,
and no man dared to go alone for water.” Moorcroft says of the
plain between Kunduz and the Oxus: “Deer, foxes, wolves, hogs, and
_lions_ are numerous, the latter resembling those in the vicinity
of Hariana” (in Upper India). Wood also mentions lions in Kuláb,
and at Kila’chap on the Oxus. Q. Curtius tells how Alexander killed
a great lion in the country north of the Oxus towards Samarkand. [A
similar story is told of Timur in _The Mulfuzat Timūry_, translated
by Major Charles Stewart, 1830 (p. 69): “During the march ‘(near
Balkh)’ two lions made their appearance, one of them a male, the
other a female. I (Timur) resolved to kill them myself, and having
shot them both with arrows, I considered this circumstance as a
lucky omen.”—H. C.] (_Burnes_, II. 200; _Q. R._ 155; _Ilch._ I.
90; _J. As._ IX. 217; _Moorcroft_, II. 430; _Wood_, ed. 1872, pp.
259,260; _Q. C._ VII. 2.)
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[1] It may be observed that the careful Elphinstone distinguishes from
this general application of Dehgán or Dehkán, the name _Deggán_
applied to a tribe “once spread over the north-east of Afghanistan,
but now as a separate people only in Kunar and Laghman.”