CHAPTER XXVII.

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.)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

[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.”