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 Juzgana, 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 Dehgan, 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 Dehanah, 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 Dehanah. 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-abah. (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 Hazarasp: "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:
