16 ON SOME EARLY GARDEN HISTORY 



Persian and Turki poets, or by chanting rhymes 



of their own devising, such as Babar's first 



ghazel (ode), which, he tells us, he composed 



under the chenars of the garden of Burak : — 



" I have found no faithful friend in the world but my soul, 

 Except my own heart I have no trusty confidant." 



The Emperor Babar laid out and improved 

 many of the gardens round Kabul, some of which 

 he describes at length in his Memoirs — ^the Bagh-i- 

 Vafa (the Garden of Fidelity) being mentioned by 

 him more than once. " Opposite to the fort of 

 Adinahpur, to the south, on rising ground, I formed 

 a char-bagh in the year 1508. It is called Bagh-i- 

 Vafa. It overlooks the river, which flows between 

 the fort and the palace. In the year in which 

 I defeated Behar Khan and conquered Lahore 

 and Dibalpur, I brought plantains and planted 

 them here. They grew and thrived. The year 

 before I had also planted sugar-cane in it, which 

 throve remarkably well. I sent some of them 

 to Badakhshan and Bokhara. It is on an 

 elevated site, and enjoys running water, and the 

 climate in the winter season is temperate. In 

 the garden there is a small hillock, from which 

 a stream of water, sufficient to drive a miU, 

 incessantly flows into the garden below. The 



