Just as `Arabs call every place outside `Arab (Arabia), `Ajam, so Hindūstānīs call every place outside Hindūstān, Khurāsān. There are two trade-marts on the land-route between Hindūstān and Khurāsān; one is Kābul, the other, Qandahār. To Kābul caravans come from Kāshghar,[735] Farghāna,Turkistān, Samarkand, Bukhārā, Balkh, Ḥiṣār and Badakhshān. To Qandahār they come from Khurāsān. Kābul is an excellent trading-centre; if merchants went to Khīta or to Rūm,[736] they might make no higher profit. Down to Kābul every year come 7, 8, or 10,000 horses and up to it, from Hindūstān, come every year caravans of 10, 15 or 20,000 heads-of-houses, bringing slaves (_barda_), white cloth, sugar-candy, refined and common sugars, and aromatic roots. Many a trader is not content with a profit of 30 or 40 on 10.[737] In Kābul can be had the products of Khurāsān, Rūm, `Irāq and Chīn (China); while it is Hindūstān's own market. (_c. Products and climate of Kābul._) In the country of Kābul, there are hot and cold districts close to one another. In one day, a man may go out of the town of Kābul to where snow never falls, or he may go, in two sidereal [Sidenote: Fol. 129b.] hours, to where it never thaws, unless when the heats are such that it cannot possibly lie. Fruits of hot and cold climates are to be had in the districts near the town. Amongst those of the cold climate, there are had in the town the grape, pomegranate, apricot, apple, quince, pear, peach, plum, _sinjid_, almond and walnut.[738] I had cuttings of the _ālū-bālū_[739] brought there and planted; they grew and have done well. Of fruits of the hot climate people bring into the town;—from the Lamghānāt, the orange, citron, _amlūk_ (_diospyrus lotus_), and sugar-cane; this last I had had brought and planted there;[740]—from Nijr-au (Nijr-water), they bring the _jīl-ghūza,[741] and, from the hill-tracts, much honey. Bee-hives are in use; it_ is only from towards Ghaznī, that no honey comes. The rhubarb[742] of the Kābul district is good, its quinces and plums very good, so too its _badrang_;[743] it grows an excellent grape, known as the water-grape.[744] Kābul wines are heady, those of the Khwāja Khāwand Sa`īd hill-skirt being famous for their strength; at this time however I can only repeat the praise of others about them:—[745] The flavour of the wine a drinker knows; What chance have sober men to know it? Kābul is not fertile in grain, a four or five-fold return is reckoned good there; nor are its melons first-rate, but they are not altogether bad when grown from Khurāsān seed. It has a very pleasant climate; if the world has another so pleasant, it is not known. Even in the heats, one cannot sleep at night without a fur-coat.[746] Although the snow in most places lies deep in winter, the cold is not excessive; whereas in [Sidenote: Fol. 130.] Samarkand and Tabrīz, both, like Kābul, noted for their pleasant climate, the cold is extreme. (_d. Meadows of Kābul._)