Note 4 — PART I.—DESCRIPTION.

In front of the gateway of the Great Mosque, in the centre of a masonry plinth about three feet high, stands an iron pillar about a foot in diameter at the base and twenty feet high. Close to the east of the gateway is the site of Mehmúd’s (a.d. 1442) Tower of Victory, traces of which remained as late as a.d. 1840. About fifty yards further east are the ruins of a great building called the Ashrafi Mehel, said to have been a Musalmán college. To the north-east a banner marks a temple and the local state offices. South the road passes between the two lines of small houses and huts that make modern Mándu. Beyond the village, among ruins and huge swollen baobab stems, the road winds south along a downward slope to the richly-wooded lowland, where stretches to the west the wide coolness of the Ságar Taláv or Sea lake. Its broad surface covering 600 acres is green with fanlike lotus leaves, reeds, and water-grasses. Its banks are rough with brakes of tangled bush from which, in uncramped stateliness, rise lofty mhauras, mangoes, kirnis, and pípals. To the east round a smaller tank, whose banks are crowned by splendid mangoes and tamarinds, stand the domes of several handsome tombs. Of some Appendix II. The Hill Fort of Mándu. Description. of these domes the black masses are brightened by belts of brilliant pale and deep-blue enamel. To the north of this overflow-pool a long black wall is the back of the smaller Jámá or congregation mosque, badly ruined, but of special interest, as each of its numerous pillars shows the uninjured Hindu Singh-múkh or horned face. By a rough piece of constructive skill the original cross corners of the end cupolas have been worked into vaulted Musalmán domes.4