Note 101 — PART I.—DESCRIPTION.

About a.d. 1590 Akbar’s historian, the great Abul Fazl, described Mándu as a large city whose fortress is twenty-four miles (twelve kos) in circuit. He notices that besides in the centre of the hill where stands an eight-storeyed minaret, the city had many monuments of ancient magnificence, among them the tombs of the Khilji Sultáns. And that from the dome which is over the sepulchre of Sultán Mehmúd, the son of Hoshang (this should be the sepulchre of Hoshang built by his successor Sultán Mehmúd) water drops in the height of summer to the astonishment of the ignorant. But, he adds, men of understanding know how to account for the water-drops.101 Abul Fazl further notices that on Mándu Hill is found a species of tamarind whose fruit is as big as the cocoanut, the pulp of Appendix II. The Hill Fort of Mándu. History The Mughals, a.d. 1570–1720. which is very white. This is the African baobab or Adansonia digitata, known in Hindustáni as goramli or white tamarind, whose great fruit is about the size of a cocoanut. Its monster baobabs are still a feature of Mándu. Some among them look old enough to have been yielding fruit 300 years ago. Finally Abul Fazl refers to Mándu as one of twenty-eight towns where Akbar’s copper coins were struck.102 About twenty years later (a.d. 1610) the historian Farishtah103 thus describes the hill. The fort of Mándu is a work of solid masonry deemed to be one of the strongest fortifications in that part of the world. It is built on an insulated mountain thirty-eight miles in circumference.104 The place of a ditch round the fortification is supplied by a natural ravine so deep that it seems impossible to take the fort by regular approaches. Within the fort is abundance of water and forage, but the area is not large enough to grow a sufficient store of grain. The hill cannot be invested. The easiest access is from the north by the Dehli Gate. The south road with an entrance by the Tárápúr Gate is so steep that cavalry can with difficulty be led up. Like Abul Fazl Farishtah notices that, except during the rains, water constantly oozes from between the chinks in the masonry of the dome of Sultán Hoshang’s tomb. He says the natives of India attribute this dropping to universal veneration for Sultán Hoshang, for whose death, they say, the very stones shed tears.