Note 84 — The Thirteenth New Year’s Feast

On this day Ḥakīm Rūḥu-llah was exalted with the gift of Rs. 1,000. Badīʿu-z-zamān, s. M. S͟hāhruk͟h, came from his jagir and waited on me. On Tuesday, the 26th, marching from the Kānkrīya tank, I halted at the village of Kaj.84 On Wednesday, the 27th, I pitched my camp on the bank of the river at Maḥmūdābād called the Īzak85 (now called Meshva). As the water and air of Aḥmadābād were very bad, Maḥmūd Bīgara, by the advice of his physicians, founded a city on the bank of the aforesaid river and lived there. After he conquered Chāmpāner, he made that place his capital, and until the time of Maḥmūd the martyred86 the rulers of Gujarat chiefly lived there. This Maḥmūd was the last of the Sultans of Gujarat, and he took up his residence at Maḥmūdābād. Undoubtedly the water and air of Maḥmūdābād have no resemblance to those of Aḥmadābād. By way of testing this I ordered them to hang up a sheep on the bank of the Kānkrīya tank after taking off its skin, and at the same time one at Maḥmūdābād, that the difference of the air might be ascertained. It happened that after seven gharīs of day had passed in that place (Aḥmadābād) they hung up the sheep. When three gharīs of day remained it became so changed and putrid that it was difficult to pass near it. They hung up the sheep at Maḥmūdābād in the morning, and it was altogether unchanged until the evening, and began to be putrid when one and a half watches of night had passed. Briefly, in the neighbourhood of Aḥmadābād it became putrid in eight sidereal hours, and in Maḥmūdābād in fourteen hours.