enclosed it on every side, to have been ten miles long and two miles broad. These banks were sufficiently capable of guarding it from floods during the rising of the Ganges, when the rest of the country was inundated, as well as defending the place from an enemy, as there are mounds of earth from thirty to forty feet in height, and from one to two hundred feet broad at the base, the removal of the earth forming deep broad ditches on the outside of the banks. Some of these embankments were defended by brickwork. On the outside, the city has two embankments two hundred feet wide, running parallel to each other, at five hundred and eighty feet asunder, probably for greater security against a large lake to the eastward, which in strong weather drives with great violence against it during the season of the inundations. The principal passes through these banks to the city had gateways, two of which, one at the south end, and the other at the north end, are still standing, and the remains of others that have been destroyed are visible. The suburbs extended (there being sufficient vestiges of them to be traced) at least to a distance of four miles from each of those gates. Two grand roads led through the whole length of the city, raised with earth and paved with bricks, terminating with the gate at the south end. Where drains and canals intersected the roads, are the remains of bridges built over them.
"The buildings and mosques must have been very numerous; the rubbish and stones of which still left, point out the places where they stood. The two called golden mosques, and the Nuttee Musjeed, are doubtless the best buildings of that kind.
"In the midst of the city stood a fort, nearly square, and extending about a mile on every side, which had a bank or rampart forty feet high: there is a wall now remaining nearly a quarter of a mile in extent, and in some places between seventy and eighty feet in height, which surrounds a space many feet long and wide, parted into three divisions, and is supposed to have surrounded the king's palace. The gates leading to the fort, and another to Shah Husain's tomb are partly left, but covered with trees, and as full of bats and reptiles as the ditches are of alligators.
