Page:Historic Landmarks of the Deccan.djvu/40

 It was certainly during the period of Daulatabad's importance as the new capital of the Indian empire that the works which are its most marvellous feature were undertaken and executed. What these works were, and what labour was expended on them, may best be indicated by a quotation from a later historian, the official chronicler of the reign of Shahjahan, the fifth of the great Mughals. He writes as follows: "This lofty fortress, the ancient names of which were Deogir, and Dharagir, and which is now known as Daulatabad, is a mass of rock which raises its head towards heaven. The rock has been scarped throughout its circumference, which measures 5,000 legal yards, to a depth which ensures the retention of water in the ditch at the foot of the escarpment. The escarpment is so smooth and even that neither an ant nor a snake could scale it. Its height is 140 cubits, and around its base a ditch 40 cubits in width and 30 in depth has been dug in the solid rock. Through the centre of the hill a dark spiral passage, like the ascent of a minar, which it is impossible to traverse, even in daylight, without a lamp, has been cut, and the steps in this passage are cut out of the rock. This passage is closed at the foot of the hill by an iron gate, and after passing through this gate and ascending the passage one enters the citadel. At the head of the passage is a large grating of iron which is shut down in case of necessity, and when a fire is lighted upon it the ascent of the spiral passage becomes impossible owing to the intense heat. The ordinary means of reducing fortresses, such as mines, covered ways, batteries, etc., are useless against this strong fortress."

This accurate description of the works at Daulatabad conveys some idea of the enormous amount of labour expended on them, and from what we know of the methods of Muhammad bin Tughlaq we may assume that exile was not the only, nor perhaps the greatest, hardship which its alien population had to bear. It can have mattered little to them that they dwelt in a city of which the courtly poet laureate sang that the heavens were the anvil of the knocker of its door, that its gates were the eight gates of Paradise, and much more in the same strain of bombastic hyperbole. We know at least that a very large majority of the forced settlers never regarded their new home otherwise than with loathing.