Page:Modern Hyderabad (Deccan).djvu/25

Rh The fort of Daulatabad played a great part in the first conquest of the Deccan by the Mahomedans, who, after taking and re-taking this stronghold of the Hindus, went further south and besieged and took the great Hindu forts at Warangal, Raichur, and Gulbarga.

I found the fort of Warangal a wonderfully well-preserved and picturesque ruin.

Leaving the little railway station, I climbed the moss-covered rampart opposite; and then I had a fine view of the hills that rise abruptly from the plain and look like outposts. The second wall of the fort I found to be in an almost perfect state of preservation, although it dates from the middle of the 13th century. Huge stones, placed one above another, form the Hindu portion of the wall, the Mahomedan additions being composed of much smaller stones, and apparently replacing the portions of the wall destroyed by the invaders.

Warangal is now a small hamlet and peasants live within the walls of the fort; but still the ruins of a Hindu temple, of stone bulls and pillars, may be seen, and on these things are written, in ancient Sanskrit, the