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baffle the vigilance of the garrison, and, at the dead of the night, 

 issuing forth on the side less closely blockaded, fled to a stupendous 

 rock adjoining, named Aornus. To the same rock, as to an impreg- 

 nable bulwark, and the lofty castle erected on its almost insuperable 

 summit, from every surrounding district already had flocked, in in- 

 numerable multitudes, all those brave Indians who yet felt the ardent 

 throb for liberty and independence, and disdained the fetters of a 

 new and sanguinary foe, that had spread desolation through their 

 whole frontier. 



This celebrated rock, according to the nearest calculation of 

 modern geography, is situated about fifty-five German miles north- 

 east from Peishore, and eighty-five from Cabul ; and D'Anville has 

 satisfactorily recognized its ancient name in the Indian appellative of 

 Renas. According to Arrian, the circumference of its base is two 

 hundred furlongs, or nearly twenty-five English miles ; its altitude, 

 where lowest, is eleven : but that description is indefinite, and leaves 

 too much to the operations of imagination. Formed like the Petra 

 Sogdiana, before described, and many others at this day used as 

 places of secure defence by the Indian rajahs, it rose from this 

 broad base, in a direction nearly perpendicular, to its very summit, 

 which was a wide and fertile plain, presenting the appearance of an 

 immense cone, and to that summit there was only one steep, rugged, 

 winding, path, cut out by human toil. The deep and rapid Suvat, 

 a branch of the Indus, foamed at its foot on one side, and together 

 with the steep and craggy banks, which confined the struggling cur- 

 rent, prohibited all attack. On the other side, deep cavities, ar- 

 tificially sunk, like yawning abysses, threatened to ingulph who- 

 soever had the temerity to approach it. Near the top gushed forth 

 a beautiful spring of the purest water, which flowed plentifully down 

 the rock ; its sides were clothed with lofty and dark woods, and as 



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