A CAVE NEAR GYA. S77 



of Gyd, and feems to be one of the fouth-eaftern hills of 

 the chain of mountains called by Rennel, Caram/hah 9 

 both being a fhort diftance to the weft of the PJiulgo* 



It is now diftinguifhed by the name of Ndgurjenee • 

 but this may perhaps be a modern appellation, no men- 

 tion of it being made in the infcription. Its texture is 

 a kind of granite, called by the Mohammedan natives, 

 Sung Khdreh, which compofes the whole rock, of a mo- 

 derate height, very craggy and uneven, and fteep in its 

 afcent. 



The cave is fituated on the fouthern declivity, about 

 two thirds from the fummit : a tree immediately before 

 it prevents its being feen from the bottom. It has only 

 one narrow entrance, from the fouth, two feet and a 

 half in breadth, fix feet high, and of thicknefs exa6tly 

 equal. This leads to a room of an oval form, with a 

 vaulted roof, which I meafured twice, and found to be 

 forty-four feet in length from eaft to weft, eighteen feet 

 and a half in breadth, and ten feet and a quarter in 

 height at the centre. This immenfe cavity is dug en- 

 tirely out of the folid rock, and is exceedingly well 

 polifhed, but without any ornament. The fame ftone 

 extends much farther than the excavated part, on each 

 fide of it, and is altogether, I imagine, full an hundred 

 feet in length. The inhabitants near know nothing of 

 its hiftory, or age; but I learnt from a chief of the neigh- 

 bouring village, that a tradition is extant, of a Mohum- 

 medan^ named Minkdj-u-deen, having performed his 

 cheeleh, or forty days devotion, in this cavern ; and 

 that he was cotemporary with Mukhdoom Sherf-u-deen^ 

 a venerated zuelee, who died in Behdr in the 590th year 

 of the Hijree ; and he even went fo far as to aver, that 

 he himfelf was defcended from Minhdj-u-dcen, and had 

 records at Patna of his family's genealogy to the pre- 

 fent time. What credit is due to this I will not pre- 

 tend to fay; but the room is certainly now frequented 



by 



