18 70.] Notes on Old Delhi. 85 



gate of this city. On both sides of this southern gate, are protect- 

 ing towers and a little of the wall, both the gate and the walls 

 being to all appearance those of an important city from the size 

 and appearance, and yet their direction is such as to make it in- 

 conceivable, especially as Purana Qil'ah was then standing, that 

 they could have been part of an enceinte including Humayun's 

 tomb ; this argument rests on the narrowness of the space between 

 the gate and the old course of the river compared with the distance 

 southerly to Humayun's tomb, and also on the fact that the wall 

 to the east of the gate turns northward and not southward. If too 

 I be right in identifying the masses of masonry between the north 

 gate of Purana Qil'ah and the road as being a part of the wall of 

 Dihli Sher Shah, the argument is considerably strengthened, as 

 then the wall would be found running more than half a mile north 

 of the mausoleum. I think too the authorities quoted by General 

 Cunningham at p. lxxix of his paper maybe interpreted consistently 

 with the view I am taking. Finch's statement of ( two kos' was 

 undoubtedly his own approximation, or else the popular distance, 

 and I think if allowance be made for the windings of the streets, 

 for there seems no reason, from the nature of the ground, for 

 believing that the two gates which chance to remain were connected 

 by a straight road, the distance between them might be set down 

 roughly at two kos, though undoubtedly somewhat less. Again 

 it seems a somewhat arbitrary assumption, that the gate near the 

 jail was the chief north gate : there can be no doubt that many of 

 the gates must have perished, and this particular one is by no means 

 on so grand a scale as the one opposite Purana Qil'ah. The bridge 

 might well be said to be only a short distance from Dihli, even if 

 the walls stopped at Purana Qil'ah, as the suburbs would beyond 

 question extend some way beyond the wall along so important a 

 road as the Mat'hura one must then have been ; and this considera- 

 tion seems to meet Purchas' statement that Humayun's tomb was 

 in the city. At any rate before the southern limits be fixed below 

 Humayun's tomb on the authority of this writer, for the quotations 

 from Finch seem quite inconclusive till we know where his 

 north gate stood, it seems to me essential that some satisfactory 

 account should be given of the great gate opposite Purana Qil'ah 



