26 



Editor— Etitna tmd Antiquities of Rdnqnil. 



[Ko. 1, 



Ballal Sen seems to have been an entrenched fortress of which only 

 the trench and some ruins now remain as a memorial. Not far from 

 this I found the tomb of A'dam Shahid or Baba A'dam and the mosque 

 [No. IV]. This edifice is also in ruins, but presents an interesting 

 view to the aicharologist or antiquary. The structure is of the some 

 style as that of the mosque at Rikabibazar [No. I], but more exquisite 

 and ornamental. The cement is of the same nature, the bricks polished 

 and carved. The roof consists of six domes supported by two stone 

 pillars in the middle of the hall. One of the domes does not exist, and 

 another has partly fallen down. The pillars are monoliths of a whitish 

 stone, which always " perspire," and lead ignorant people to associate 

 superstitious ideas with them, as they see water flow down on their 

 surface, and feel them very cold. I saw marks of red pigment on the 

 pillars, which I heard were put there by Hindu women, (and I believe by 

 Musalman women too, though the Khadirn denied this) on making 

 vows for the attainment of some object. The stone bearing the inscrip- 

 tion is placed very high, so that it could not be distinctly read. I dis- 

 covered, however, that the copy I have sent to you was only of one line, 

 there being another line above it of which no impression was sent to me. 

 As it was already very late in the afternoon and I could not wait for a 

 scaffolding being put up, I could not obtain an impression. The inscrip- 

 tion published by Blochmann is, 1 believe, of this mosque, and he was not 

 very wrong in giving the name of the place as Qazi Qasbah ; for Qdzi 

 Qasbah extends over a large area, and the place where this mosque stands 

 is also included within it. This fact decides the dispute as to tho name 

 of the place being given by Blochmann as Qazi Qasbah and by Babii 

 Asutosh Gupta as Rampal. It may be called by four different names, 

 viz., Qazi Qasbah, Rampal, Ballalbari and Durgabari. The inscription 

 is quite legible, no letters have been destroyed or mutilated, the stone 

 being jet blaok and well polished, not liable to corrosion. The Khadims 

 showed me twelve places in the interior of the mosque, where, they said, 

 lay twelve stones of great value which were removed by Mags during an in- 

 cursion into Bengal in remote ages. These stones, they said, shone in the 

 darkness of the night and illuminated the hall ! Some things have been 

 dug out of the walls, no doubt, but whether they were stones of great 

 value which shone in darkness I cannot vouch. This mosque at any 

 rate is an object of interest to the antiquarian," 



Prom another letter of his, I may quote the following passages >. 



" The mosque at Qazi Qasbah [No. Ill] is not known as the mosque 

 of Baba Adam or A'dam Shahid. It is oalled Qazi Bai-i mosque. Ballal- 

 bari is situated near the mosque [No. II] of Adam Shahid and not near 

 Qazi Qasbah ; and Ballal Ban and Rampal are only two names of the 



