52 
LIVES OF THE MOGHUL EMPERORS. 
side. The walls are exceedingly thick, and the 
building so low, that the wind, which blows with 
terrific violence in these altitudes, meets not with 
sufficient resistance to expose them to damage. Mr. 
Davis, in his manuscript account of Boutan, in posses- 
sion of the Asiatic Society, says of a fortress of that 
country — 
" Panaka is one of the most ancient and most con- 
siderable of the rajah’s castles. The general form of 
all these buildings is alike ; consisting of two courts 
or divisions, — the first surrounded with two or three 
stories of verandaed apartments, for the servants of 
government and fighting men ; the other appropriated 
to the use of the priests, for their habitations, chapels, 
altars, &c. ; — and in the centre always rises a more 
lofty fabric for the rajah’s particular use, crowned with 
a gilt turret, said to be his sleeping-room. This is 
also intended for the same purpose as the keep to 
old English castles, and might hold out for a time 
after the rest of the fortress should be lost. The walls 
are of great height, and the whole pile has a noble 
and majestic appearance. The outer court is filled 
with earth, and raised twenty or thirty feet above the 
level of the ground without. The rooms beneath this 
may serve as storehouses, as they have loopholes but 
no windows. It would be impossible to take such a 
place by assault, and not easy to break the walls by 
any artillery that could he conveyed through this 
country. The best way of forcing admission might 
be by breaking open the gate with a petard. To effect 
this would be an enterprise neither difficult nor dan- 
gerous; the entrance to this, as to all other castles 
