233 
18G1.] A few notes on antiquities near Jubbulpoor. 
stone, very many exhibiting the remains of architectural sculpture. 
Near the base of each of these mounds is the pit of a large and 
deep baolee, the stones of which have been removed. 
Between Karanbel and the village of Tewar is a fine ancient well 
30 feet in diameter, built with squared and radiated blocks of sand- 
stone, without mortar, and with layers at intervals of micaceous 
schist as noted above. Near this well are the remains of several 
buildings, perhaps topes, from which stones have been removed. On 
one block about 4 feet long I found the sculpture represented in fig. 2, 
presenting a modification of the grinning head which is found in so 
many ancient buildings of India, Burma and Java. 
These remains, .and the great mound in particular, are said by the 
people to have been used as quarries for the neighbourhood, includ- 
ing J ubbulpoor, for ages. 
A Mussulman fakir whom I met at Muddun Mahal* told me some 
rather pointless legends about the Ranee Dhurgowtee to whom he 
ascribed both that edifice and Karanbel. "1 
The latter he said was a very lofty building at the top of 
which there was kept burning through the night a great caldron full 
of binowla (cotton seed) steeped in oil, so as to lighten all the country 
round. This and other indications of arrogance on the part of Queen 
Dhurgowtee involved her in war with the “ Badshah and a trai- 
* A curious old Hindoo pavilion, built on the summit of two enormous 
granite boulders at the top of the hills over the ancient city of Gurha near Jub- 
bulpoor. J u 
t “In the time of Akbar— the celebrated Dhurgoutee, the queen of Gurha 
Mundula, whose reign extended over the Saugor and Norbudda territories, and 
the greater part of Berar, was a daughter of the reigning Clmndale prince of 
Mahoba. . He condescended to give his daughter, only on condition that the 
Gond inwe who demanded her should, to save his character, come with an 
mmy of 50,000 men to take her. He did so, and “nothing loth,” Dhurgoutee 
departed to reign over a country where her name is now more revered than that 
of any other sovereign it has ever had. She was killed about 250 years ago, about 
12 miles from Jubbulpoor, while gallantly leading on her troops in their third and 
last attempt to stem the torrent ot Mahomedan invasion. Her tomb is still to be 
seen where she fell, in a narrow defile between two hills ; and a pair of large rounded 
stones which stand near are according to popular belief her royal drums turned 
into stone which in the dead of the night are still heard resounding through the 
woods and calling the spirits of her warriors from their thousand graves around 
her The travellers who pass this solitary spot, respectfully place upon the 
tomb the prettiest specimen they can find of the crystals which abound in the 
neighbourhood ; and with so much of kindly feeling had the history of Dhur- 
goutee inspired me, that I could not resist the temptation of adding one to the 
number, when I visited her tomb some sixteen years ago.” Sleeman’s Rambles 
and Recollections p. 245. 
2 E 2 
