Ill 
1883.] portions of Old Fort William. 
traces of severe fire. This place I identify as the Carpenters’ shop, and to 
which I will draw attention later on. The floor of this godown wa3 
98 - 28 which makes it very nearly 49" below our present ground floor 
level. The wall plaster was uninjured, but we know that lime plaster will 
bear without injury a severe fire. The wood ash I take to be the debris 
at the time of the burning of the fort ; above it, as will be seen from my 
section, is the khoa debris from a roof fallen by fire or demolition. 
It evidently was never cleared out after the fire, but had become a heap of 
rubbish, and so built over by the succeeding floor, shewn at the next higher 
level. Along the north wall of this shed I found large heaps of cinder 
with pieces vitrified as if from a forge. The earth to the north was about 
T9' below the floor level of the shed. 
I now come to the lightly tinted walls behind and parallel to the 
curtain walls. They vary in width, as will be seen from the plan, in no case 
18 feet, the dimension given by Holwell of the “ Black Hole”. In one 
place only did I find any outer verandah, namely, on the west wall. 
In every case these walls were of brickwork in mud, at least that por¬ 
tion that I found below the ground. They were very deep, almost as deep 
as the curtain walls, and very thick, all of them made of very thin brick. 
In a few places I found cross walls, and I find in my note book a note to the 
following effect: “ behind the 3' 0" mud walls, the space seems to be divid¬ 
ed into cells.” I do not, however, find actual record of more than a few of 
these cross walls. I would very probably miss them, as, if there were but 
few, it would be quite a chance my coming on to them, and unless my walls 
or column foundations coincided with them, I should of course miss them, 
and I had no time to spend over searching for them. I could do little 
more than note and record what I came across. 
I have a particular object in specially drawing attention to these inner 
walls and chambers which, as will be anticipated, points to the locality, 
size and character of the Black Hole, but this I will postpone until I have 
described the walls etc., found, only repeating that my explanation of not 
always finding the cross walls of the chambers equally applies to my not 
finding the outer verandahs corresponding to those of the Black Hole: 
I simply did not hit on them in the foundations of my walls, or it may be 
that the “ court of guard” rooms only had a verandah. Along that portion 
of the west wall, also alongside an entrance door to be alluded to presently, 
and where most probably a guard would be stationed and would require a 
verandah, did I find verandah foundations. 
I will return to the western wall, but before describing it, I must remark 
that as the walls of the new building running north and south approach¬ 
ed the west, I found the natural ground sloped west, and that the drain follow¬ 
ed a depression, which by the time it reached the west curtain wall had grown 
