تحفة النظار في غرايب الامصار وعجايب الاسفار 10.14
English (machine translation) 10.14
- Language
- English
10.14.1
The wall surrounding the city of Dihlī has no equal. The thickness of its wall is eleven cubits, and in it are chambers in which the night-watchmen and the gatekeepers live, and there are storehouses for food, which they call anbārs, storehouses for munitions, and storehouses for mangonels and ballistas. Grain keeps in them for a long time without spoiling or being attacked by blight. I saw rice being brought out of one of those storehouses; its colour had turned black, but its taste was good. I also saw kodrū being brought out of them. All of that had been stored by Sultan Balaban ninety years before. Horsemen and foot soldiers walk inside the wall from one end of the city to the other, and it has windows opening towards the city through which light enters. The lower part of this wall is built of stone and the upper part of brick, and its towers are many and close together.
10.14.2
This city has twenty-eight gates; they call a gate darwāza. Among them are the Darwāza
10.14.3
of Badhāwun, which is the largest; the Darwāza of Mandawī, where the grain market is; the Darwāza of Gul (with u after the g), which is where the gardens are; the Darwāza of Shāh, the name of a man; the Darwāza of Pālam, the name of a village we have already mentioned; the Darwāza of Najīb, the name of a man; the Darwāza of Kamāl, likewise; the Darwāza of Ghazna, named after the city of Ghazna on the border of Khurāsān, outside which are the muṣallā for the festival and some cemeteries; and the Darwāza of al-Bajālṣa (with a after the b, the j and the ṣ).
10.14.4
Outside this darwāza are the cemeteries of Dihlī. It is a fine cemetery in which they build domes, and every grave must have a miḥrāb even if it has no dome. They plant flowering trees in it, such as gul shanbah, raybūl, nasrīn and others, and flowers there never cease in any season.
Linked texts (1)
- تحفة النظار في غرائب الأمصار وعجائب الأسفار — Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, Arabic