Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v3.c43.t1.407

v3.c43.t1.407

The hill is between two and three miles in circumference ; to the north it is bluff, of gradual ascent, and about one hundred and forty feet in height, the summit presenting a bold perpendicular scarp, about thirty feet high. The top is flat, and covered with bar trees. On the south side it has the form of a horse-shoe, or irregular crescent, the horns of which are turned to the south, having the same bold natural rampart running round its crest, pierced throughout with caves, of which I counted one hundred and seventy ;¹ I should rather say that these were merely the entrances to the [722] temples and extensive habitations of these ancient Troglodytes. The rock is a cellular iron-clay, so indurated and compact as to take a polish. There are traces of a city, external as well as internal, but whether they were cotemporaneous we cannot conjecture. If we judge from the remains of a wall about nine feet thick, of Cyclopean formation, being composed of large oblong masses without cement, we might incline to that opinion, and suppose that the caves were for the monastic inhabitants, did they not afford proof to the contrary in their extent and appropriation.