A History of Agriculture in India v2.c59.s1: Granaries in City Wall
A History of Agriculture in India v2.c59.s1
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Granaries in City Wall
v2.c59.s1.1
'The wall which surrounds the city of Dehli is unparalleled,' states Ibn Battuta. 'The breadth of the wall itself is eleven cubits, and inside it are rooms where night-watchmen and keepers of the gates are lodged. The wall contains also stores for provisions, which they call 'granaries', as well as stores for war equipment and for mangonels and stone-throwing machines (ra'adāt). Grain keeps in it for a very long time without going bad or becoming damaged. I have seen rice brought out of one of these stores, and although it had gone black in colour it was still good to the taste. I have also seen kudhrū millet taken out of them. All these stores had been laid up by the Sultan Balban ninety years before. There is room inside the wall for horsemen and infantry to march from one end of the town to the other, and it has window openings pierced on the town side, through which light enters. The lower courses of this wall are constructed with stone and the upper courses with baked brick, and its towers are numerous and set at short intervals. The city has twenty-eight gates. Their name for gate is darwāza.'²
v2.c59.s1.2
² Gibb, H.A.R., *The Travels of Ibn Battuta*, p. 621