74 FOOTFALLS OF INDIAN HISTORY
and a bridge of some ten arches, with an enclosed pool, below which lie the seven cascades that lead to the monastic ravine.
In the grim old village of Fardapur there is another fort of Aurungzeb, which is now in use as a caravanserai. The whole aspect of the place is ancient and fortress-like, and the mode of building which obtains there throws a sudden light on what must have been the aspect of Rajgir, when Buddha entered it, in the days of Bimbisara five and six centuries before Christ. Every wall has a basis of pebbles and mortar ; and upon this are reared blocks of baked earth, shaped like masses of masonry. They are broad at the base, considerably narrower at the top, and the slope from one to the other is slightly concave. Even the delicate brick battlements of the Moghuls are built upon an older foundation of rubble wall. A similar mode of shaping earth obtains even so far east, it is said, as the western districts of Bengal. Undoubtedly it is a method of unknown antiquity. The curving slant gives to every cottage the air of a fortification, which indeed it is, and from a mediaeval point of view a fortification of very admirable materials.
Even had the old walls of the fort not been visible under the Moghul battlements, we should have known that the place represented an ancient camp of the people, rather than the mere strong-hold of an army of occupation. This is shown, in the first place, by its size. It is, in fact, a walled
