VILDRUG. 183 which jutted out into the valley or ravine of the small river Bori from the main plateau of the country, and was almost level. The sides of this knoll were sheer precipices of basalt, here and there showing distinct columnar and prismatic formation, and varying from 50 to 200 feet in height, the edge of the plateau being 200 feet inore or less above the river, which flowed at the base of the precipice on two sides of the fort. Along the crest of the cliff, on three sides, run the fortifications-- bastions and curtains alternately, some of the former being very firmly built of cut and dressed basalt, and large enough to carry heavy guns ; and the parapets of the machicolated curtains were everywhere loopholed for musketry. On the west side, the promontory joined the main plateau by a somewhat contracted neck, also strongly fortified by a high rampart, with very roomy and massive bastions, below it a fausse-braie, with the same; then a broad, deep, dry ditch, cut for the most part out of the basalt itself; a counterscarp, about 20 or 25 feet high, with a covered way; and beyond it a glacis and esplanade, up to the limits of the town. The entire circumference of the enceinte might have been about a mile and a half; and the garrison in former times must have been very large, for nearly the whole of the interior was covered by ruined walls, and had been laid out as a town with a wide street running up the centre. All the walls and bastions were in perfect repair, and the effect of the fort outside was not only grim and massive, but essentially picturesque. Naldrúg held a memorable place in local history. Before the Musalmán invasion in the 14th century, it belonged to a local Rájá, who may have been a feudal vassal of the great Rájás of the Chalukya dynasty, 250 to 1200 A.D., whose capital was Kalyani, about 40 iniles distant; but I never could trace its history with any certainty, and during the Hindu period it was only traditional. The Bahmani dynasty, 1351 to 1480 A.D., protected their dominions to the west by a line of massive forts, of which Naldrúg was one; and it was believed that the former defences, which were little more than mud walls, were replaced by them with fortifications of stone. Afterwards, on the division of the Báhmani kingdom, in 1480 A.D., Naldrúg fell to the lot of the Adíl Shahi kings of Bijapur; and they, in their turn, greatly increased and strengthened its defences. It was often a point of dissension between the Adil Shahi and the Nizam Shahi potentates—lying, as it did, upo the nominal frontier between Bijapur and Ahmadnagar-and was besieged by both in turn, as the condition of the walls on the southern face bore ample testimony, as well from the marks of cannon-balls as from breaches which had afterwards been filled up. In 1558, Ali Adil Shah visited Naldrúg, and again added to its fortifications, rebuilt the western face, and constructed an enormous cavalier near the eastern
