This reservoir is probably the largest of its kind in India, being a regular polygon of thirty-four sides, each side 190 feet long, and therefore considerably more than a mile in circumference. The area is 72 acres. It was entirely surrounded by many tiers of cut stone steps, most of which still remain in tolerable preservation, and had six sloping approaches, flanked by cupolas (Plate 55). The supply-sluice ( Plates 56 and 57) is exquisitely carved. In the centre of the tank is an island, connected with the margin by a viaduct of forty-eight arches now in ruins, and which contained a garden called Nugina, and the palace of Ghuttámundul, a favourite resort of the later kings of Ahmedabad. Mandelsloe gives an enthusiastic account of the beauties of the place. It is situated about a mile beyond the city walls, in an undulating and well-wooded country. It was completed by Kootub Shah in A.D. 1451, and is said to have been begun by him in his father's lifetime, in the hope that he might attract, by curiosity, to the works, and there capture and murder his younger brother Mahmood (Begurra), who was living in the neighbourhood with his mother under the protection of the saintly Shah Alum. The name of Kankria is attributed by some to the limestone found during the excavation, and by others to a pebble (kánkra) having got into the shoe and hurt the foot of Mohumrned Shah when he came, so runs the tale, to inspect the progress of his son's work.1

• 1. These, and other facts and stories, bave been obtained from the “Mirát Ahmadi” and “Mirát Sikunderi,” two MS. histories written in Persian in A.D. 1611 and 1756, which are in the India Office Library. Only a portion of the “Mirát Ahmadi” has heen translated in Bird's “History of Goozerat.”