'Travels in Beloochistan and Sinde; accompanied by a geographical and historical account of those countries, with a map.' [‎176] (218/476)

x76 bunpoor.
Bunpoor or its neighbourhood. 1 could not therefore expect he
would make such a sacrifice for me; and on subsequent reflection
I had no doubt but he was deputed by Mihrab Khan himself, to
make the communication. I was thus left without any alternative,
and sent him the pistols as soon as I knew he was risen, begging a
guide might be ordered, who accordingly made his appearance in
less than half an hour, and after I had got a letter for the Sndai of
Basman, which I took merely as a matter of form, 1 left Bunpoor
with unfeigned regret that 1 had ever seen it. ^ e travelled sixteen
miles north north-west, over a bare stony plain without water or
food for camels, and halted at sun-set.
The village of Bunpoor is small and ill-built: it has been at one
time surrounded by a low mud wall, with small bastions at in
tervals, but the whole is now gone to decay, and as there are no
date trees, or any symptoms of agriculture in the neighbourhood of
the village, it bears a most desolate and impoverished appearance.
The chiefs house, or citadel, is erected on the summit of an extra
ordinary mound of earth, the popular tradition with respect to which
is, that an immense army of Guebres passing this way, the com
mander in chief directed the horsemen to fill the bags from which
they fed their horses, with mould on leaving the hills, and their
numbers were so great, that when they deposited it in a pile, it
formed the present hill. I went to the top of it the last thing I did
before quitting Bunpoor, to receive Mihrab Khan's letter, and take
leave of him, and should conceive the height to be at least one
hundred yards, and the circumference of the base eight hundred.
You enter into it by a low arch, to the extent of ten or twelve yards,
from whence the ascent is by a flight of steps, made with rough blue
stone: the first of these flights is built to a very surprizing depth
through the mount, and turns backwards to gain the face of the hill,
and the others are sunk in the mound to the depth of four or five
feet, but open above. They all lead angularly to each other, and I
should look upon this fortress as strong enough to defy any force that
Persia can employ against it. If this mount is really artificial, it