(_Sonnets dedicated to Liberty_, Part Second, No. XVII.)
20. The story is absurd, the saint having died early in 1572, when
the Fathpur-Sikri buildings were in progress.
'The city . . . is enclosed on three sides by high embattlemented
stone walls pierced by. . . gateways protected by heavy and grim
semi-circular bastions of rubble masonry. The fourth side was
protected by a large lake.' There were nine gateways (E. W. Smith,
op. cit., pp. 1, 59; pl. xci, xciii). The Sangin Burj, or Stone
Tower, is a fine unfinished fortification (ibid., p. 34). The dam of
the lake burst in the 27th year of the reign, A.D. 1582 (Latif,
_Agra_, p. 159). The circumference of the town is variously stated as
either six or seven miles.
21. Akbar began the works at the fort of Agra in A.H. 972,
corresponding to A.D. 1564-65, several years before he began those at
Fathpur in A.D. 1569-70 (E. & D., vol. v, pp. 295, 332); and the
buildings at Agra and Fathpur were carried on concurrently. He
continued building at Fathpur nearly to the close of his reign. Agra
was never 'an unpeopled waste' during Akbar's reign.
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