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After being received at this entrance-gate Razzak must have passed down the slope through "cultivated fields, houses, and gardens" to the entrance of Hospett, where the second line of fortification barred the way; and since that town was not then thickly populated, the same features would meet his eye till he passed a third line of wall on the north side of that town.
As to the assertion of Nuniz that the Sultan entered Nagalapur or Hospett and "razed it to the ground," we may remember the treatment of the city of Bijapur by Krishna Deva Raya, and surmise that the houses of the Vijayanagar suburbs may have been pulled to pieces by the Mussalman soldiery in search for firewood.
The traveller approached from the southwest, and the first line of wall that he saw must have been that on the neck between the two hills south-west of Hospett. Paes also describes this outer defence-work as that seen by all travellers on their first arrival from the coast.
The "convenient plain" was probably in the open and rich valley near the town of Hospett, south of the city; for the Sultan could not have ravaged the country to the south unless he had been master of the whole of this valley for many miles.
From the last fortification to the south, beyond the present town of Hospett, to the extreme point of the defences of Anegundi on the north, the distance is about twelve miles. From the extreme western line of walls in the plain to the last of the eastern works amongst the hills lying in the direction of Daroji and Kampli the interval measures about ten miles.
If so, the fact of its original failure is interesting to us, because for many years past this vast work has been entirely useless. The description given by Nuniz accords with the position of this tank, which was doubtless intended partly for irrigation purposes, and partly for the supply of water to the "new city," Nagalapura, the king's favourite residence, now known as Hospett.
Both Paes and Nuniz mention this lake, and as the former actually saw it under construction it may have been begun in A.D. 1520. I think that this is the large lake, now dry, to be seen at the north-western mouth of the valley entering into the Sandur hills south-west of Hospett, the huge bank of which has been utilised for the conveyance of the highroad from Hospett to the southern taluqs.
Then he writes, "the king made a tank THERE," I.E. close to Hospett, at the mouth of two hills, and in order to this end "broke down a hill." He saw innumerable people at work on the tank. He confirms the story of Nuniz as to the sixty human beings offered in sacrifice to ensure the security of the dam.
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