PLACES OF INTEREST

KOJ FORT.

Koj Port, [If tradition is to be believed the Marathas built it in 1692. Mr. Cumine, C. S.] in Goreh village, about ten miles west of Vada, stands on a hill 1906 feet high, and can be reached only up a ravine formed by two projecting spurs. In 1818, nearly at the head of the hill, 400 yards to the south of the upper fort and commanded by it, was a gateway with low ruinous works on each side stretching from one spur to the other. On a level space about half way between the gateway and the upper fort were the ruins of a redoubt. To the west, from 150 to 200 feet below the upper fort and passing a little beyond it, a path used to lead to the plain below, but it had long been impassable. The ascent to the upper fort was steep, the latter part of it by steps exposed to a double enfilade from a detached tower and from works over and on each side of the gateway, between two projecting towers, nine feet apart and situated about half way up on the western face. The top of the hill was about 400 yards long, and, in many places, not more than forty broad. Round the greater part of the hill the cliff was so sheer that the works were almost entirely confined to the southern and western sides, where, according to the nature of the ground on the outside, they varied from ten to twenty-five feet high. The fortifications looked as if they had been neglected for years. The cement of the best part was washed away, and except a dwarf wall here and there, the works were little better than heaps of loose stones. Within the fort the only buildings of any consequence were a granary, a store room, and a house for the garrison. The water-supply was from nine cisterns cut in the rock in the plain to the west of the upper fort, and a tenth cistern outside of the gateway. In 1862 the fort was ruinous; water was plentiful but food supplies were not available.