clearly be held to represent a very considerable town.  There are no indications of the form of buildings,... but simply large quantities of large bricks, which for a long time have been carried away and used for modern buildings....  After rain coins are found on the surface....  There can be no doubt of a very large extent of ground, of very irregular and uninviting character, having been covered at some time with buildings.  The position on the Jelam would answer well for the Dilawar which the Mongol invaders took and held....  The strange thing is that the name should not be mentioned (I believe it is not) by any of the well-known Mahomedan historians of India.  So much for Dilawar....  The people have no traditions.  But there are the remains; and there is the name, borne by the existing village on part of the old site.”  I had come to the conclusion that this was almost certainly Polo’s Dalivar, and had mapped it as such, before I read certain passages in the History of Ziyauddin Barni, which have been translated by Professor Dowson for the third volume of Elliot’s India.  When the comrades of Ghaiassuddin Balban urged him to conquests, the Sultan pointed to the constant danger from the Mongols,[2] saying:  “These accursed wretches have heard of the wealth and condition of Hindustan, and have set their hearts upon conquering and plundering it. They have taken and plundered Lahor within my territories, and no year passes that they do not come here and plunder the villages....  They even talk about the conquest and sack of Delhi.”  And under a later date the historian says:  “The Sultan... marched to Lahor, and ordered the rebuilding of the fort which the Mughals had destroyed in the reigns of the sons of Shamsuddin.  The towns and villages of Lahor which the Mughals had devastated and laid waste he repeopled.”  Considering these passages, and the fact that Polo had no personal knowledge of Upper India, I now think it probable that Marsden was right, and that Dilivar is really a misunderstanding of “Citta di Livar” for Lahawar or Lahore.

The Magical darkness which Marco ascribes to the evil arts of the Karaunas is explained by Khanikoff from the phenomenon of Dry Fog, which he has often experienced in Khorasan, combined with the Dust Storm with which we are familiar in Upper India.  In Sind these phenomena often produce a great degree of darkness.  During a battle fought between the armies of Sindh and Kachh in 1762, such a fog came on, obscuring the light of day for some six hours, during which the armies were intermixed with one another and fighting desperately.  When the darkness dispersed they separated, and the consternation of both parties was so great at the events of the day that both made a precipitate retreat.  In 1844 this battle was still spoken of with wonder. (J.  Bomb.  Br.  R. A. S. I. 423.)

Major St. John has given a note on his own experience of these curious Kerman fogs (see Ocean Highways, 1872, p. 286):  “Not a breath of air was stirring, and the whole effect was most curious, and utterly unlike any other fog I have seen.  No deposit of dust followed, and the feeling of the air was decidedly damp.  I unfortunately could not get my hygrometer till the fog had cleared away.”