One of the eminent men of Ghaznī was Mullā `Abdu'r-raḥmān, a learned man and always a learner (_dars_), a most orthodox, pious and virtuous person; he left this world the same year as Nāṣir Mīrzā (921 AH.-1515 AD.). Sl. Maḥmūd's tomb is in the suburb called Rauẓa,[826] from which the best grapes come; there also are the tombs of his descendants, Sl. Mas`ūd and Sl. Ibrāhīm. Ghaznī has many blessed tombs. The year[827] I took Kābul and Ghaznī, over-ran Kohāt, the plain of Bannū and lands of the Afghāns, and went on to Ghaznī by way of Dūkī (Dūgī) and Āb-istāda, people told me there was a tomb, in a village of Ghaznī, which moved when a benediction on the Prophet was [Sidenote: Fol. 138b.] pronounced over it. We went to see it. In the end I discovered that the movement was a trick, presumably of the servants at the tomb, who had put a sort of platform above it which moved when pushed, so that, to those on it, the tomb seemed to move, just as the shore does to those passing in a boat. I ordered the scaffold destroyed and a dome built over the tomb; also I forbad the servants, with threats, ever to bring about the movement again. Ghaznī is a very humble place; strange indeed it is that rulers in whose hands were Hindūstān and Khurāsānāt,[828] should have chosen it for their capital. In the Sulṯān's (Maḥmūd's) time there may have been three or four dams in the country; one he made, some three _yīghāch_ (18 m.?) up the Ghaznī-water to the north; it was about 40-50 _qārī_ (yards) high and some 300 long; through it the stored waters were let out as required.[829] It was destroyed by `Alāu'u'd-dīn _Jahān-soz Ghūrī_ when he conquered the country (550 AH.-1152 AD.), burned and ruined the tombs of several descendants of Sl. Maḥmūd, sacked and burned the town, in short, left undone no tittle of murder and rapine. Since [Sidenote: Fol. 139.] that time, the Sulṯān's dam has lain in ruins, but, through God's favour, there is hope that it may become of use again, by means of the money which was sent, in Khwāja Kalān's hand, in the year Hindūstān was conquered (932 AH.-1526 AD.).[830] The Sakhandam is another, 2 or 3 _yīghāch_ (12-18 m.), may-be, on the east of the town; it has long been in ruins, indeed is past repair. There is a dam in working order at Sar-i-dih (Village-head). In books it is written that there is in Ghaznī a spring such that, if dirt and foul matter be thrown into it, a tempest gets up instantly, with a blizzard of rain and wind. It has been seen said also in one of the histories that Sabuk-tīgīn, when besieged by the Rāī (Jāī-pāl) of Hind, ordered dirt and foulness to be thrown into the spring, by this aroused, in an instant, a tempest with blizzard of rain and snow, and, by this device, drove off his foe.[831] Though we made many enquiries, no intimation of the spring's existence was given us. In these countries Ghaznī and Khwārizm are noted for cold, in the same way that Sulṯānīā and Tabrīz are in the two `Irāqs and Aẕarbāījān.