It Stands In A Barren Stony Valley, Enclosed
Among High Hills At No Great Distance, On One Of Which To The North,
Which Overlooks The Town, There Is A Small Castle To Keep Off The
Mountaineers, Who Used From Thence To Offend The City.
Its only water is
from wells, which have to be dug to a great depth.
Wood is very scarce
and dear, being brought from a distance. The castle is at the east side
of the city, and is enclosed with mudwalls, having many turrets, in
which they place their watch every night, who keep such a continual
hallooing to each other all night long, that one unaccustomed to the
noise, can hardly sleep. The pacha and some other principal men dwell
within the castle. The house of the keeper of the prison, in which I was
confined, adjoins the wall, at the foot of which is a spacious yard,
where a great number of people, mostly women and children, are kept as
pledges, to prevent their husbands, parents, and relations from
rebelling. The boys while young run about loose in the yard, but when
they come to any size, they are put in irons, and confined in a strong
tower. The women and children dwell in little huts in the yard built on
purpose, the children going mostly naked, unless when the weather is
very cold, and then they have sheep-skin coats.
[Footnote 332: This is a most improper mode of description, as it is now
impossible to say what size Bristol was then.
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