The Circumference Of This Rock Amounts To About A Mile.

It is cut round perpendicularly to a height of 130 feet and thirty feet below the top of the moat by which it is surrounded, which cutting is equally perpendicular, so that the whole height of the escarpment is 160 feet, and the rock, consequently, inaccessible.

There is no pathway leading to the fortress, and I was, therefore, extremely curious to know by what means the summit was reached. In the side of the rock itself was a very low iron door, which is only visible in time of peace, as the ditch can be filled a foot above its level when required. Torches were lighted, and I was carefully conducted through narrow low passages, which led with numerous windings upwards through the body of the rock. These passages were closed in many places by massive iron gates. Some considerable distance above the precipitous part of the rock, we again emerged into the open air; narrow paths and steps, protected by strongly-fortified works, led from this place to the highest point. The latter was somewhat flattened, (140 feet in diameter), completely undermined, and so contrived, that it could be heated red-hot. A cannon, twenty-three feet long, was planted here.

At the foot of this fortress are scattered numerous ruins, which, I was told, were the remains of a very important town; nothing is left of it now except the fortified walls, three or four feet deep, which must be passed to reach the peak of rock itself.

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