170 JOURNEY FROM determined, and would require, from their ruined state, a very long and attentive examination, before their original dimensions and precise points of contact could be ascertained. We have given the plans of two of the forts, one of which, though apparently very perfect, is unprovided with any visible entrance. Two gates will be observed in the outer works of the other, although none is apparent in the habitable part of the building, which constitutes the most important part of it.

Within a square, or rather quadrangular, inclosure, attached to another of the same size, is a subterranean storehouse, or reservoir, which has been first excavated in the soil, then formed with rough stones, and lastly coated with an excellent cement, which is still in a very perfect state. The descent to this souterain is by a square well of trifling depth, which was so much overgrown and encumbered, as not to be immediately perceived. Having with us the means of procuring a fight, we succeeded, without much trouble, in descending into the chambers which are excavated on each side of it, and in procuring the plan which appears in the plates. We were in hopes to have found some inscription on the walls, which we have already described as being very perfect, but nothing appeared but a few rude and unimportant Arab scrawls. In the neighbourhood of the military position, which we have noticed above, are the remains of the town already mentioned, called Medina, where there are a number of wells and tanks in very good preservation ; but the buildings above ground are in so mutilated and ruinous a state, as to render any satisfactory plan of them impossible, without a great deal of previous excavation.