The Pasha sent an officer to show us the citadel.  We passed around the moat to the entrance on the western side, consisting of a bridge and double gateway.  The fortress, as I have already stated, occupies the crest of an elliptical mound, about one thousand feet by six hundred, and two hundred feet in height.  It is entirely encompassed by the city and forms a prominent and picturesque feature in the distant view thereof.  Formerly, it was thickly inhabited, and at the time of the great earthquake of 1822, there were three hundred families living within the walls, nearly all of whom perished.  The outer walls were very much shattered on that occasion, but the enormous towers and the gateway, the grandest specimen of Saracenic architecture in the East, still remain entire.  This gateway, by which we entered, is colossal in its proportions.  The outer entrance, through walls ten feet thick, admitted us into a lofty vestibule lined with marble, and containing many ancient inscriptions in mosaic.  Over the main portal, which is adorned with sculptured lions’ heads, there is a tablet stating that the fortress was built by El Melek el Ashraf (the Holiest of Kings), after which follows:  “Prosperity to the True Believers—­Death to the Infidels!” A second tablet shows that it was afterwards repaired by Mohammed ebn-Berkook, who, I believe, was one of the Fatimite Caliphs.  The shekh of the citadel, who accompanied us, stated the age of the structure at nine hundred years, which, as nearly as I can recollect the Saracenic chronology, is correct.  He called our attention to numbers of iron arrow-heads sticking in the solid masonry—­the marks of ancient sieges.  Before leaving, we were presented with a bundle of arrows from the armory—­undoubted relics of Saracen warfare.

The citadel is now a mass of ruins, having been deserted since the earthquake.  Grass is growing on the ramparts, and the caper plant, with its white-and-purple blossoms, flourishes among the piles of rubbish.  Since the late rebellion, however, a small military barrack has been built, and two companies of soldiers are stationed there, We walked around the walls, which command a magnificent view of the city and the wide plains to the south and east.  It well deserves to rank with the panorama of Cairo from the citadel, and that of Damascus from the Anti-Lebanon, in extent, picturesqueness and rich oriental character.  Out of the gray ring of the city, which incloses the mound, rise the great white domes and the whiter minarets of its numerous mosques, many of which are grand and imposing structures.  The course of the river through the centre of the picture is marked by a belt of the greenest verdure, beyond which, to the west, rises a chain of naked red hills, and still further, fading on the horizon, the blue summit of Mt.  St. Simon, and the coast range of Akma Dagh.  Eastward, over vast orchards of pistachio trees, the barren plain of the Euphrates fades away to a glimmering, hot horizon.