But the ruins even now remaining of the fortifications and publick works constructed in Aden by the Ottomans during their tenure of the place, are on a scale which not only proves how fully they were aware of the importance of the position, but gives a high idea of the energy with which their resources were administered during the palmy days of their power, when such vast labour and outlay were expended on the security of an isolated stronghold at the furthest extremity of their empire.  The defences of the town, even in their present state, are the most striking evidence now existing of the science and skill of the Turkish engineers in former times; and, when they were entire, Aden must have been another Gibraltar.  “The lines taken for the works,” says a late observer, “evince great judgment, a good flanking fire being every where obtained; no one place which could possibly admit of being fortified has been omitted, and we could not do better than tread in the steps of our predecessors.  The profile is tremendous.”  A supply of water (of which the peninsula had been wholly destitute) was secured, not only by constructing numerous tanks within the walls, and by boring numerous wells through the solid rock to a depth of upwards of 200 feet, [38] but by carrying an aqueduct into the town from a spring eight miles in the country, the reservoir at the end of which was defended by a redoubt mounted with artillery.  The outposts were not less carefully strengthened than the body of the place—­a rampart with bastions (called, in the reports of the garrison, the Turkish Wall) was carried along some high ground on the isthmus from sea to sea, to guard against an attack on the land side—­the lofty rocky islet of Seerah, immediately off the town, was covered with watchtowers and batteries—­and several of those enormous guns, with the effect of which the English became practically acquainted at the passage of the Dardanelles in 1807, were mounted on the summit of the precipices, to command the seaward approach; and, when Lieutenant Wellsted was at Aden, those huge pieces of ordnance was lying neglected on the beach; and he asked Sultan Mahassan why he did not cut them up for the sake of the metal, which is said to contain a considerable intermixture of silver; “but he replied, with more feeling than could have been anticipated, that he was unwilling to deprive Aden of the only remaining sign of its former greatness and strength.”  Several of them have been sent to England since the capture of the place, measuring from fifteen to eighteen and a half feet in length; they are covered with ornaments and inscriptions, stating them to have been cast in the reign of “Soliman the son of Selim-Khan,” (Soliman the Magnificent.)

[Footnote 37:  Captain Haines, in the “Report upon Aden,” appended to the Parliamentary papers published on the subject, erroneously places this even in 1730, the year in or about which, according to Niebuhr, the Sheikh of Aden made himself independent of Sana.]