The castle joins on to the North-West angle of the city enceinte, and the wall of its Eastern outwork is pierced for

[p.394]a communication through a court strewed with guns and warlike apparatus, between the Manakhah Suburb and the Bab al-Shami, or the Syrian Gate.  Having been refused entrance into the fort, I can describe only its exterior.  The outer wall resembles that of the city, only its towers are more solid, and the curtain appears better calculated for work.  Inside, a donjon, built upon a rock, bears proudly enough the banner of the Crescent and the Star; its whitewashed walls make it a conspicuous object, and guns pointed in all directions, especially upon the town, project from their embrasures.  The castle is said to contain wells, bomb-proofs, provisions, and munitions of war; if so, it must be a kind of Gibraltar to the Badawin and the Wahhabis.  The garrison consisted of a Nisf Urtah,[FN#21] or half battalion (four hundred men) of Nizam infantry, commanded by a Pasha; his authority also extends to a Sanjak, or about five hundred Kurdish and Albanian Bash-Buzuks, whose duty it is to escort caravans, to convey treasures, and to be shot at in the Passes.  The Madani, who, as usual with Orientals, take a personal pride in their castle, speak of it with much exaggeration.  Commanded by a high line of rocks on the North-West, and built as it is in most places without moat, glacis, earthwork, or outworks, a few shells and a single battery of siege guns would soon render it untenable.  In ancient times it has more than once been held by a party at feud with the town, for whose mimic battles the Barr al-Manakhah was a fitting field.  Northward from the fort, on the road to Ohod, but still within fire, is a long many-windowed building, formerly Da’ud Pasha’s palace.  In my time it had been bought by Abbas Pasha of Egypt.

[p.395]The suburbs lie to the South and West of the town.  Southwards they are separated from the enceinte by a wide road, called the Darb al-Janazah, the Road of Biers, so called because the corpses of certain schismatics, who may not pass through the city, are carried this way to their own cemetery near the Bab al-Jumah, or Eastern Gate.  Westwards, between Al-Madinah and its faubourg, lies the plain of Al-Manakhah, about three-quarters of a mile long, by three hundred yards broad.  The straggling suburbs occupy more ground than the city:  fronting the enceinte they are without walls; towards the West, where open country lies, they are enclosed by mud or raw brick ramparts, with little round towers, all falling to decay.  A number of small gates lead from the suburb into the country.  The only large one, a poor copy of the Bab al-Nasr at Cairo, is the Ambari or Western entrance, through which we passed into Al-Madinah.  The suburb contains no buildings of any consequence, except the Khaskiyah, or official residence of the Muhafiz (governor), a plain building near the Barr al-Manakhah, and the Khamsah Masajid, or the Five Mosques, which every Zair is expected to visit.  They are