The massive ancient gate still rests upon its hinges, its rusty iron plates riddled with bullets. A second gate, placed at right angles to the first in the further wall, gives issue from the tower. The citadel, like the middle fortress, is occupied by modern houses; but they are less frequent, and are almost confined to the spaces immediately neighbouring the cross-wall. There is some difficulty in examining the extensive ancient works which still in part remain upon the site. One of the principal buildings is occupied by military stores, and is forbidden ground. I contrive to effect an entrance, and find it quite empty--a palpable reason for such exclusive measures. Then the walls which enclose the gardens of the private dwellings are no less the discreet protectors of the life of the harem than the veil to hide the squalor of faded opulence. While one of us is taking readings with the prismatic compass, the whole quarter is raised by the protestations of a young minx, who will insist that she is the object of his unmannerly stares. I have said that the palace is now a mere skeleton; a rambling old house, with a picturesque overhanging roof, fills a portion of the ground plan of the royal apartments, where they overlooked the western ravine. We are tardily given admission by a female voice. From an embrasure in the massive wall of the fortress, just below the row of eight arched windows, which stand up blank against the sky, we feast our eyes upon the charming view over the western ravine, following its sinuous outline into the background of leafy hills, or resting upon the cypresses and minaret of the Khatunieh mosque among the villas on the opposite margin of the abyss. Within this outer wall, a little south of our standpoint, a square tower rises above the outline of the battlements, displaying in its upper storey the interior of a spacious apartment with windows opening upon the landscape. The fragment of a wall juts out towards us from beside the tower; and three large windows, of which two are double, with slim dividing pillars, have been spared to it by the ravages of time. Just north of us, three more windows rise from the outer wall, on a higher plane than those above our heads. Both rows are but the remains of much longer series, once the life and pride of these grim parapets. They enable us to reconstruct the ancient splendour of the imperial residence, which, day by day, is slowly passing towards the world of unsubstantial memories, to share the fate of sacred Troy and of King Priam, rich in flocks.