I had by this time, by promise of food, persuaded an ill-clad, hungry-looking individual to act as guide; one of the most villainous, indolent-looking men I have ever seen. I asked him to lead me to the fortress of the town, which I had seen from the outside, standing behind the double ramparts of the exterior, near to the remarkable “Seven Palms of Fachi,” which stand in a stately group close to the north front. I am led through a maze of alleys. A heavy door, barring our path, is reached and unlatched, and a final lane lies before me. My guide vouchsafes the information that the fort is at the other end. In a few moments we reach the rear courtyard of the fort, the largest open space in Fachi. It is uninteresting, for it is empty for the time being, and its high, unscalable walls seem stiffly posed like a petrified place awaiting the assembly of war-girded hordes. We pass on inside—and I stand amazed. Before me is _the den of the Forty Thieves_, or a scene equivalent; but real, and not imaginary. The fort, with high, naked walls towering around it, looks like a gigantic square-cut pit, with the bottom packed, almost to overflowing, with giant earthen jars. It is those jars that make the most amazing sight of all. Gleaming whitely, they fill the entire fort, except where the roofed-in, low, gloomy corridors jut out from the base of the main wall, giving access to the pit and to the four corner towers. [Illustration: SHADOWS, ALWAYS SHADOWS, MEET ONE AT EVERY TURN] The fort might be compared to a vast, unused cupboard full of gigantic empty jam-pots—but jam-pots far above the most exaggerated dreams of the hungriest schoolboy. I started to count them, but gave it up. They looked, in their unevenly lined hundreds, as numerous and as disorderly as a flock of sheep. Some were measured. The largest are 7 feet in diameter by 8 feet 4 inches high; the smallest 5 feet in diameter by 4 feet high. Though the sizes vary, they are all of one shape: giant jars tapering to a wide-mouthed neck at the top. They are constructed out of white chalky clay, knit with fibrous hairs of vegetation. Steps are moulded in the sides of all the larger jars, so that anyone may mount to gain entry at the top. We had entered the final stronghold of Fachi; the last place of refuge in a city conceived, from end to end, with one great purpose—_its strength of defence_. And whoever may have been the wizard—for it is no haphazard work—he had the genius of a great man-at-arms. These giant urns, ready to be filled with dates and grain in time of siege, the deep well of water that is hidden in the centre of them, are eloquent of their purpose; like all else in the war-prepared fastness.