In this ditch one of the soldiers informed us that near four hundred cases of ammunition had been discovered buried beneath the soil, for the private use of the Janissaries, in the event of their requiring such an auxiliary during any popular commotion; and it was singular enough that the deposit was revealed by the very individual who informed us of it, and who pointed out the spot where his pickaxe struck against the cover of one of the chests, when employed with a fatigue party to cleanse the moat from its accumulated filth. Hence we ascended to the Janissaries’ Tower, the principal object of our curiosity. Built on the highest point of land within the walls, even from the base of this tower you command one of the noblest views in the world; having on one hand the whole stretch of the channel, to the opening of the Sea of Marmora; and on the other, the entrance to the Black Sea; the most sublime coup d’œil in the Bosphorus. Here two additional attendants with lights were added to the party; and, having first visited a recess, or cell, in the masonry of the tower, which we entered by a low, narrow archway, that had been lately discovered, we stood within the secret magazine of the Janissaries, where they had built in upwards of six hundred cases of powder: and we then commenced our survey of the dungeons. Throughout the whole Tower, which is of great height, and contains seven ranges of cells, all of them tolerably lofty, there were but two _cachots forcés_, or dark dungeons; every apartment being furnished with a narrow, grated aperture for the admission of air and light, and a small marble cistern for containing water. I wished to explore one of the two, but was withheld by the soldiers, who assured me that, since the destruction of the Janissaries, no one had ventured to enter them, and that they might be, and probably were, _oubliettes_, where one false step would plunge me headlong to destruction.