inhabited, and here it was that Sultan Calil, with Calconchatun,[570] his wife, the sister of Sieche Ismael, with the rest of his family, lived. In this city all the lords of Diarbech came together by command of Custagialu Mahumutbec, bringing with them all the men they could, to the number, before mentioned, of ten thousand; and they kept up fighting night and day, but they gained but little, as the two castles were impregnable, and their horses, lances, arrows, crossbows, and guns availed nothing. Similarly, a mortar of bronze, of four spans, which they brought from Mirdin, where it used always to stand before the door of the fort of that city, was useless. This mortar was cast in that country at the time of Jacob Sultan, and by his orders. And while I was at Asanchif I went several times to see the fighting and the firing of this same mortar; and Custagialu also had another larger one cast by a young Armenian, who cast it in the Turkish manner—all in one piece. The breech was half the length of the whole piece, and the mortar was five spans in bore at the muzzle. They had only these two pieces to bombard the castles, in which there was no artillery, except three or four muskets of the shape of Azemi,[571] with a small barrel, which, with a contrivance locked on to the stock about the size of a good arquebuse, carry very far. They also had a certain kind of crossbow, made like bows of horn, but made on purpose stronger than those which are drawn by hand, and have a handle, with a contrivance like ours for bending them, and are without nuts, but instead of them they have a bit of iron. Their bolts are long, about half the length of an arrow, and slender; they are feathered, and have points like the Turkish arrows, and go a great distance. Of these crossbows there were about twenty in one of these castles; I think it was in the smaller one.