The Jordan valley and Petra . he cavalry and theband of military music ! The soldiers bombardedthe city for days, and we saw plainly where thewalls and houses had been splashed with lead fromthe Martinis and shattered by the cannon government forces eventually took the city,after two hundred of the people and twenty of thesoldiers had been killed, and at the time of ourvisit maintained a guard of eleven horsemen renamed the castle the Mailed Fist, for,seen from almost every side, it is the most insolentand threatening fortress we ever saw. We pitchedour tents by a small spri
The Jordan valley and Petra . he cavalry and theband of military music ! The soldiers bombardedthe city for days, and we saw plainly where thewalls and houses had been splashed with lead fromthe Martinis and shattered by the cannon government forces eventually took the city,after two hundred of the people and twenty of thesoldiers had been killed, and at the time of ourvisit maintained a guard of eleven horsemen renamed the castle the Mailed Fist, for,seen from almost every side, it is the most insolentand threatening fortress we ever saw. We pitchedour tents by a small spring to the south, and thenproceeded to ride up into the fortress itself. Thenorthern slope of the hill is fully six hundred feethigh, but from our camp to the city gate was aclimb of three hundred feet. The road encirclestwo sides of the hill in its easy winds. The hillitself is of limestone, but with hundreds of plate-like strata of flint, standing at an angle of forty-fivedegrees, and looking very like great plates of Kerak to Shobek 29 After the Crusaders abandoned the place, some ofthe Moslems repaired it, and inserted great Arabicinscriptions like a frieze round the castle letters of these inscriptions are two and threefeet in height, and extend for hundreds of feetunbroken. It is perhaps within the truth to saythat nearly half a mile of inscriptions still exist. Nodoubt they express the joy and pride of those whofought so long and so savagely against the Crusadebanners in these regions. The walls on all sidesare very fine and the winding road is commandedby them at every foot of its ascent. The presentgate is a breach among the ruins of a tower and isclosed by a rude wooden wicket. Inside the wallis a confused mass of strong buildings, arches,vaults, stairways, wTith story above story of thepresent filthy dwellings. At one point are the re-mains of an enormous building with a tablet tellingsomething of its history. There are also the ruinsof a church of t
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