LIONS' DENS 311 



latter were three dens in which the imperial lions used 

 to be kept. We now approached the oldest and most 

 striking of all the buildings in Gondar, which is the 

 castle built by Fasildas in the middle of the seventeenth 

 century, and described by Bruce as "the king's house." 

 This castle is two stories in height, and almost square, 

 the sides measuring 90 feet by 84; circular- domed 

 towers protect the corners,^ while at the south angle 

 the main building is carried up in a square, castellated 

 tower, which dominates the rest to the heio^ht of two 

 stories, and against which the nearest circular tower 

 rests, as though it were a huge buttress. This tower, 

 which is of great strength, was probably intended, like 

 the donjon-keep of a feudal castle, to be the last refuge 

 of the garrison in cases of emergency. The walls, which 

 are 6 feet 6 inches thick, are embattled, the centre of 

 the south-west front and the square tower each having 

 a stone arch where a bell had been hung, from which 

 the call to arms must often have rung out. An inclined 

 plane of masonry, little more than a yard wide, leads 

 directly from the courtyard to the first floor, on which 

 there are three principal rooms, the largest being 60 

 feet by 18, while the two others are each 42 feet by 

 18. These are lit by spacious openings, in many 

 of which the double doors of solid Sankar wood still 

 remain. The three on the south-west side opened on 

 to a wooden balcony, which ran the whole width of the 

 castle, and from which the Emperor used to address his 

 soldiers and subjects. One of the round towers was 



' Bruce makes a curious slip in calling these corner-towers square (ist ed. vol. 

 iii. p. 380). 



