WESTERN MOSQUE. 73 
Its height may be estimated at fifty or fifty-five feet from the 
base to the summit. The steps of the staircase^ which is 
constructed internally^ are supported by pieces of wood fixed 
in the walls and covered with earth. The dilapidated state 
of the staircase prevented me from ascertaining the exact 
number of the steps, but I observed the traces of thirty-two. 
The walls of the mosque are fifteen feet high and twenty- 
five or twenty-six inches thick. The top of the wall of the east 
front is indented in the form of battlements, the salient parts 
of which are surmounted by pots of baked earth, similar to 
that on the summit of the tower. 
Another massive tower, of a conical form, surmounts the 
front wall. It is about thirty feet high. On the dome, pro- 
jecting pieces of wood are perceptible, the use of which 
seems to be to unite the masonry. 
The roof of the mosque has a terrace like that of the 
tower, and is moreover surrounded with a parapet eighteen 
inches high. 
The roof of the building is supported by rafters, formed 
of the trunks of the ronnier tree split into four, and placed 
at the distance of a foot from each other. Pieces of salva- 
dora wood, brought from Cabra, where it grows in great 
abundance, cut to the length of the intervals between the 
rafters, are placed obliquely in double rows, crossing each 
other. Over these are laid mats made of the leaves of the 
ronnier, which are covered with earth. 
This mosque has five gates of different sizes on the 
eastern side, three on the south side, and two on the north. 
On the western side the ruins form at once the boundary 
of the mosque and of the city. On the eastern and northern 
sides, the floor of the building is level with the ground ; but 
on the south is an ascent of four steps. 
On the eastern wall, in the interior of the building, 
■ there are some ornaments made of yellow clay. They are 
in the form of a chevron or triangular festoon, two feet high, 
