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JOURNEY FROM 
determined, and would require, from their ruined state, a very long 
and attentive examination, before their original dimensions and pre- 
cise points of contact could be ascertained. We have given the plans 
of two of the forts, one of which, though apparently very perfect, is 
unprovided with any visible entrance. Two gates will be observed 
in the outer works of the other, although none is apparent in the 
habitable part of the building, which constitutes the most important 
part of it. 
Within a square, or rather quadrangular, inclosure, attached to 
another of the same size, is a subterranean storehouse, or reservoir, 
which has been first excavated in the soil, then formed with rough 
stones, and lastly coated with an excellent cement, which is still in a 
very perfect state. The descent to this souterain is by a square well 
of trifling depth, which was so much overgrown and encumbered, as 
not to be immediately perceived. Having with us the means of 
procuring a fight, we succeeded, without much trouble, in descending 
into the chambers which are excavated on each side of it, and in 
procuring the plan which appears in the plates. We were in hopes 
to have found some inscription on the walls, which we have already 
described as being very perfect, but nothing appeared but a few rude 
and unimportant Arab scrawls. In the neighbourhood of the mili- 
tary position, which we have noticed above, are the remains 
of the town already mentioned, called Medina, where there are 
a number of wells and tanks in very good preservation ; but the 
buildings above ground are in so mutilated and ruinous a state, as to 
render any satisfactory plan of them impossible, without a great deal 
of previous excavation. 
