the first wall could be occupied, so
thick are the earthworks and so well fortified is it with breastworks,
towers, guns, and ditches.

When I had been taken through the northern gate (which is shut with an
iron door so wrought that it can be raised and let down, and locked in
easily and strongly, its projections running into the grooves of
the thick posts by a marvellous device), I saw a level space seventy
paces (1) wide between the first and second walls. From hence can be seen
large palaces, all joined to the wall of the second circuit in such
a manner as to appear all one palace. Arches run on a level with the
middle height of the palaces, and are continued round the whole ring.
There are galleries for promenading upon these arches, which are
supported from beneath by thick and well-shaped columns, enclosing
arcades like peristyles, or cloisters of an abbey.

But the palaces have no entrances from below, except on the inner or
concave partition, from which one enters directly to the lower parts
of the building. The higher parts, however, are reached by flights of
marble steps, which lead to galleries for promenading on the inside
similar to those on the outside. From these one enters the higher rooms,
which are very beautiful, and have windows on the concave and convex
partitions. These rooms are divided from one another by richly decorated
walls. The convex or outer wall of the ring is about eight spans thick;
the concave, three; the intermediate walls are one, or perhaps one and a
half. Leaving this circle one gets to the second plain, which is nearly
three paces narrower than the first. Then the first wall of the second
ring is seen adorned above and below with similar galleries for walking,
and there is on the inside of it another interior wall enclosing
palaces. It has also similar peristyles supported by columns in the
lower part, but above are excellent pictures, round the ways into the
upper houses. And so on afterward through similar spaces and double
walls, enclosing palaces, and adorned with galleries for walking,
extending along their outer side, and supported by columns, till the
last circuit is reached, the way being still over a level plain.

But when the two gates, that is to say, those of the outmost and the
inmost walls, have been passed, one mounts by means of steps so formed
that an ascent is scarcely discernible, since it proceeds in a slanting
direction, and the steps succeed one another at