o form a
natural tangle.

In the year 1664 the eye that glanced over these walls might see
within magic buildings. Corsar Bey, the terror of the country,
inhabited this stronghold, and at his bidding hedges of roses sprang
up on the bastions, and the castle stood in a grove of orange and
pomegranate trees. On all sides could be seen those splendid buildings
which Oriental pomp erects for the moment's pleasure: spacious domed
buildings overlaid with sky-blue enamel where the sun mirrored itself;
gay painted towers on the bastions with balconies decorated with
Moorish carvings, and on these vases of flowers; slender white
minarets covered over with vines; lattice-work kiosks with slender
gilded columns, the whole as light as a card house; nothing but gilded
wood, painted glass, enameled tiles, and gay-colored rugs. From the
pointed roof-tops waved gay flags and high above all shone a golden
crescent. Every kiosk, every dome, every minaret was adorned with
crescents and flags. It seemed a magic castle ready to vanish; but
the walls surrounding this delicate structure impregnable. On all
sides were impassably steep rocks behind which the pursued, if he once
reached them, could defend himself against a hundred times as many.
The guards stood day and night with lighted fuse by the cannon, which
Corsar Bey had had cast on the spot, as there was no way of conveying
such defence there. Two of these fiery-throated monsters were turned
toward the bridge, to blow it to atoms in case of attack.

From this vantage ground Corsar Bey roved the land, plundering and
killing defenseless people; if he fell upon an army he ordered his
Spahis and Bedouins to turn about while he, taking advantage of the
mountain paths, fled to his castle with the booty loaded on beasts of
burden, the Timariots, stationed in reserve, made a barricade of trees
and stoned to death those who dared follow into the valleys.

Sometimes he allowed his pursuers to follow him close to the castle,
and while they shot at the walls of cliff with their small cannon
dragged up with the utmost difficulty, and thought to starve him out,
he would play the trick on them of bursting out from some subterranean
passage to rob and burn in their rear. Every attempt to surprise him,
to surround him, was in vain. The inhabitants of the surrounding
villages began to withdraw to more remote places to escape this
frightful neighborhood.

After the battle of St. Gotthard, (1664) in w