I should think that
the enclosure must be acres and acres. There is a modern part,
which took all our garrison, women, children, stores, and
everything else, with plenty of room over. But the modern part
is nothing like the size of the old quarter, where nobody goes,
and which is given over to the scorpions and the centipedes. It
is all full of great deserted halls, and winding passages, and
long corridors twisting in and out, so that it is easy enough for
folk to get lost in it. For this reason it was seldom that any
one went into it, though now and again a party with torches might
go exploring.
"The river washes along the front of the old fort, and so
protects it, but on the sides and behind there are many doors,
and these had to be guarded, of course, in the old quarter as
well as in that which was actually held by our troops. We were
short-handed, with hardly men enough to man the angles of the
building and to serve the guns. It was impossible for us,
therefore, to station a strong guard at every one of the
innumerable gates. What we did was to organize a central guard-
house in the middle of the fort, and to leave each gate under the
charge of one white man and two or three natives.
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