ils and privations would cease, at least for a time, with repeated and
continued volleys of cannon and musquetry, accompanied with shouts of
exultation. But these shouts subsided on a nearer approach, on finding
this once powerful city of Sennaar to be almost nothing but heaps of
ruins, containing in some of its quarters some few hundreds of habitable
but almost deserted houses. After the camp was pitched, and I had
refreshed myself with a little food, I took a walk about the town. At
almost every step I trod upon fragments of burnt bricks, among which are
frequently to be found fragments of porcelain, and sometimes marble. The
most conspicuous buildings in Sennaar are a mosque, and a large
brick palace adjoining it. The mosque, which is of brick, is in good
preservation; its windows are covered with well wrought bronze gratings,
and the doors are handsomely and curiously carved. The interior was
desecrated by uncouth figures of animals, portrayed upon the walls
with charcoal. This profanation had been perpetrated by the Pagan
mountaineers who inhabit the mountains thirteen days march south of
Sennaar, and who, at some period, not very long past, had taken
the town, and had left upon the walls of the mosque these tokens of
possession.

The palace is large, but in ruins, except the centre building, which is
six stories high, having five rows of windows.[53] By mounting upon its
roof you have the best possible view of the city, the river, and the
environs, that the place can afford. I judged that Sennaar was about
three miles in circumference. The greater part of this space is now
covered with the ruins of houses, built of bricks either burnt or dried
in the sun. I do not believe that there are more than four hundred
houses standing in Sennaar and of these one-third or more are round
cottages, like those of the villages. Of those built of bricks, the
largest is the house of the Sultan. It is a large enclosure, containing
ranges of low but well built habitations of sun-dried bricks, with
terraced roofs, and the interior stuccoed with fine clay. What struck me
the most, was the workmanship of the doors of the old houses of Sennaar,
which are composed of planed and jointed planks, adorned frequently with
carved work, and strengthened and studded with very broad headed nails;
the whole inimitable by the present population of Sennaar. These houses
are very rarely of more than one story in height, the roofs terraced
with fine a