There was a thick and high exterior wall of mud, with a
banquette for infantry protected by a parapet. Inside this wall was a dry
ditch forty feet wide, on the inner brink of which was the long range of
barrack-rooms. Along the interior front of the barrack-rooms was a
verandah faced with arches supported by pillars, its continuity broken
occasionally by broad staircases conducting to the roof of the barracks,
which afforded a second line of defence. The closing in of the verandah
would of course give additional barrack accommodation, but there were
quarters in the barrack-rooms for at least all the European troops. In
the southern face of the enciente were three gateways, and in the centre
of the western face there was a fourth, each gate covered adequately by a
curtain. Between each gate were semicircular bastions for guns. In the
interior there was space to manoeuvre a division of all arms. There was a
copious supply of water, and if the aspect of the great cantonment was
grim because of the absence of trees and the utter barrenness of the
enclosed space, this aesthetic consideration went for little against its
manifest advantages as snug and defensible winter quarters. Shere Ali had
indeed been all unconsciously a friend in need to the British force
wintering in the heart of that unfortunate potentate's dominions.
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