text:  The outposts were not less carefully strengthened than the body of the place--a rampart with bastions (called in the reports of the garrison _the Turkish Wall_) was carried along some high ground on the isthmus from sea to sea to guard against an attack on the land side--the lofty rocky islet of Seerah immediately off the town was covered with watchtowers and batteries--and several of those enormous guns with the effect of which the English became practically acquainted at the passage of the Dardanelles in 1807 were mounted on the summit of the precipices to command the seaward approach; and when Lieutenant Wellsted was at Aden those huge pieces of ordnance was lying neglected on the beach; and he asked Sultan Mahassan why he did not cut them up for the sake of the metal which is said to contain a considerable intermixture of silver; "but he replied with more feeling than could have been anticipated that he was unwilling to deprive Aden of the only remaining sign of its former greatness and strength