التاريخ اليميني 19.36

19.36

When God had opened its gate and made its opening easy for him, he resolved to march against Khalaf, to cut out his disease, and to spare the elite and the common people the assaults of his cunning and guile. He was at that time in the fortress of al-Ṭāq, which is described as having seven ramparts with lofty walls, impregnable construction and firm foundations, surrounded by a moat of great depth, wide breadth and impassable crossing, which could be crossed only by [a single] narrow way over a bridge that was laid down when needed and raised when not. The Sultan encamped around it, encircling it on all sides as the circumference encircles the central point. He set about seeking, by deliberation, a stratagem for filling and packing that moat, so that horseman and foot-soldier might easily wade and cross it. Around his camp grew dense, tangled thickets of tamarisk and tamarix, so he required the people of his army, elite and common, foot and horse, to cut down as much of them as they could, in bundles and faggots to be fed into the breadth of the moat, so that the surface of the passage and crossing might be made level.