—was even longer than the lock itself, and each of its two ends measured two cubits. A key a cubit and a half long hung from the bolt, suspended by a chain eight cubits in length that was fixed in a ring like the ring of a mangonel.

The commander of those forts rides out every Friday with ten horsemen, each carrying an iron mace. With these maces they strike the lock three times; the blows are heard by those on the far side of the gate, who thereby know that the outer watch is still at its post, just as the watchers outside know that nothing has happened to the gate. After striking, they press their ears to it and hear a rumbling like thunder.

Near this spot stands a great fortress, and beside its gate are two others, each roughly two hundred cubits by two hundred. At the entrance of every fortress grows a tree, and between the two stands a sweet-water spring. In one of the forts the equipment used to build the barrier is still preserved—cauldrons, ladles, and lumps of leftover molten metal that have fused together with rust. Each brick measures a cubit and a half by the same, and is a span thick. We asked the local people whether they had ever seen Gog and Magog. They replied that they had once seen numbers of them on the battlements, but a black wind swept them over to the far side. Each of them, they said, was only a cubit and a half tall.

When we departed, the guides led us toward the region of Khurasan. We travelled until we emerged nine farsakhs beyond Samarkand, and the people of the forts had given us provisions enough for the journey.

We then came to ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ṭāhir. Salām the Interpreter continues: I informed him of our expedition, and he bestowed upon me one hundred thousand dirhams and upon every man with me five hundred dirhams. We returned to Samarra twenty-eight months after we had left it. The author of The Routes and Realms remarks: This is exactly as Salām the Interpreter dictated it to me.