The text describes Kamenets. First of all, the location of the town in the context of the Smotrycz River is recounted, followed by the issue of fortifications, and the history of the buildings in the town. The Kamieniec castle is also mentioned, and its buildings are described in detail (Source: Tygodnik Illustrowany, Warsaw 1866, T:14, pp. 292-293, after: Digital Library of the University of Łódź).

A modernised reading of the text

Description of Kamieniec.

Kamieniec is built on a conical rock, surrounded on all sides by the Smotrycz River. The rock has an elliptical base, and the banks of the river surrounding it are sloping but high on the side of the town, and on the opposite side - rocky, vertically elevated 30 or even 40 fathoms above the surface of the water, which flows here in the form of a faint stream. The river flows into Kamieniec from the west, and as it reaches the town, it bends at an angle, goes towards the north, drains the eastern and southern parts of the town, and as it approaches the west, it bends down at an angle in the same way.

The space between these two knees is very small, as it is only 6 to 8 fathoms. It should be added here that the upper bend lies 4½ fathoms higher than the lower one and that the two knees were separated before 1672 by a rather large, sharp-edged rock which was the only dry passage from the fortress to the town. The Koryatovich dukes considered this place to be the weakest and the most accessible; therefore the rock opposite the old Petridava was considered the most suitable for fortification in ancient times and a castle stood on it for a long time.

The local fortifications can be divided into a fortification on the west bank of the river and a town fortification. Although we do not have any sources which would allow us to show the gradual changes in both parts of the fortress, whether caused by the need or by the progress in the art of siege warfare, it is easy to have an idea of the fortress from 1672 from what remains today.

A little embellishment and decoration may have been added in the 18th century, but nothing more - only the so-called Turkish bridge needs to be added. The town itself, as mentioned above, was surrounded by a wall, double in some points, and closed by two gates. Next to them was a footbridge over the river, for pedestrians, called a trip, and a small round tower with loopholes defended it from the outskirts.

Only the remains of this gate survived, as time and water ruined it properly. Time was even kinder to the water, which rose quite high here during the Smotrich floods. One such flood is remembered in March 1649 and completely ruined one of the gates. Other floods, no less famous, occurred in 1805, 1806, 1829 and 1865. Legend has it that there was once a chapel here, and since 1763 a picture of St Anne has hung on one of the walls, belonging to the cathedral altar of the same name.

The two gates in the western part of the city were a kind of small fortresses. Like that gate, both consisted of four bastions joined together by a building equipped with rifles, and the passage itself, the gate proper, was a turret also duly armed. The door closing this passage was let down from the second floor by means of a separate device, still fully preserved today. The southern and eastern parts of the town were the most accessible.

The bank of the Smotryč river in Kamenets is sloping and flat, but on the other side it is high and rocky; it is impossible to descend it to the riverbed; therefore this part of the town was protected by double fortifications, moreover, the entrance to the riverbed was defended from the south-west by a rock separating its two knees, a fortification called a trip, ending in a bastion on the other side of the river adjacent to the rock. In the wall around the town one can still count five bastions, apart from the gate bastions, half demolished, shooting upwards with torn and cracked sides.

Of the town's fortifications, the most impressive is the tower; it is a seven-storey building, still quite well preserved. The Kamenets castle is located on the opposite side of the Smotrich River. Let us not forget that before the era of Turkish rule, there was no bridge here at all, so the passage was defended from the side of the town by a regular bastion (where the gate is today) and a hexagonal bastion, somewhat higher than that (on the present boulevard, namely on the upper storey).

When the Turks took Kamenets, they demolished this bastion, but built a round tower higher up on the site of the Carmelite church, knocked out a gate in the bastion above it and connected it with the tower on the opposite side of the river by a bridge. Starting from the tower on the right, we can see two walls, between which the road to Žvanněc is now carried out; however, to get to the suburb, one still has to pass through two gates. One of them, a faint one, is distinguished by its beautiful and light workmanship, clad in a crown resting on a spire, one corner of which is let down on the pediment. But let us enter the fortress.

To the left of the bridge tower, a road leads ilo the old castle. Straight ahead we are greeted by a quadrangular building with balls artificially set into the wall: this is the front bastion, built back in 1544, which still houses a well. Next to it is a tower with an eastern roof, reminiscent of Turkish buildings, built on the site of two bastions which the famous German commander of the garrison, having ignited the ashes beneath him, blew up, preferring to die amidst the rubble rather than surrender to the Turks.

Continuing through the gate, we enter a long, elliptical courtyard, girded by a wall and decorated with towers. These towers, round, grey and sad, adorned with the coats of arms and insignia of the papacy and the bishop, seem to stand over the precipice in silent reflection, dreaming of their former greatness. The third tower is mentioned to have been erected by Krzesław of Kurozwêki at his own expense. The fourth tower, the widest one, opposite the entrance gate, used to be the castle chapel of Michael the Archangel; it was built by Mikołaj Brzeski.

The fifth one, which is white because the plaster has not fallen off yet, bears, like the first one, the insignia of the bishop's dignity (a cross, a mitre), and the same is true of the seventh one, the only difference being that next to the insignia mentioned above, the Habdanek coat of arms is quite clearly carved in the hewn stone (perhaps it was founded by Buczacki, who used this heraldic sign). In this courtyard, before the time of Turkish rule, there was a church dedicated to St. Stanislav; the Muslims converted it into a mosque.

After the Ottomans left, it crumbled into ruins; only the statue of St. Roch standing in front of it survived all the changes of fate and today adorns the lonely and secluded courtyard of the Potrinitarian church. Next to the fourth tower, the semicircular wall was lined with cannons, and the entrance was via a drawbridge (which still existed before 1820) to the so-called new castle, which consisted only of ramparts and moats, filled with water when necessary.