Voyage dans la Grèce, Vol II

Prishtina is a city of one thousand five hundred lights. The muddy roads, the small trade, the misery of the inhabitants and the government of the bloodthirsty Maliq Pasha, who was in command there at that time, gave this city special features of horror and terror. I did not see fit to visit this Arnaout, the sworn enemy of the Christians, who had returned to his lair a few days before, after an expedition against the Kersals, the most famous robbers of Rumelia. Some workers were busy with his [Malik Pasha] orders in the fortification of the city, which they believed was threatened by the Russians. The villagers, who were working as a bridge, had dug a ditch of earth ten feet wide and six feet deep, behind which was erected a fence made of bunches of thorns planted vertically and reinforced with posts. The Turks, amazed at this masterpiece, asked me if the country thus fortified had not become impregnable; and I answered in such a way that these big bearded children liked the answer.

Pouqueville, François (1820). Voyage dans la Grèce, companding la description ancienne et moderne de l'Épire, de l'Illyrie grecque. Paris: Firmin Didot, p. 479. Printed material. (Translation: Yll Rugova.)