No such works were undertaken in the 19thcentury, but European travelers who visited the town stated that it was  well maintained thanksto the revenue of the habus/ waqf property(an inalienable charitable endow under Islamic law);that it was in good condition, armed with some twenty large-caliber cannons and occupied by a garrison. The monument, transformed into a barracks after 1881, deteriorated enormously in 1893; the terraces and a section of the eastern curtain wall collapsed. They were not restored until 1900.

As it stands today, the monument forms a distorted square with 50-metre sides, flanked at the corners by four projections of unequal shape and size. With the exception of the Hafsid oblong tower, which is higher than the curtain wall and consists of two defense chambers, all the bastions and curtain walls date from the 16thand 17thcenturies. A single doorway, topped by a machicolation (a projecting window), leads into a double-angled corridor where a commemorative inscription dating from 1600 may be seen. The curtain walls (12 m high and 6 m thick) are mostly built of rammed earth reinforced by a rubble stone facing wall. The courtyard is lined with cells that were previously used as prison cells and store rooms, which have been extensively altered. In the middle of the courtyard stands the mausoleum of Sidi Buali, a holy war volunteer of late15thcentury. Not far from there was the tomb of the Dey Ali Laz, who was executed in 1673 following the rebellion he led against the ruling Bey Murad II.