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Schirer's shop in Queen Street, and other gunsmiths' establishments. Finally, the State arsenal in Meeting Street, a building with no defences except ordinary wooden doors, was to be seized early in the outbreak. Provided, therefore, that the first moves proved successful, all the rest appeared sure.
He would be a very queer individual who would not be affected by such sincerity; and I told them so, and feelingly. Then Moore showed me the attack and its two defences; and I practiced them with him until I had them perfectly at command. "What would be my chances against Lotzen?" I asked. "You could kill him easily," said Moore. "Only, be careful of his play in tierce; he is very strong in that."
By this time the hasty defences were well-nigh completed, and all the men were employed in cutting down the thick brushwood outside, so as to clear the ground as far as possible, and so prevent the enemy from stealing up, under shelter, to the felled trees. Three cannon were planted, to sweep the road that descended through the pines. Another was dragged up to the ridge of the hill.
The port of Haarlem on the Y was at the village of Sparendam, where there was a fort for the protection of the shipping. Haarlem was one of the largest cities of the Netherlands; but it was also one of the weakest. The walls were old, and had never been formidable. The extent of the defences made a large garrison necessary; but the force available for the defence was small indeed.
The Egyptian Labour Corps had not yet arrived on the scenes and the digging of the Kantara defences consequently devolved upon the white troops. This meant six hours' digging almost every day for almost every man, divided into a morning and an afternoon shift. Now sand is admittedly nice easy stuff to dig in, you do not need a pick, and can fill your shovel without exertion.
By McDowell's going to Gloucester, Washington would have been wholly at the mercy of an army of thirty to forty thousand men; the celebrated defences of Washington, this result of the united wisdom of Scott and McClellan, facilitating to the rebel army a raid on Washington.
They consisted in part of defences within the city, designed apparently to secure it against an enemy who should enter by the river, in part of hydraulic works intended to obstruct the advances of an army by the usual route. The river had hitherto flowed in its natural bed through the middle of the town.
And how is it that one arm of the national defences of a Republic comes to be ruled by a Turkish code, whose every section almost, like each of the tubes of a revolving pistol, fires nothing short of death into the heart of an offender?
There were a few Krupp guns, but the remainder consisted of muzzleloaders of an ancient pattern; most of the latter were mounted upon parapets of masonry. It may be said that the defences of San Juan were opposed to every theory of modern military science. The defenses might have been considered impregnable some fifty years or so ago, but to-day they are by no means formidable.
On another occasion it fell to my lot to inspect some of the defences of the Dardanelles, and I found it could best be done from the seaward. This involved my taking passage in an old grain steamer running between Odessa and Liverpool, and my voyage in her was one of the most charming and original that it has been my lot to take.
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