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There is an outer wall, surrounding the solid structure of Hadrian's tomb; to which there is access by one or two drawbridges; the entrance to the tomb, or castle, not being at the base, but near its central height.
Our duties were no trifling ones, let me assure you. The Tower, as a place of military strength, was well looked after by the Regiment of Foot Guards and the Companies of Artillery that did garrison duties on its ramparts and the foot of its drawbridges; but to us was confided a charge much more onerous, and the custody of things much more precious.
Angelina, the morning after her arrival at the Bush, took a hackney-coach, and left the care of directing the coachman to Betty Williams, who professed to have a perfect knowledge of Bristol. Betty desired the man to drive to the drawbridge; and, at the sound of the word drawbridge, various associations of ideas with the drawbridges of ancient times were called up in Miss Warwick's imagination.
We landed in a harbour, where we found a village built like Venice upon the water: there were about 44 large dwellings in the form of huts erected upon very thick piles, and they had their doors or entrances in the style of drawbridges: and from each house one could pass through all, by means of the drawbridges, which stretched from house to house: and when the people thereof had seen us, they appeared to be afraid of us, and immediately drew up all the bridges: and while we were looking at this strange action, we saw coming across the sea about 22 canoes, which are a kind of boats of theirs, constructed from a single tree: which came toward our boats, as they had been surprized by our appearance and clothes, and kept wide of us: and thus remaining, we made signals to them that they should approach us, encouraging them with every token of friendliness: and seeing that they did not come, we went to them, and they did not stay for us, but made to the land, and, by signs, told us to wait, and that they should soon return: and they went to a bill in the background, and did not delay long: when they returned, they led with them 16 of their girls, and entered with these into their canoes, and came to the boats: and in each boat they put four of the girls.
Finally Marcos passed through the wide Calle de San Ignacio to the drawbridges across the double fosse, where the rope-makers are always at work, walking backwards with an ever decreasing bundle of hemp at their waists and one eye cocked upwards towards the roadway so that they know all who come and go better even than the sentry at the gate.
He had spent great sums in strengthening it all June and July and August, in making walls, and bastions, and moats, and drawbridges, trenches, and breast-works, and barriers, and many a portcullis of iron, and a great tower of stones, hewn foursquare. Never had he shut the gate there for fear of attack. The castle stands on a high hill and below it runs Thames.
The station lies in the plain across which the railway meanders like a stream. Both bridges across the Arga are commanded, as is the railway station, by the guns of the city. Every approach is covered by artillery. The sun was rising as the Sarrions' carriage slowly climbed the incline and clanked across the double drawbridges into the city.
The admiral, however, was not to be caught, and he had good reason to congratulate himself that he did not accept it, when it was reported that the Japanese intended as soon as he and the envoy had got inside the castle to lift the drawbridges and to send word on board the squadron that should a shot be fired the prisoners would be instantly beheaded.
We passed through several concentric lines of fortifications, walls, moats, drawbridges, and sloping earthen embankments, in which cart-loads of balls, impelled with all the force which powder can give, would sink and be lost.
Mantua lies on an island, being cut off on all sides from the main land by the branches of the Mincio, and approachable only by five narrow causeways, of which three were defended by strong and regular fortresses or entrenched camps, the other two by gates, drawbridges, and batteries. Situated amidst stagnant waters and morasses, its air is pestilential, especially to strangers.
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