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Only when leaves fall and the light is low and slant, one sees the long clean flanks of the jackrabbits, leaping like small deer, and of late afternoons little cotton-tails scamper in the runways. But the most one sees of the burrowers, gophers, and mice is the fresh earthwork of their newly opened doors, or the pitiful small shreds the butcher-bird hangs on spiny shrubs.
He saw, too, south of the larger pyramids a great earthwork or citadel thirty or forty feet high enclosing a square in which stood a small pyramid. The walls of the earthwork were enormously thick, three hundred feet Ned reckoned, and upon it at regular intervals stood other small pyramids fourteen in number.
The country on the far side was open for more than a mile, affording not sufficient cover to shelter a rabbit, much less a man; and Jack was of opinion that a Maxim, mounted in a small earthwork which might be thrown up by a few men in less than an hour, would prove amply sufficient to defend the passage against any force that would be likely to be sent against them.
A brief description of some of the more noted cities of Afghanistan may be appropriate here. Sir Henry Rawlinson gives the following details respecting the so-called Key of India the city of Herat: "That which distinguishes Herat from all other Oriental cities, and at the same time constitutes its main defence, is the stupendous character of the earthwork upon which the city wall is built.
The lifting of the fog in the early light revealed the long scarlet lines of British veterans, in battle array. Surely it was only something to whet their appetites for breakfast, for such well-trained fighters to carry that low, mud earthwork. The bugle sounded, and the red-coated grenadiers and the kilted Highlanders moved steadily forward in columns.
As he spoke, a tongue of flame started up from one of the two vessels lying in the ice, close to the shore, and, almost simultaneously, flames shot up from among the boats drawn up on the beach. "That's redskin work," Nat exclaimed. "Come, lads," James cried, leaping down from the low earthwork into the ditch. "Let us save the boats, if we can."
Of the whole expense of building a railroad, where the country is to any considerable degree broken, the reduction of the natural surface to the required form for the road, that is, the earthwork, or, otherwise, the excavation and embankment, amounts to from thirty to seventy per cent. of the whole cost.
A single stage-plank lay thrust half out from her forward quarter. A sailor stood on its free end with a coil of small line. The crouching earthwork and its fierce guns glided toward them. Knots of idle cannoneers stood along its crest. A few came down to the water's edge, to whom Anna and Hilary, still paired alone, were a compelling sight. They lifted their smart red caps.
One of these reads: PRIVATE PROPERTY. Another is as follows: PRIVATE PROPERTY. Only an Earthwork. Strenuously as the club insisted upon exacting the full penalties and extent of the law for encroachments upon its privileges, it was quite heedless of the rights of others.
The general don't know how we're fixed " Extra Billy agreed with them. He rose in his stirrups, turned and nodded vigorous assent. "Of course you can't stand it, boys! You oughtn't to be expected to. It's all this infernal tactics and West P'int tomfoolery! Damn it, fire! and flush the game!" Edward laughed. From the fuss it was apparent that the abattis and earthwork had succumbed.
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