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Ostend had been completely rebuilt and fortified eighteen years previously, and was defended by ramparts, counterscarps, and two broad ditches. The sand hills between it and the sea were cut through, and the water filled the ditches and surrounded the town. To the south the country was intersected by a network of canals.
Very right, Trim, quoth my uncle Toby, but you do not consider, Trim, that the towers, in Solomon's days, were not such things as our bastions, flanked and defended by other works; this, Trim, was an invention since Solomon's death; nor had they horn-works, or ravelins before the curtin, in his time; or such a fosse as we make with a cuvette in the middle of it, and with covered ways and counterscarps pallisadoed along it, to guard against a Coup de main: So that the seven men upon the tower were a party, I dare say, from the Corps de Garde, set there, not only to look out, but to defend it.
On the 5th of July, 1601, the Archduke Albert began the siege of Ostend with 20,000 men and 50 siege-guns. Ostend had been completely rebuilt and fortified eighteen years previously, and was defended by ramparts, counterscarps, and two broad ditches. The sand-hills between it and the sea were cut through, and the water filled the ditches and surrounded the town.
There was no longer any safety anywhere! In his alarm the professor wanted for his protection quite a fortification! Yes! Stone walls with scarps and counterscarps, curtains and bastions, and ramparts, for what was the use of a shelter under a group of sequoias? Above all things, he would at all risks, like to be off. "So would I," answered Godfrey quietly.
We passed through much striking scenery, perhaps the finest point being a magnificent Gap in the hills, guarded and defined by three colossal headlands, one of them a vast long rampart, the other two gigantic counterscarps.
Then was heard a great noise of fagots being removed and of the groaning of posts; these were the counterscarps and bastions of Athos, which the besieged himself demolished. An instant after, the broken door was removed, and the pale face of Athos appeared, who with a rapid glance took a survey of the surroundings. D'Artagnan threw himself on his neck and embraced him tenderly.
The noble city of Ghent then as large as Paris, thoroughly surrounded with moats, and fortified with bulwarks, ravelins, and counterscarps, constructed of earth, during the previous two years, at great expense, and provided with bread and meat, powder and shot, enough to last a year was ignominiously surrendered.
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