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Updated: May 26, 2025
The fourth, that opposite to them, except at one place where a kind of natural causeway led into the town, was also defended by Nature, since here for more than fifty feet in height the granite rock of the base of the hill rose sheer and unclimbable.
Their features were tumbled, twisted, scarred unclimbable, one would have said, were it not that their faces were now pock-marked with caves like large sand-martin holes, wherein the men were resting or taking refuge from the sniping.
The average size of these huts was about twenty feet long by twelve feet wide and eight feet high to the eaves; but there were others about fifty of them altogether surrounded by and cut off from the rest by a high and stout palisade the points of the palisades being sharpened, in order, as I took it, to render the fence unclimbable which were not only considerably larger and more substantial in point of construction, but which, as I afterward had opportunity to observe, evidenced some rude attempt at decoration in the form of grotesquely carved finials affixed to the roofs.
For as they pressed on toward the interior they first sighted another line of blockhouses, considerably larger and more substantially constructed than the first, each perched upon a commanding knoll and completely surrounded by a stout, lofty, and practically unclimbable stockade; then they saw a few cattle dotted about, grazing, under the protection of quite a strong force of armed men, similar in all respects to the individual whom they had first sighted.
To land there would be to enter a defile without first crowning the heights. Between Gaba Tepe and Cape Helles, the point of the Peninsula, the coastline consists of cliffs from 100 to 300 feet high. But there are, in many places, sandy strips at their base. Opinions differ but I believe myself the cliffs are not unclimbable.
The guns were brought into action well ahead of the roads, and were man-hauled for considerable distances. Two howitzers and one field gun were kept up with the infantry on the first day of the advance where no horses could get a foothold, and the manner in which the gunners hauled the guns through deep ravines and up seemingly unclimbable hills constituted a wonderful physical achievement.
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