We drove on, merely showing our passport to the sentries at the different
bridges, until we reached the gate, where we had to pun up until the
officer on duty appeared, and had scrupulously compared our personal
appearance with the written description. All was found correct, and we
drove on.
It surprised me very much, after having repeatedly heard of the great
strength of Hamburgh, to look out on the large mound of green turf that
constituted its chief defence.
It is all true that there was a deep ditch and glacis beyond; but there
was no covered way, and both the scarp and counterscarp were simple
earthen embankments; so that, had the ditch been filled up with fascines,
there was no wall to face the attacking force after crossing it,--nothing
but a green mound, precipitous enough, certainly, and crowned with a low
parapet of masonry, and bristling with batteries about half way down, so
that the muzzles of the guns were flush with the neighbouring country
beyond the ditch. Still there was wanting, to my imagination, the
strength of the high perpendicular wall, with its gaping embrasures, and
frowning cannon. All this time it never occurred to me, that to breach
such a defence as that we looked upon was impossible. You might have
plumped your shot into it until you had converted it into an iron mine,
but no chasm could have been forced in it by all the artillery in Europe;
so battering in a breach was entirely out of the question, and this, in
truth, constituted the great strength of the place.
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