DON QUIXOTE

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the fort which Don John had left half built near Tunis. While all these
events were occurring, I was labouring at the oar without any hope of
freedom; at least I had no hope of obtaining it by ransom, for I was
firmly resolved not to write to my father telling him of my misfortunes.
At length the Goletta fell, and the fort fell, before which places there
were seventy-five thousand regular Turkish soldiers, and more than four
hundred thousand Moors and Arabs from all parts of Africa, and in the
train of all this great host such munitions and engines of war, and so
many pioneers that with their hands they might have covered the Goletta
and the fort with handfuls of earth. The first to fall was the Goletta,
until then reckoned impregnable, and it fell, not by any fault of its
defenders, who did all that they could and should have done, but because
experiment proved how easily entrenchments could be made in the desert
sand there; for water used to be found at two palms depth, while the
Turks found none at two yards; and so by means of a quantity of sandbags
they raised their works so high that they commanded the walls of the
fort, sweeping them as if from a cavalier, so that no one was able to