and to fill them afterwards, and none could fight more manfully or
plunder friend and foe with greater cheerfulness of impartiality than did
those islanders.

The problem which the archduke had set himself to solve was not an easy
one. He was to reduce a town, which he could invest and had already
succeeded very thoroughly in investing on the land aide, but which was
open to the whole world by sea; while the besieged on their part could
not only rely upon their own Government and people, who were more at home
on the ocean than was any nation in the world, but upon their alliance
with England, a State hardly inferior in maritime resources to the
republic itself.

On the western side, which was the weakest, his progress was from the
beginning the more encouraging, and his batteries were soon able to make
some impression upon the outer works, and even to do considerable damage
to the interior of the town. In the course of a few months he had fifty
siege-guns in position, and had constructed a practicable road all around
the place, connecting his own fortifications on the west and south with
those of Bucquoy on the east.

Albert's leading thought however was to cut off the supplies. The freaks
of nature, as already observed, combined with his own exertions, had
effectually disposed of the western harbour as a means of ingress. The
tide ebbed and flowed through the narrow channel, but it was clogged with
sand and nearly, dry at low water. Moreover, by an invention then
considered very remarkable, a foundation was laid for the besiegers'
forts and batteries by sinking large and deep baskets of wicker-work,
twenty feet in length, and filled with bricks and sand, within this
abandoned harbour. These clumsy machines were called sausages,21 and