View PDF version of this page

lull EXCERPTA CYPRIA. On the 27th onr galleys captured a Turkish palandm with the pay of the camp; and on the 29th the same galleys took a Turkish vessel full of ammunition and victuals. On February 16 the twelve galleys ami seven ships left for Candia. The Christians held a general ranster, and reckoned in all four thousand infantry, eight hundred Cernide, three thousand citizens and peasants, and two hundred Albanians. With greater diligence than ever they set to fortifying themselves on every side, the whole garrison, the city and the very chiefs working and shrinking from no toil to encourage the rest. Night and day the posts were visited, to see that the city was guarded with all watchfulness. No sallies were made, except now and then to get news of the enemy. While these precautions were taken within, with no less zeal the enemy without was collecting everything necessary for storming the fortress, sacks of wool, carnages for the guns, labourers' tools and the like, which were brought over in vast quantities and with great promptness from Caramania and Syria. On March 14 five Turkish galleys were wrecked by a storm within the harbour: on the other hand on the 22nd a magazine of cotton, close to our powder store, took fire. At the beginning of April, Ali Pasha came with perhaps eighty galleys, and brought over what the enemy still required. He sailed again, leaving thirty which kept crossing over with men, ammunition, stores, and every other necessary. Nor have I reckoned a large number of caramussaliiii, lighters and paiawlre which were ever going and coming to antl from the neighbouring ports, making rapid voyages through fear of the Christian fleet. In the middle of April they brought fifteen pieces of artillery from Nicosia, and shifting their ground they dug fosses and trenches and encamped in the gardens, some of them going further to the west beyond a place called Precipolla. On the 16th the enemy held a general parade, and from the city the defenders fired two shots with a culverin of sixty pounds, which readied their host and did no small damage. On the 26th they began to make fresh trenches, and to dig fosses for their musketeers, one close to another, creeping up in such a way that nothing could be done to prevent them, and working incessantly, for the most part at night, with forty thousand pioneers. When the defenders saw the plan of the enemy, and where they contemplated their attack, they did all they possibly could to strengthen the position. A strong guard was kept posted in the covered way of the counter-scarp and in the salleyports to defend the counterscarp, new flanks were dug out, traverses were made on the platforms; and all along the wall where it sustained the Turkish fire a trench was made of brick, two feet high and of the same breadth, with loopholes for the musketeers who defentled the counterscarp. Signor Bragadino looked after these matters in person, with Signor Estor Baglione. The order throughout was excellent: all the braad for the soldiers was made in one place under the care of the Captain of Baffo, Messer Lorenzo Tiepolo, who spared neither himself nor others in the work. Li the citadel was M. Andrea Bragadino, who was carefully guarding the side towards the sea, arranging and digging out new Hanks to defend the parts about the Arsenal. Cav. Fuoito was captain of the artillery: he fell about this timo in a skirmish, and his company was given to Count Nestor Martinengo. Three captains were told off to superintend the fireworks, each with twenty men to handle the grenades. All the serviceable men were brought over to the side where the cannonade was expected, and mantlets were provided for all the embrasures. Frequent sorties were made on different sides to harass the enemy, and great loss was thus inflicted on them. In one, three hundred men of FamagostA, with swords and shiolds, and as many Italian musketeers, went forth, but the Christian loss was very heavy, for the enemy's trenches were too close together, and although the Turks were put to flight and many of them were slain, they came on in such numbers that onr side lost thirty killed and sixty wounded, and it was

View PDF version of this page