The idea of capturing Tarifa did not appear by any means impracticable. This little decayed place of 6,000 souls had never been fortified in the modern style, and was surrounded by nothing more than a mediaeval wall eight feet thick, with square towers set in it at intervals. There was a citadel, the castle of Guzman El Bueno[108], but this, too, was a thirteenth-century building, and the whole place, though tenable against an enemy unprovided with artillery, was reckoned helpless against siege-guns. It is described by one of its defenders as ‘lying in a hole,’ for it was completely commanded by a range of low heights, at no greater distance than 300 yards from its northern front. In the sea, half a mile beyond it, was a rocky island, connected with the mainland by a very narrow strip of sand, which was well suited to serve as a final place of refuge for the garrison, and which had been carefully fortified. It was furnished with batteries, of which one bore on the sand-spit and the town: a redoubt (Santa Catalina) had been erected at the point where the isthmus joined the mainland: several buildings had been erected to serve as a shelter for troops, and a great series of caves (Cueva de los Moros) had been converted into casemates and store-rooms: they were perfectly safe against bombardment. In the eyes of many officers the island was the real stronghold, and the city was but an outwork to it, which might be evacuated without any serious damage to the strength of the defence. Nevertheless something had been done to improve the weak fortifications of the place: the convent of San Francisco, seventy yards from its northern point, had been entrenched and loopholed, to serve as a redoubt, and some of the square towers in the _enceinte_ had been strengthened and built up so as to bear artillery. The curtain, however, was in all parts far too narrow and weak to allow of guns being placed upon it, and there was no glacis and practically no ditch, the whole wall to its foot being visible from the heights which overlook the city on its eastern side. There were only twenty-six guns available, and of these part belonged to the defences of the island. In the town itself there were only two heavy guns mounted on commanding towers, six field-pieces (9-pounders) distributed along the various fronts, and four mortars. When the siege actually began, the main defence was by musketry fire. It was clear from the topography of Tarifa that its northern front, that nearest to and most completely commanded by the hills outside, would be the probable point of attack by the enemy; and long before the siege began preparations were made for an interior defence. The buildings looking on the back of the ramparts were barricaded and loopholed, the narrow streets were blocked with traverses, and some ‘entanglements’ were contrived with the iron window-bars requisitioned from all the houses of the town, which served as a sort of _chevaux de frise_.