Bold men stand in rear of the opening and equally bold are they who work. With some certainty the range is known and but few shots or shells miss their mark. A ball of weighty metal strikes the embrasure, and makes a crevice to its centre, scattering the sand as in a sirocco. Another comes and gashes a well-formed cheek, blows away an angle or a shoulder, and topples into the space below, broken hide-bags from the crest and the earth that covers them. The concussion of our own guns assists to loosen the work and the hot fire of the artillerymen dries up the gabions rendering them less susceptible of resistance. These, ere long, woven with so much compactness, are broken up and strewn as in a wood-yard, and fascines unband and yield their bundles to choke up the gorge. One slope after another loses form and splay, fissures appear, stones rock and fall, and the structure totters on a few fragments. Still it bravely holds up in its ruggedness against a storm of fire. Another well-directed shell is delivered and its splinters knock everything to pieces. The feeble props at length are torn away, and all above, like an avalanche, slides upon the sole, which heaving with its own weakness gives way, and in part crumbles into the ditch. Necks, cheeks, and throat—all now have disappeared; and of the outline of that stern formation, nothing remains but a distorted mouth, with the broken wattle of gabions and the stakes of fascines sticking confusedly out along its extended jaw; and there, too, is the remnant of a sand-bag, caught upon a bending twig, waving lazily with the wind as if begging a truce.