But to hold the city it was necessary that the defences should be repaired. Well might Sale look with dismay at their condition, and almost regard it as a wild hope ever to look for the completion of the work that he had marked out for his little garrison. “I found the walls of Jellalabad,” he said, “in a state which might have justified despair as to the possibility of defending them. The _enceinte_ was far too extensive for my small force, embracing a circumference of upwards of 2300 yards. Its tracing was vicious in the extreme; it had no parapet excepting for a few hundred yards, which, there, was not more than two feet high earth; and rubbish had accumulated to such an extent about the ramparts, that there were roads in various directions across and over them into the country. There was a space of 400 yards together, on which none of the garrison could show themselves excepting at one spot: the population within was disaffected, and the whole _enceinte_ was surrounded by ruined forts, walls, mosques, tombs, and gardens, from which a fire could be opened upon the defenders at twenty and thirty yards.”[216] The first thing now to be done was to appoint a committee of officers to examine and report upon the works of the place. On the 13th of November, Captain Broadfoot, who commanded the corps of sappers, with some other officers, went round the dilapidated works. Broadfoot alone succeeded in making the circuit of them. “Large gaps cut off the communication, or insecure footing compelled the officers to descend among the adjoining enclosures, from which it was difficult to find the way; whilst on the south side the rampart was so embedded in houses and surrounded by them, that its course could only be traced by laboriously threading the lanes of the native town. On the north side the wall rose to a very great height _towards the town_, but sloped down to the exterior in a heap of ruins almost everywhere accessible; while at the foot were houses and gardens so strongly occupied by the enemy, that during the night of the 13th of November our troops were unable to maintain their posts; and with the exception of the gateway, a line of four hundred yards on the northern face was without a man on the works. Had the enemy then attacked us, we must have been reduced to a street combat.”[217]