The town, containing fifteen thousand inhabitants, stood on a bold table-land on which a number of valleys opened, and where the great roads, coming from St. Jean Pied de Port, Sanguessa, Tudela, Estella, Vittoria, and Irurzun, were concentrated. The northern and eastern fronts of the fortress were covered by the Arga, and the defences there consisted of simple walls edging the perpendicular rocky bank of the river, but the other fronts were regularly fortified with ditches, covered way, and half-moons. Two bad unfinished outworks were constructed on the south front, but the citadel which stood on the south west was a regular pentagon, with bomb-proofs and magazines, vaulted barracks for a thousand men, and a complete system of mines. Pampeluna had been partially blockaded by Mina for eighteen months previous to the battle of Vittoria, and when Joseph arrived after the action, the place was badly provisioned. The stragglers of his army increased the garrison to something more than three thousand five hundred men of all arms, who were immediately invested by the allies. Many of the inhabitants went off during the short interval between the king’s arrival and departure, and general Cassan, finding his troops too few for action and yet too many for the food, abandoned the two outworks on the south, demolished everything which could interfere with his defence outside, and commenced such works as he deemed necessary to improve it inside. Moreover foreseeing that the French army might possibly make a sudden march without guns to succour the garrison, he prepared a field-train of forty pieces to meet the occasion. [Sidenote: July.] It has been already shown that Wellington, although at first inclined to besiege Pampeluna, finally established a blockade and ordered works of contravallation to be constructed. Cassan’s chief object was then to obtain provisions, and on the 28th and 30th of June he sustained actions outside the place to cover his foragers. On the 1st of July he burned the suburb of Madalina, beyond the river Arga, and forced many inhabitants to quit the place before the blockaders’ works were completed. Skirmishes now occurred almost daily, the French always seeking to gather the grain, and vegetables which were ripe and abundant beyond the walls, and the allies endeavouring to set fire to the standing corn within range of the guns of the fortress. On the 14th of July, O’Donnel’s Andalusians were permanently established as the blockading force, and the next day the garrison made a successful forage on the south side of the town. This operation was repeated towards the east beyond the Arga on the 19th, when a sharp engagement of cavalry took place, during which the remainder of the garrison carried away a great deal of corn.