[228] 'One pound of oatmeal and 1 lb. of tallow served a man a week, sometimes salt hides. It was as bad as Samaria, only we had no pidgens' Dunge. I saw two shillings a quarter given for a little dog, horse blood at 4_d._ per pint, all the starch was eaten, the graves of tallow, horse flesh was a rarity, and still we resolved to hold out ... I believe there died 15,000 men, women, and children, many of whom died for want. A great fever--all the children died, almost whole families, nor one left alive.' Narrative of George Holmes in _Le Fleming Papers_, p. 265. Macpherson i. 312. [229] Walker and Mackenzie. _Light to the Blind._ The written opinions of Hamilton and his council of war are in Macpherson, i. 217. James's letter of July 22 ordering the siege to be turned into a blockade, _ib._ p. 218. Roche's story is in Harris's _Life of William III._, appx. xxix., and see Cal. of Treasury Papers, February 14, 1693-4. Writing to Louis XIV., August 4/14, Avaux says: 'L'estacade était si mal faite qu'elle n'a pas resisté aux chaloupes qui remorquaient les deux petits bastiments qui portaient des vivres, et nous avons déjà sceu plus d'une fois que cette estacade se rompait souvent par le vent; et par la seule force de la marée.' Though the Rev. James Gordon can scarcely be credited with the relief of Londonderry, his local knowledge may have been useful to Kirke, or rather to Rooke and Leake: Reid's _Presbyterian Hist._, ed. Killen, ii. 387 and notes. Pointis, who was destined to meet Leake again in later years, gave a description of the boom (to Seignelay, probably), which he thought he had made very strong, State Papers, _Domestic_, June 13, 1689. It was partly attached to a great stone, which may still be seen, though moved from its original place, in the grounds of Boom Hall, and partly to a great tree, of which the stump remains. [230] Walker and Mackenzie. Avaux to Louis XIV., August 4/14. McCarmick. There is an independent account by George Holmes, who was all through the siege and was made a major by Kirke; it is dated from Strabane, November 16, _Le Fleming Papers_, p. 264. [231] Hamilton and McCarmick. [232] Hamilton and McCarmick. [233] McCarmick. [234] The roads through the boggy flats of upper Lough Erne were paved. Mr. Thomas Plunkett, of Enniskillen, who knows more than anyone of the subject, has found some bits of these causeways, but the exact line taken by Wolseley and Berry cannot now be traced. The drainage works at Belleek have done much to dry the country.