Having got his arm bound anew with wet dressings, he sought out the Quartermaster, and proceeded to accouter the Ravenel negroes, meanwhile chewing a breakfast of hard crackers. Then, meeting the Lieutenant who had directed him to Gazaway's quarters, and who proved to be the commandant of the Louisiana company, they made a tour of the ramparts together, doing their volunteer best to take in the military features of the flat surrounding landscape, and to decide upon the line of approach which the rebels would probably select in case of an assault. There was no cover except two or three wooden houses of such slight texture that they would afford no protection against shell or grape. The levee on the opposite side of the bayou might shelter sharpshooters, but not a column. They trained a twenty-four-pounder iron gun in that direction, and pointed the rest of the artillery so as to sweep the plain between the fort and a wood half a mile distant. The ditch was deep and wide, and well filled with water, but there was no abattis or other obstruction outside of it. The weakest front was toward the Mississippi, on which side the rampart was a mere bank not five feet in height, scarcely dominating the slope of twenty-five or thirty yards which stretched between it and the water. "I wish the river was higher--smack up to the fortifications," said the Louisiana lieutenant. "They can wade around them fences," he added, pointing to the palisades which connected the work with the river. This officer was not a Louisianian by birth, any more than the men whom he commanded. They were a medley of all nations, principally Irish and Germans, and he had begun his martial career as a volunteer in an Indiana regiment. He was chock full of fight and confidence; this was the only fort he had ever garrisoned, and he considered it almost impregnable; his single doubt was lest the assailants "might wade in around them fences." Colburne, remembering how Banks had been repulsed twice from inferior works at Port Hudson, also thought the chances good for a defence. Indeed, he looked forward to the combat with something like a vindictive satisfaction. Heretofore he had always attacked; and he wanted to fight the rebels once from behind a rampart; he wanted to teach them what it was to storm fortifications. If he had been better educated in his profession he would have found the fort alarmingly small and open, destitute as it was of bomb-proofs, casemates and traverses. The river showed no promise of succor; not a gunboat or transport appeared on its broad, slow, yellow current; not a friendly smoke could be seen across the flat distances. The little garrison, it seemed, must rely upon its own strength and courage. But, after taking a deliberate view of all the circumstances, Colburne felt justified in reporting to Major Gazaway that the fort could beat off as many Texans as could stand between it and the woods, which was the same as to say a matter of one