These citations of economies were timely, for 34,298 pesos had already been spent upon the new fort, and still it was no more protection than a haphazard pile of stone. Nor was the old fort any defense. If an artilleryman had the temerity to touch his match to a cannon, the sparks from the explosion might well set the timber walls afire. The enemy at Charleston was not 70 leagues away; his 200 fighting men outnumbered the effectives in the Spanish garrison, while, according to the reports of English deserters, Charleston was rather well defended by a stockade fort mounting about 20 guns. With characteristic realism Don Pablo set about making his own fortification defensible. The bastion of San Carlos—the northeast salient of the castillo—was the nearest to completion. Salazar concentrated on finishing it, so that cannon could be mounted on its deck or terreplein. While the masons were busy at that work, the Governor took his soldiers and demolished the old wooden fort, using the best of its wood to build a palisade across the open west end of the castillo so that the garrison, if need be, would be surrounded by a protecting four walls. In the last half of 1675 building went ahead with remarkable rapidity. Not only did Salazar complete San Carlos (except for a section of parapet where building materials were hauled in), but he raised the three stone walls to their full height; and his wooden palisade on the west looked as strong as the other curtains or walls, for he built it with two half bastions, faced it with a veneer of stone, and dug a ditch in front of it. Inside the fortification, both carpenters and masons worked on temporary buildings. A small, semicircular powder magazine was built near the north curtain. A long, narrow, wooden structure, partitioned into guardhouses, lieutenant’s quarters, armory, and provision magazine, soon took shape behind the western palisade. Only one permanent room had been started, and that was the powder magazine—later destined to become the “dungeon”—in the gorge of San Carlos. Salazar lost no time in completing this magazine and building a ramp over it to give access to the fighting deck above. At San Agustín bastion on the southeastern corner the peons dumped hundreds of baskets of sand and rubble between the enclosing walls to fill them up to the 25-foot level. Then a few of the guns from the old fort were mounted in San Carlos and San Agustín and along the palisade. After 5 years of work the castillo was a defense in fact as well as name, and the people of the presidio could breathe more freely.