Thus the enemy proceeded to ascend the slope until they succeeded in obtaining possession of the lookout and the height, where they immediately stationed more than three hundred white men; this gave opportunity for the rest of their men, five hundred more, to disembark and come to land. Then they set up their tents, in a place where they could store much food, and immediately sent ashore all their supplies, on the side from which it could not be seen from our forts. Afterward they also sent ashore much artillery and a mortar; of these pieces they carried two to the lookout station--cannons of eight and ten pound balls--and with other small pieces with which they bombarded us, not only in the stronghold, but in the great fort below. Their balls reached everything, on all sides, and everything was visible and uncovered from the lookout station; this was very evident, since a cannon-ball [struck] the parapet of the fosse belonging to the great fort, and passed on, carrying away a stone from the cavalier of San Sebastian in the same fort. Affairs being now in the said condition, we continued to make ready our retirade, [33] and were expecting that the enemy would begin with baskets [i.e., filled with earth] or would be fortified in some other manner in order to make an assault; but this did not occur, as they made no fort at the lookout, which would rise above the land about. However, on the side next the sea they made on the mountain a large esplanade, from which they fired the cannons; and, this done, they opened in the mountain itself two mouths, as it were, in the shape of trenches, through which they brought the cannons to bear, and bombarded us openly, while from our retirade we could not discover their men or more than barely see the mouths of the cannon in their artillery. After this manner the war lasted five days, until the day of the glorious apostle St. Bartholomew, the twenty-fourth of August, when they bombarded and overthrew the wall of our retirade--which we had finished building, but it was not finished inside, nor did it contain any lodgings. As the Dutchmen afterward said, they fired that day, with the two cannon and from the fleet, one hundred and eight times; it was so arranged that while the cannon were being loaded there was no cessation of firing from all the musketry--which they had stationed at the top of the lookout, in files, directing the men to shelter themselves behind the hill, and to load their muskets while the artillery was at work. This they did so incessantly that it seemed to be the Judgment Day; and they gave no respite to our men, who were few in number and worn out with fatigue.