From hence they marched for five days through a level country, where they met with no resistance. But now provisions again began to fail. There was no lack of food in the country, but the Taochians had taken care to store everything within their castles, which were strong, fortified places, always perched on the top of some rugged height. The Hellenes did not think it prudent to attack these castles, and in spite of their hunger, were forced to pass them by. On the sixth day however they came to a fortress which they were obliged to attack, for they were quite without food. It was built upon the edge of an overhanging cliff and beneath it was a river, and a road running beside the river. In this fortress all the men, women and children of the neighbourhood had assembled, together with their cattle, and had piled together great heaps of stones to hurl down upon the Hellenes. Having tried in vain to find some means of taking the place, Cheirisophus called a halt, and waited until Xenophon came up. In answer to his question as to why they were at a standstill, Cheirisophus replied, ‘The only approach to this place is by the road under the cliff, and the moment we attempt to pass, they hurl down stones upon us from above of which this is the result,’ and he pointed to some poor fellows lying on the ground whose legs and ribs had been broken. As usual, Xenophon had something to suggest. ‘It seems to me,’ he said, ‘that there are not many of them up there, and that it will not take long to exhaust their supply of stones.’ And then, having carefully examined the place, he added, ‘The dangerous piece of road is about a hundred and fifty feet in length, of which two-thirds is covered with great pine trees, not very far apart. One, or at the most two leaps, will take us from the shelter of one group of pine trees to the next, and then, when the stones begin to fail, we must run as fast as possible over the last fifty feet of open ground.’ About seventy men were entrusted with the task of freeing the approach to the fortress, and one of them hit upon a clever device for bringing down the stones as fast as possible. From beneath the shelter of a pine tree, he ran a step or two forward to attract the attention of the enemy, who at once hurled all their biggest stones at the place, but before they could touch him, he was back under the shelter of his tree. He did this so often that at last there was quite a heap of stones lying in front of him, but he himself was untouched.