The Verne is a height which, like La Roche at Cherbourg, dominates over all around it for miles, especially on the side which overlooks the breakwater and the sea. On the north side it is protected by nearly perpendicular cliffs; elsewhere it is fully protected by art. One of its greatest defences is the dry ditch which completely encircles the whole work, except on the north side just mentioned, where it is both unnecessary and impossible. This ditch is one of the greatest ever undertaken in ancient or modern days. Its depth is 80 feet, and its width 100, and in some places 200 feet; its length is nearly a mile, and its floor is 368 feet up the hill-side. Nearly two million tons of stone had to be blasted to form it; and it would never have been excavated on the colossal scale indicated, but that all the said stone was utilised in building the breakwater. With this tremendous artificial ravine to cross, with fortifications and bastions fully prepared with heavy Armstrong ordnance towering above, what enemy is ever likely to attack the citadel of the Verne? Our leading journal spoke of it as more compact than Cherbourg, Cronstadt, or Sebastopol, while it is more than three times their elevation above the sea. Jutting out from the main fortress are two bastionettes, one of which has eight faces, mounting guns on each so as to sweep with a murderous fire two-thirds of the whole length of the fosse or ditch. The other is nearly as formidable, and both are pierced with loop-holes in all directions for the fire of riflemen. The great barracks in the enclosure of the Verne can, at a pinch, accommodate 10,000 men, the peace garrison being about a third of that number. The arrangements for water supply are perfect, great reserve tanks having been cut from the solid rock, and covered with shot-proof roofs. These are kept full, and, protected from air and light; the water is always sweet. Portland bristles with batteries; but the Verne commands everything in range of cannon, inside or outside the breakwater, including all parts of the island, and can cross fire with other important forts. It is probably the strongest fortified harbour in the world. [Illustration: HOLYHEAD BREAKWATER.] Other and important breakwaters, like that of Holyhead, which cost a couple of million sterling, and which is generally cited as an example of much money thrown into the sea; Alderney, which has swallowed up close on three-fourths of the above sum; and Dover, which has a fine _vertical_ sea-wall, might be mentioned. Enough has been said to show the general importance of the subject to a maritime people, and that, on the whole, England has been fully alive to the fact. Indeed, counting large and small breakwaters and sea-walls, more has been expended in this country for these works than in any two or three foreign countries possessing sea-boards. CHAPTER XIV.