ity. When the intelligence arrived in Antwerp that the prince
intended to throw a bridge over the Scheldt the idea was universally
ridiculed as chimerical. An arrogant comparison was drawn between the
republic and the stream, and it was said that the one would bear the
Spanish yoke as little as the other. "A river which is twenty-four
hundred feet broad, and, with its own waters alone, above sixty feet
deep, but which with the tide rose twelve feet more--would such a
stream," it was asked, "submit to be spanned by a miserable piece of
paling? Where were beams to be found high enough to reach to the bottom
and project above the surface? and how was a work of this kind to stand
in winter, when whole islands and mountains of ice, which stone walls
could hardly resist, would be driven by the flood against its weak
timbers, and splinter them to pieces like glass? Or, perhaps, the
prince purposed to construct a bridge of boats; if so, where would he
procure the latter, and how bring them into his intrenchments? They
must necessarily be brought past Antwerp, where a fleet was ready to
capture or sink them."

But while they were trying to prove the absurdity of the Prince of
Parma's undertaking he had already completed it. As soon as the forts
St. Maria and St. Philip were erected, and protected the workmen and the
work by their fire, a pier was built out into the stream from both
banks, for which purpose the masts of the largest vessels were employed;
by a skilful arrangement of the timbers they contrived to give the whole
such solidity that, as the result proved, it was able to resist the
violent pressure of the ice. These timbers, which rested firmly and
securely on the bottom of the river, and projected a considerable height
above it, being covered with planks, afforded a commodious roadway. It
was wide enough to allow eight men to cross abreast, and a balustrade
that ran along it on both sides, protected them from the fire of
small-arms from the enemy's vessels. This "stacade," as it was called,
ran from the two opposite shores as far as the increasing depth and force
of the stream allowed. It reduced the breadth of the river to about
eleven hundred feet; as, however, the middle and proper current would not
admit of such a barrier, there remained, therefore, between the two
stacades a space of more than six hundred paces through which a whole
fleet of transports could sail with ease. This intervening space the
prince desig